In college Craig followed a track to expand his literary and writing smarts. He got his first publication free lancing for a gaming company called Palladium Books Inc., where he published two indices for source material for their RPG, Rifts. More interested in fiction, Craig turned his attention to novels. In 2008-2009, he earned a chance to workshop one of his fantasy novels with the Wolf Pirate Project. After the editor helped him flesh out another angle on the book, he earned a second spot with them the following year for another shorter fiction work.
Craig currently splits his time between writing short stories and novels. Mostly he writes fantasy, sci-fi, YA and of course, horror. You can check out his website to see what he’s been up to.Author website: craiglcrawfordbooks.com
Automatic Contamination
M.A. Smith
There was something wrong with that place, and we knew it from the very beginning.
The ‘beginning’ was a dust-fuzzed, summer’s day when the last of the flocks of earth-movers and high viz clipboard carriers were wrapping up their work and wheeling away from the estate’s perimeter. Everything within the boundaries of our test-tube town still smelled of new carpet and paint and fresh tarmac. The books in the brand-new library stood straight on unbent spines, and the graffiti that would one day cover the bricks of the village hall was no more than hissing dreams deep within the rowed cans of spray paint in the just-built hardware store.
I was old enough, then, to be pretty cynical about all of that. I was thirteen that summer, and the amputated woods and fields beyond the dual carriageway had begun to occupy my mind nearly constantly. The road itself cupped the estate’s fringe like a defensive moat, and the low-level hum of the cars blurring along its length crept into my ears in my night-darkened room. I found myself falling into fitful dreams that I could not remember come morning, but that I knew had to do with that strange, half-land outside the town.
I still dream about those places. But now, God help me, I actually remember them.
Back then I knew that my parents wouldn’t be happy with my ‘running feral’, as they referred to my participation in any activity that was not strategically planned and assessed for health and safety. Yet there was a point in the day where I could run free, right between the two hours or so between my shambling in from school and my mum and dad getting back from work. Later this would become the time for illicit alcohol and stunted, bumpy kisses, but at thirteen I still had one foot in childhood. All I wanted was to get out from under the shadow of all those crowded up houses and pelt through a forbidden wilderness.
We’d been in our new house on the estate for maybe three or four months when I befriended Clem, who lived on my street, and Lucas, who lived a few streets down. We all went to the local school – as shiny, new and soulless as everything else – and were often together in those couple of parentless hours. Clem, and Lucas too, were left to their own devices after school. I don’t even know where their folks were; I presumed they worked, but I never asked. The adult world was still a distant planet then, and one that we weren’t concerned with. Or even interested in, to be honest.
On the dry and faded afternoon that I’m telling you about I’d just had time, crashing in from school, to change into jeans and a tee before the doorbell rang. I knew it was Lucas; Clem wasn’t one for doorbells.
Sure enough, as Lucas and I stood in my parents’ spotless kitchen, discussing which route we were going to take, an almighty thudding reverberated around the house. Before I’d even taken two steps to the front door I heard the snap of the letterbox being pushed up.
“Open the door, dickhead!”
I could see Clem’s mouth smooshed up against the slot from the other side.
“Come on, Jamie!” More hammering.
“What the Hell is wrong with you?” I said, pulling open the door so fast that Clem, on the other side, lost her balance and began to topple backwards off the step. I caught her by the forearm, pulling her upright.
Clem grinned at me. “Fuck you, very much,” She pushed past me into the hall, “dickhead.”
I nudged the door closed with my elbow and followed Clem back into the kitchen.
“Ready, Clem?” Lucas said.
Clem merely patted the side of her backpack in reply.
“Which way are we going?” she asked.
“Jamie reckons we should cross the carriageway by the flats, next to the pub…”
“No way,” Clem interrupted. “My mum’s best mate lives in one of those flats; she’ll get straight on the phone if she sees us.”
“Where do you suggest, then, Clem?” I butt in.
She looked me, then Lucas, dead in the eye. “Underpass.”
For the briefest of moments no one spoke.
“I don’t know, Clem…” Lucas began.
Clem’s lips began to curve upwards at the corners. “Scared?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Lucas answered sharply. “What do you think, Jamie?”
I thought about it, but I really didn’t want to go near that underpass. It was an aborted part of the estate; a botched start from back when the whole place was not much more than a raw scar in the earth, and I was still happy in my old, shabby little life. The underpass was a short, concrete tunnel that ran below the dual carriageway on the western edge of the town, and led…nowhere. When you came out the other end you were met with maybe a few metres of patchy tarmac and gravel, which then suppurated into rough grass and scrubby woodland.
It was creepy even before the stories had started circulating at school about the child-eating tramp that lived there, tucked tight against the dark walls of the pass. They said he was ready to reach out a clawed hand to grab any young flesh that happened, against its
