Richard Davis – Years Best Horror Stories 2

Richard Davis  (ed.) – The Years Best Horror Stories No. 2 (Sphere, 1972)

Preface – Richard Davis
Foreword – Christopher Lee

Gerald W. Page – Thirst
Brian Lumley – David’s Worm
Garry Brander – The Price Of A Demon
Basil Copper – The Knocker At The Portico
Steve Chapman – The Throwaway Man
Rosemary Timperley – The Woman With The Mauve Face
Ronald Blythe – Shadows Of The Living
Robert Bloch – The Animal Fair
J. Ramsey Campbell – Napier Court
T. K. Brown III – Haunts Of The Very Rich

I knew recent TV smash Lost seemed familiar!

Haunts Of The Very Rich:  Carry On Abroad as re-imagined by E.C. comics.

Six fabulously wealthy passengers fly to a mystery destination for the ‘ultimate exclusive holiday’ – or so they think. After the first day, the power fails, the air conditioning breaks down, the staff mutiny, the manager goes crazy and dies and natives storm the hotel, making off with the food and alcohol. Rock star Johnny Delmonico flies in to tell the party that help is on the way, but Desiree is sure she read something about him being … well, dead.

Basil Copper’s gothic tale of insanity is similar in plot to the same author’s vampire tale Dr. Porthos (of the laughable ending). A life-long scholar begins to hear dreadful hammerings in his head and is convinced that these are in some way connected to Dr. Spiros, with whom he suspects his young wife, Jane, is having an affair. Napier Court sees R. C. coming over very gloomy: Alma, recently seperated and suffering from flu, begins to experience all manner of ghostly manifestations in her reputedly haunted house where a previous occupier gassed himself. I’d rate it among his finest stories. Thirst is an excellent vampire pulp which references Ed Gein, and Robert Bloch is on top form with a hippie-era setting and a nasty surprise at a Carney …