The Richard Laymon Collection, Volume 7

DARKNESS, TELL US It starts at an end-of-term party. Six college kids and a Ouija board. The board that Professor Coreen Dalton had hidden at the back of a cupboard and sworn never to touch again - not after Jake's death. And now here are these kids falling for the revelations of a spirit called Butler, swallowing it's promise of a fortune hidden in the mountains. Not that Corie believes they would be stupid enough to head off in to the wilderness on the say-so of a child's plaything. To embark on a two-day hike into the unknown where any foul danger may lie in wait to cut and slice and tear them limb from limb. But then, professor or not, Corie could be wrong... ONE RAINY NIGHT The water drops like a shroud on the town of Bixby. Warm, viscous and unnatural, it coats the inhabitants in an unending torrent - and turns them into crazy, hate-filled maniacs. A helpful stranger at a gas station shoves a petrol pump down a customer's throat and squeezes the trigger. A soaking-wet queue of cinema-goers smashes its way inside the movie house to slice up the dry people within. A loving wife attacks her husband, bouncing the back of his head on the marble floor until it sounds like sloppy wet meat...