Quiet Houses

Book excerpt: Nakata's ghosts won't stay dead... A chambermaid's seemingly innocent request is granted, an act of kindness that has dire consequences for a guest... An unearthly light in an abandoned bungalow resolves the mystery of a missing child... An invitation to a clifftop graveyard leads to a harrowing chase by things that remain unseen... In an abandoned hotel, work is underway to upgrade the building but something is stalking the residents... There is a hidden agenda to paranormal researcher Richard Nakata's investigations into these houses. A commission that witnesses cattle lowing in the cow-sheds of Stack's Farm long after they've been slaughtered, and a reckoning in the showhouse of 24 Glasshouse as he and his colleagues pay the price for creating their own ghost... Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream... quietly. The houses are quiet, it's the residents who are screaming.