Dead Water

July sees the release of Dead Water, the latest in the 'PentAnth' series from Peter Mark May's Hersham Horror: mini-anthologies containing stories from five different authors. This will be the fifth, the other four being Fogbound from 5, Siblings, Anatomy Of Death and Demons And Devilry.

The series has showcased some brilliant talent: Alison Littlewood, John Llewellyn Probert, Stuart Young, Thana Niveau and Stephen Volk to name but (appropriately) five.

The fifth anthology in our PentAnth range brings you five more stories chilled tales of watery terror. We all need water to live, but what if that life-giving body was not so friendly after all..?

Dead Water is guest-edited by the formidable writing duo Maynard and Sims, who also contribute one of the tales. Also present and correct are Daniel Boucher, Alan Spencer, and apocalyptic horror king David Moody.

My own contribution is a Welsh terror tale, 'The Lowland Hundred,' and here's a free sample:

'It was naked but sexless, without genitals or breasts. Fins ran up the sides of its arms and legs; its long, taloned fingers and long splayed toes were webbed. The face was minimal, almost featureless. Glistening black eyes, like a shark’s, that flickered white as nicitating membranes darted across them. Two small bloodlness slits, like tiny parallel stab-wounds, where the nose should have been. A row of gill-slits each side of the neck, and a mouth curved in a wide, ear-to-ear – except that it had no ears – grin, lipless and filled with thin, sharp, needle teeth...'

You can buy the paperback here, or download the ebook if you're in the UK, or here and here if you're in the US.