Graham Masterton – Scare Care

Graham Masterton (ed.) – Scare Care  (Tor, 1989)

Foreword – Graham Masterton

Kit Reed – Mommy
James Robert Smith – Things Not Seen
Ramsey Campbell – The Ferries
D. W. Taylor – Good Night, Sweet Prince
Celeste Paul Sefranek – Printer’s Devil
Bruce Boston – Mammy and the Flies
John Burke – The Tourists
Roald Dahl – The Wish –
J. N. Williamson – Monstrum
James Herbert – Breakfast
Darrell Schweitzer – Clocks
Steve Rasnic Tem – The Strangers
William Relling, Jr. – Table for None
Peter Valentine Timlett – Little Miss Muffet
C. Dean Andersson – Night Watch
Peter Tremayne – The Last Gift
James Kisner – Manny Agonistes
Jeff Gelb – Family Man
Giles Gordon – A Towpath Tale
Marc Laidlaw – Mars Will Have Blood
William F. Nolan – My Name Is Dolly
Alan Rodgers – The Night Gil Rhys First Met His Love
John Maclay – Models
Guy N. Smith – Crustacean Revenge
Roderick Hudgins – Sarah’s Song
Harlan Ellison – The Avenger of Death
Frank Coffey – Cable
Felice Picano – Spices of the World
David B. Silva – Down to the Core
Stephen Laws – Junk
John Daniel – The Woman in the Wall
Ruth Rendell – Loopy
Gary A. Braunbeck – Time Heals
Brian Lumley – David’s Worm
Chris B. Lacher – The Pet Door
Charles L. Grant – By the Sea
Graham Masterton – Changeling
Roland Masterton – In the West Wing

An American publisher but what the Hell. Masterton compiled this massive anthology as a means of funding his commendable Scare Care Trust project, with the profits being donated to neglected and abused children. It’s been a while since I read it, but one story that leapt out at me immediatly was Stephen Law’s Junk, which features murder and mayhem in the ominous setting of a car-crushing plant. John Burke’s The Tourists sees a vivisectionist couple become the failed experiment of alien invaders. Herbert’s story is a chapter written for, but then deleted from Domain. Masterton’s Changeling originates from the spicy Hot Blood series, and has a Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde theme to it, while his son weighs in with his first ever story. Mars Will Have Blood revolves around a squirm-inducing production of “The Scottish Play” and a prank that goes horribly wrong. You don’t need me to tell you what Crustacean Revenge is all about.