The card showed a church on a snowy hill. The hill was bare except for a smudge of ink. Though the card was unsigned, there was writing within. A Very Happy Christmas and A Prosperous New Year, the message should have said – but now it said A Very Harried Christmas and No New Year. She turned back to the picture, her hands shaking. It wasn’t just a smudge of ink; someone had drawn a smeary cross on the hill: a grave.
–from “Calling Card”
Dark Companions was Ramsey Campbell’s fourth collection of short stories. By the time it was published he had distanced himself from the influence of H. P. Lovecraft, arguably leaning more into the influence of M. R. James, and developed his own voice while establishing his milieu, the England beneath what tourists, and even townspeople, might see daily.
A blurb on the back from Peter Straub for Campbell’s novel, The Parasite, states, “Menace has always been [Campbell’s] keynote: his stories take place in a world of threat and insinuation, where even the most commonplace objects shine with a sinister light”: a pram holding a mysterious object; the remains of a wall unearthed in your garden; an old man staring out his window; a puppet show. Most of these stories begin with a Campbell protagonist going about their lives, sometimes viewed through first person perspective, sometimes in close third person. In either case, the main character’s actions are ordinary, as are that character’s thoughts even when cranky or petty – Campbell doesn’t seem to care whether you like his protagonist or not – and within a few sentences or paragraphs an ominous note sounds, a detail not in keeping with the surroundings, a skittering, a whirring, a thud, and Campbell’s character is suddenly immersed in dread, knowing something is wrong, but not necessarily what until directly confronted with it.
Containing twenty-one stories, all prime Campbell, from the opening story, you know you’re in the hands of an assured and thoughtful writer. None of them are weak or bad, but as with any collection, some affect the reviewer more strongly than others. My favorites here are:
“Macintosh Willie”: A pile of garments or shopping bags viewed from a distance that, on closer inspection, displays an arm, an eye.
“Down There”: An administrator and a secretary alone in the office building at end of workday, finishing up, each growing more nervous as night comes on and the noises from the lower floors grow louder.
“The Show Goes On”: A shop owner, certain thieves are about, stays in his shop overnight, worried about the hole in the wall in the back room. The hole that looks on the deserted cinema.
“Calling Card”: A woman receives a Christmas card without the usual cheery message, coloring her anticipation of the approaching holiday.
“The Pattern”: What do you do when you hear a scream behind your house but can’t find the source? And then you find you’re not the first resident of the house to hear that scream?
I read this collection off and on over the last year and would recommend not trying to read it cover to cover. But then, I’d recommend that for almost any collection of short stories, since most short stories are not written with the intention of the reader reading one after another.
DARK COMPANIONS by Ramsey Campbell
(MacMillan Publishing Co., 1982)
ISBN: 978 002 521 0905
271 pages
Review by Randy Money
