PRAISE FOR
THE VISIBLE FILTH
“This is one of those stories you read so you can get to the end so it’ll stop scaring you. The problem with The Visible Filth is that it doesn’t go away so easy. In your weaker moments some of this imagery will rise, then stick around even when you close your eyes. So go on, open this book up. You won’t be forgetting it any time soon.”
STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES, AUTHOR OF THE ELVIS ROOM
“Ballingrud is a powerful, mesmerizing writer, and The Visible Filth proves he can frighten with the best of them. If I weren’t already jealous of what he can do, I would be now.”
SIMON STRANTZAS, AUTHOR OF BURNT BLACK SUNS
“Ballingrud is a master at writing about the darkness inside us. And as terrifying as it might be to see, you can’t look away or close your eyes against it thanks to his beautifully precise and evocative prose. There’s a dark heart to The Visible Filth and Ballingrud uses its blood for ink to tell a story that really gets under your skin, or rather calls to something that might already be there. Fantastic work, highly recommended.”
RAY CLULEY, AUTHOR OF WATER FOR DROWNING
“Thoroughly unsettling. Ballingrud knows exactly how to crawl his way under your skin.”
DREAD CENTRAL
“By witnessing, we become complicit. In Nathan Ballingrud’s unsettling and captivating novella, The Visible Filth, a simple act, a bit of curiosity, turns into something much darker—a poison that seeps into our flesh, unable to look away, a plague brought forth, the page becoming our undoing.”
RICHARD THOMAS, AUTHOR OF DISINTEGRATION
“If you didn’t gag while reading The Visible Filth, you’re a tougher man than I. Ballingrud’s cautionary tale of what happens when you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong will stick with you for a long, long time.”
ROBB OLSON, BOOKED. PODCAST
“Deeply sinister, potent and grotesque.”
RJ BAYLEY, POPCORN HORROR
“This isn’t the type of horror you can easily categorize, put inside a box and say, ‘THIS. This is what makes this story scary.’ The Visible Filth is deeply unnerving and you’re not sure why. It has all the requisite thrills and chills, but it’s what’s under the surface that will be your undoing.”
JOSHUA CHAPLINSKY, LITREACTOR.COM
A This Is Horror Publication
www.ThisIsHorror.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-9575481-9-0
Copyright © Nathan Ballingrud 2015
All rights reserved
The right of Nathan Ballingrud to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by This Is Horror
Editor-in-Chief: Michael Wilson
Deputy Editor: Dan Howarth
Cover & Design: Pye Parr
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
T HE ROACHES WERE in high spirits. There were half a dozen of them, caught in the teeth of love. They capered across the liquor bottles, perched atop pour spouts like wooden ladies on the prows of sailing ships. They lifted their wings and delicately fluttered. They swung their antennae with a ripe sexual urgency, tracing love sonnets in the air.
Will, the bartender on duty, stood watching them, with his back to the rest of the bar. He couldn’t move. He was bound by a sense of obligation to remain where he was, but the roaches stirred a primordial revulsion in him, and the urge to flee was palpable. His flesh shivered in one convulsive movement.
He worked the six PM to two AM shift at Rosie’s Bar, a little hole-in-the-wall tucked back in the
Similar Books
