Praise for Paul Kane

‘Paul Kane is a first-rate storyteller, never failing to marry his insights into the world and its anguish with the pleasures of phrases eloquently turned.’

(Clive Barker — Bestselling author of The Hellbound Heart, Abarat, Mr B. Gone & The Scarlet Gospels)

‘Paul Kane’s lean, stripped-back prose is a tool that’s very much fit for purpose. He knows how to make you want to avoid the shadows and the cracks in the pavement.’

(Mike Carey — Bestselling author of the Felix Castor series of novels and The Girl With All the Gifts, Fellside

and The Boy on the Bridge as M.R. Carey)

‘Kane finds the everyday horrors buried within us, rips them out and serves them up in these deliciously dark tales.’

(Kelley Armstrong — Bestselling author of Bitten, Haunted, Broken, Waking the Witch, Spell Bound and Thirteen)

‘I’m impressed by the range of Paul Kane’s imagination. It seems there is no risk, no high-stakes gamble, he fears to take…Kane’s foot never gets even close to the brake pedal.’

(Peter Straub — Bestselling author of Ghost Story, Mr X, Lost Boy Lost Girl, and In the Night Room)

‘Paul Kane is a name to watch. His work is disturbing and very creepy.’

(Tim Lebbon — New York Times bestselling author of The Cabin in the Woods, The Silence and Relics)

‘His stories not only, at his best, put him neck and neck with Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker, but also in the company of greats like Machen and MR James. You don’t rest easily after reading a Paul Kane story, but strangely your eyes have been somewhat opened.’

(Stephen Volk — BAFTA winning screenwriter of Gothic, Ghostwatch, Afterlife, The Awakening

and Midwinter of the Spirit; author of Whitstable,

Leytonstone and The Parts We Play)

‘He stands out as one of the better writers I’ve read.’

(Eternal Night)

‘Wonderfully dark and satisfying.’

(Dark Side Magazine)

‘Kane is best when taking risks with his bizarre flights of imagination.’

(SFX Magazine)

‘Kane is a highly regarded author whose influence can be felt across the genre, with a large and notable body of work behind him.’

(Starburst Magazine)

Paul Kane

The Controllers

Text Copyright © 2019 Paul kane

Cover Image The Controllers © 2019 Ben Baldwin

Harvester Logo © 2019 Francesca T Barbini

First published by Luna Press Publishing, Edinburgh, 2019

The Controllers © 2019. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owners. Nor can it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

Astral. First Published in The Dream Zone, Issue 2 April 1999.

Eye of the Beholder. First Published in Alone (In the Dark), BJM 2001.

Pain Cages. First Published in Pain Cages, Books of the Dead 2011.

Secrets. First Published as ‘The Controllers’, in Disexistence, Cycatrix Press 2017.

The Scoop (original to this collection)

Reflections (original to this collection)

They Watch. First Published in Cemetery Poets: Grave Offerings, Double Dragon Books, 2003.

www.lunapresspublishing.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-911143-70-3

For Pete Atkins, excellent mate and fellow traveller.

Other Books by Paul Kane:

Novels

Arrowhead

Broken Arrow

Arrowland

Hooded Man (Omnibus)

The Gemini Factor

Of Darkness and Light

Lunar

Sleeper(s)

The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane)

Blood RED

Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell

Before

Deep RED

Novellas & Novelettes

Signs of Life

The Lazarus Condition

Dalton Quayle Rides Out

RED

Pain Cages

Creakers (chapbook)

Flaming Arrow

The Bric-a-Brac Man

The P.I.’s Tale

Snow

The Rot

Beneath the Surface (with Simon Clark)

Collections

Alone (In the Dark)

Touching the Flame

FunnyBones

Peripheral Visions

The Adventures of Dalton Quayle

Shadow Writer

The Butterfly Man and Other Stories

The Spaces Between

Ghosts

Monsters

The Dead Trilogy

The Spirits of Christmas

Shadow Casting

Nailbiters

Death

The Life Cycle

Disexistence

Kane’s Scary Tales

More Monsters

Lost Souls

Forthcoming: Traumas

Editor & Co-Editor

Shadow Writers Vol. 1 & 2

Terror Tales #1-4

Top International Horror

Albions Alptraume: Zombies

The British Fantasy Society: A Celebration

Hellbound Hearts

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

A Carnivàle of Horror: Dark Tales from the Fairground

Beyond Rue Morgue

Dark Mirages

Non-Fiction

Contemporary North American Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide (Major Contributor)

Cinema Macabre (Contributor)

The Hellraiser Films And Their Legacy

Voices in the Dark

Shadow Writer—The Non-Fiction. Vol. 1: Reviews

Shadow Writer—The Non-Fiction. Vol. 2: Articles & Essays

Leviathan—The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (contributor)

Hellraisers

Acknowledgments:

My thanks to Francesca and Rob at Luna for being willing to go on this wild ride with me. A huge thank you to Richard Christian Matheson for the amazing introduction and to Ben Baldwin who, once again, has delivered the goods for the cover art. Similarly, thank you to those talented artists who contributed to the gallery you’ll find in the extras section of this book, namely: Steve Lines; Daniele Serra; Zach McCain; Paul Bonner Jnr; Anthony Galatis; and Greg Chapman. Delighted the writing inspired such wonderful imagery! As usual, big bear-hugs and massive ‘can’t thank you enoughs’ to all my friends in the writing and film/TV world, for their continual help and support. A very special thank you, though, to people like Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Volk, Mandy Slater, Stephen Jones, Amanda Foubister, Tim Lebbon, Alex Davis, Jason Arnopp, Kelley Armstrong, Catriona Ward, Mike Carey, John Connolly, Barbie Wilde, Pete & Nicky Crowther, Simon Clark and many, many more. Lastly, a big heartfelt thank you to my terrific family and especially my perfect wife Marie, who keeps me sane whenever all around me seems crazy. Love you more than anything.

Introduction

Dire implication in the title.

Whether anarchies entrapped…or desires suppressed. Enter or exit anywhere in this superb, conspiring collection; all armed or washed-out roads lead to Paul Kane’s eloquent warnings. Fate, as usual, has big plans.

Kane’s tales, in The Controllers, are ominous venoms; each a part of the book’s larger mosaic of havoc and sabotage. As these tributaries merge, they suggest that, despite all karmas and loss, despite every sin and charity, every bleak cruelty or radiant triumph, we are nothing more, nor less, than casualties and Generals in wars of the heart. Resurrected, not by mystic odds, but by payment of our truest debts.

The stories unnerve and Kane’s stellar writing is rich with high-tides of insight. Amid injustices and glory are no gravities that fail, no exits promised. To enter the book, is to be exquisitely trapped; it is a finely-tuned text of dread.

The Controllers.

Whether surveillances, or supervisions, Kane’s stories are tours of damned prayers, found kingdoms. His imprisoned characters struggle to understand the forces at work, which torment and manipulate them and, for all those trapped in gulags of unknown circumstance, perhaps slipped between fractals, Kane neither supplies nor refuses redemption. In these fearing tales of captivity, are excruciating maps of each life; culpable or otherwise. In glorious passage-after-passage, annealed by regret or hope, Paul Kane suggests there is no prison, even ourselves, that is inescapable. That truth is belief and that destiny, however much we are prey to its seizure, must be reclaimed.

Richard Christian Matheson

Astral

I first discovered I had the astral talent at an early age, purely by accident. Initially I thought it to be a blessing, but I now know it is my curse. For I have seen things no human being should ever see. I have discovered our true place in the great scheme of things—our ‘purpose’?—and this knowledge has plagued my waking existence ever since...

It started as I was approaching my fifteenth birthday, two years after my beloved twin sister Abigail departed from this world, the subject of a tragic riding accident. It was my misfortune to be struck down with a fever and I spent a week in bed, the sweat pouring out of my flesh so that the sheets around me remained perpetually soaked.

During this time I dreamt I was pulled up and out of my body. I spent many an hour simply watching myself restlessly thrashing around on the bed below. I know I probably should have been frightened by the experience, but I wasn’t in the slightest bit alarmed. In fact I began to enjoy it—welcoming the opportunity to view myself as others saw me; as my mother looked upon me, sat by my bedside, a cloth in her hand to wipe my brow. She was especially worried now that I was her only remaining child.

When the fever lifted, I assumed the dreams had been caused by my illness and said nothing to my family. After all, many bizarre and wild visions had passed before my eyes during those seven days: things that couldn’t possibly be real. Or so I judged to be accurate at that naive age.

It wasn’t until later that I learned it hadn’t been a dream at all. Not in the same way most people perceive the notion, at any rate.

Bored one night when sleep refused to visit me, I thought how wonderful it would be to float outside of myself as I had done when the fever gripped me. I missed the feeling of freedom it brought; the reassurance that I was no longer held back by the matter which encased me. Fuelled by an insatiable curiosity, I closed my eyes and willed myself upwards. To my astonishment it started to happen again. I felt the separation—it is not painful at all, but there is a mild sense of loss—as my ethereal form drifted towards the ceiling.

Though it was dark, I could see myself quite clearly in the bed. I looked asleep, peaceful and resting quietly. A thin length of light ran from my head to my floating self, rather like the safety rope a climber might wear. I was comforted by the fact that I would be able to find my way back at any time without worry. For a while I watched myself breathing in and out. I took in only minimal amounts of air, as if I were on the very brink of death itself. Yet somehow I felt no harm would come to me.

I began to wonder... could I move outside of the room? I had no cumbersome physical ties, so surely it was possible. All I had to do was will myself on.

I tried to clutch at the door handle. Instead of grasping the metal, my hand went straight through the door itself. Cautiously, I followed suit, and soon I was moving through our house.

On the landing I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was a transparent shape tinged with delicate whiteness, wholly invisible to anyone outside of this plane.

I glided over my parents, asleep in the next room, then paid a visit to my grandfather who was staying with us for the holidays. But in addition to their bodies, I could also determine a glowing outline which surrounded them: their own auras, albeit steadfastly earthbound. Sadly, I could only travel for so long before the cord behind pulled me back into my own vessel.

As time went on and I became stronger, I began to experiment more and more with my power. No longer was I restricted to the house; I could roam around unhindered across countryside, past buildings, villages and towns. I saw as much of life as I dared, and never once did I have to leave my modest bedroom.

Anyone who noticed me lying on the bed or sitting in a chair would conclude that I was taking a nap, particularly if I decided to step out during the day, when in actual fact I was at the bottom of the ocean, or halfway up a mountainside. I examined every beautiful aspect of this world, but I would always be wrenched back when I’d strayed too far or been gone for too long.

It was my fantastic secret and I never revealed it to anyone. I feared not just the taunts of people who didn’t believe, but also the attentions of those who did—who might seek to use me for their own ends (I needn’t have worried). No, I travelled alone and kept the knowledge to myself. It was not in my nature to spy. In all the years I have been doing this, not once have I intruded upon another person’s privacy. Not on purpose, that is.

By my mid-thirties I had been around the world several times, as well as journeying to its very core. It was incredible to be able to pass through solid substances like cheese-wire through clay.

And I had moved out into space. It had been years since I mastered the act of flying,