Use Once, Then Destroy

by Williams, Conrad

• ISBN13: 9781892389671
• ISBN10: 1892389673
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-01
• Publisher: Nightshade Book

Summary

A serial killer is removing victims' hands in a Venice shackled by winter. A woman at the end of her tether finds a terrible release on holiday in the fens of East Anglia. A man is haunted by graffiti, and finds that his road to discovering the perpetrator leads to death. and worse. A husband trying to comfort his terminally ill wife seeks help in a forbidden zone from his childhood, where blood is the price of perfection. In this spellbinding collection of his best stories from the last ten years, award-winning writer Conrad Williams offers the kind of horrors that move subtly into you, like pain, or love, or regret. They are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within these pages you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Includes three stories never before seen: Nest of Salt, The Night Before and The Owl. Contents The Machine Supple Bodies The Light that Passes Through You Nest of Salt City in Aspic Other Skins The Windmill Wire The Burn The Owl The Night Before Edge MacCreadle's Bike Known The Suicide Pit Excuse the Unusual Approach Nearly People

Table of Contents

The Machine	1	(10)
Supple Bodies	11	(12)
The Light that Passes Through You	23	(12)
Nest of Salt	35	(18)
City in Aspic	53	(18)
Other Skins	71	(6)
The Windmill	77	(12)
Wire	89	(14)
The Burn	103	(8)
The Owl	111	(14)
The Night Before	125	(6)
Edge	131	(10)
MacCreadle's Bike	141	(6)
Known	147	(12)
The Suicide Pit	159	(14)
Excuse the Unusual Approach	173	(16)
Nearly People	189