Edited by Newton Webb
Greetings, my wicked darlings!
I’m Newton Webb, horror author, chairman and co-founder of the British Horror Authors Guild. Alongside fellow board members A E Deakin and S E Tykka, I support British horror and dark fiction writers.
I write Tales Of The Macabre and host HAG Chat interviews. A E Deakin supports communications and community work, while S E Tykka contributes craft guidance and writing activities.
Our Discord offers collaboration, mentoring, a writing group and sprints. Our Substack newsletter features author interviews, craft articles and business advice. Through these, we connect writers and help readers discover new voices.
Throughout November, we’re editing Write On!’s digital Showcase, exploring the theme of ‘Fractured’. Horror often begins when something familiar breaks: a relationship, a home, our understanding of reality or our confidence in ourselves. These pieces examine what happens when those cracks appear, how we respond and what we become as we try to navigate the damage. For me, the key messages centre on damaged confidence, a shattered sense of safety and the troubling ways we carry those fractures into our futures.
First up, Allan Lochhead’s Mood Swings. It resonated with me through its beauty and its painfully familiar portrayal of criticism fracturing confidence and disrupting the rhythm of writing.
Mood Swings
Free wheeling across the page unfettered, unhindered, uncriticised, the words dive and twist and turn, free.
Like
Swallows on a summer’s day, hanging on a breath, in the thick yellow heat.
Freedom, like breath in cold crisp mountain air, first breath, first life.
Criticism
Falling to earth, dragged down, heavy, energy sapping, weakening, criticism weakening, criticism sapping.
Into the black bottomless abyss.
Ride the wave.
And rise.
Wheeling, soaring, singing, writing. Free again.
© Allan Lochhead, 2026
Connect with Allan on Instagram: @allan_lochhead
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Next, we have my own story. In The Grimsdyke Ghouls, failure and exile fracture a family’s life. Their desperate adaptation brings the parents closer together while tearing apart their relationship with their child.
The Grimsdyke Ghouls
Note: The following extract is from an 18th-century diary purchased from an antique shop in Grimsdyke.
3rd October, 1747
Father lost his job today. We had to flee Grimsdyke. I don’t know what happened. Nobody would tell me. Now they want to arrest him. Mother is furious. We have no coin and precious little food. Mother filled a cooking pot with utensils and I took my journal, writing roll and, of course, my Bible.
4th October, 1747
We live in the caves now. Mother is dreadfully cross with Father. It’s cold and wet by the sea. We can’t have the fire outside in case it is seen, and the caves get too smoky if the fire is lit for long. I am so hungry. We have boiled some seaweed and some crabs, but Father can only forage after dark. I help him when I can as he doesn’t see as well as I do at night.
11th October, 1747
I was out last night, foraging as usual, when a fisherman found me as he walked home across the beach. He was awfully kind, but Father was scared he might have told others where we were, so he hit him with a rock. When I started to cry, I was slapped. We have to be quiet. I helped Father carry the body back to the cave. Mother and Father are arguing now about what to do with him. They don’t have the tools to bury him. I am reading the Bible now by the light of the fire. It is my only solace. I am so hungry.
Mother has come to an agreement. She is… It is nauseating to even write it. She is butchering the corpse. Heaven help us. It smells so good on the fire. I hate myself for even feeling temptation. Satan stalks us, I am sure and is pleased as we tumble ever closer to his embrace. I will not join him.
12th October, 1747
Mother and Father have stopped arguing now and have become inseparable. They bonded over their ghoulish feast last night and have come to terms with their new life. The bones wouldn’t burn in the fire, so the blackened skull sits atop the pile and judges us. I judge us. The remaining flesh sits in the pools of seawater to pickle. The caves reek. I welcome the smoke now.
My parents are laughing now, more in love than ever. Father is talking about where he can find more flesh. What have we come to? I will not join them.
14th October, 1747
The hunger has left me weak in body and spirit. My teeth are loose, and my body is gaunt. Father had brought back the carcass of a smuggler, along with three barrels of rum. Finally, I could not hold back any more. God help me, I gnawed on a freshly roasted piece of flesh. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever tasted.
Then I remembered what it was and violently vomited it up. Mother and Father were filled with rage. They beat me for wasting food. They beat me for acting as though I was better than them. But I am better than them because I can still resist the Devil’s temptation.
I know now what I must do for the sake of our immortal souls.
They are asleep. I apologised profusely. God forgive my deceit. I congratulated them on their cleverness. They celebrated their good fortune with the rum and I refilled their cups again and again. They made me wait outside in the rain while they engaged in carnal congress.
I spent the time wisely, gathering all the driftwood I could find, both dry and wet. When I returned, my parents were sound asleep and snoring. Father still had his trousers down. I waited to be sure then bound their hands and feet. I banked up the fire with wet wood until the cave was thick with smoke. Taking a brand to the pile of dry timber I’d left by the entrance, I blocked the cave with another fire. It was hot and fiery, a precursor to our inevitable fate. I hope that I can explain my actions to them when I see them again in Hell.
They woke from the coughing, but their cries were already weak. I put the last of the wood on the fire and sat sobbing outside until they fell silent. Lord have mercy on our souls.
15th October, 1747
Jeremiah found me on the road, weak from hunger and exhaustion. He is a sweet-hearted man, a widowed carpenter. I praise the Lord for sending him to me. He confessed to me whilst he nursed me to health that he cannot read, write or do sums. I have promised to repay his kindness by minding his home for him and managing his books.
He may not be fair of face, but he is noble of spirit.
And he looks delicious.
© Newton Webb, 2026
Connect with Newton Webb on Instagram: @newtonwebb_author
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Finally, something deeply unsettling from Bani Lamba. In this intimate account of domestic fear, the writer explores how abuse can fracture our relationship with anger, leaving us vulnerable to further harm.
Hi Anger
Hi, Anger.
I don’t like to acknowledge you exist sometimes because you scare me. I’ve only ever seen people use you as a way to justify the horrible ways they treat other people.
He was angry so he threw a phone, but it missed and left a dent in the wall instead. He was angry so he slapped her for trying to sell shoes and make some extra money. He was angry that they bought a cat home, so he slapped her.
Even that night, when he slammed the door of the car so hard the glass of the window shattered while we were inside, then when he decided to drive us home recklessly while he was drunk, they all said it was justified in some twisted way because he was angry.
It was always because he was angry.
I’ve seen the way you transform people. I’ve seen him turn into a monster. I’ve seen how his eyes bulge out when he’s angry, how his voice grows louder and how his face turns a bright flame-red. Sometimes when I hear something like an odd laugh or someone shouting, my ears perk up and my heart starts to race because it reminds me of what the shouting, growling and loud voices meant when someone at home was angry.
I’ve seen the way homes transform when you arrive. How things are thrown around and broken, how people are pulled and pushed, how blunt insults and criticisms are shouted and screamed and how feelings and hearts are fractured.
If you were in my position, you would think you were evil too.
I used to think the universe sent you as a way to punish me. I don’t remember how old I was now, but I do remember waking up on a Saturday morning hearing shouting and angry voices downstairs. I thought about how this was my fault again and that maybe if I was a better person, if I didn’t have bad or mean thoughts about other people or if I wasn’t so preoccupied with stupid things like cats and boy bands, then maybe you would stop.
I’ve seen you knock on the door so many times that the only way I thought I could survive was to hide and retreat. When others would rally around and say, “We have to do something to help,” I told them that I wanted to go upstairs to my room away from all of this. I wanted to sit on my bed with my headphones on and then daydream about a world without you. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I used to daydream about living a completely different life in a world untouched by your hatred.
Maybe this is why it took me so long to realise that he wasn’t good to me, either. Your presence had always been justified in my life, so I thought he had a good reason to be angry at me too.
As I got older, I felt helpless around you, especially when you were bubbling in my chest. The only way to make you stop was to pretend that nothing had happened and you didn’t exist. So, on the days after a bad argument or fight, or when I’d feel upset, I’d pretend to go back to normal. After a while, I got really good at this.
I got so good at this, I convinced myself I could only ever be a good, loving and understanding person untouched by your evil and despair. So, after I met him, every time I felt your presence inside or around me, I laughed it off and pretended nothing was wrong. I didn’t want to give you space when you showed up. I wanted to deny feeling angry at all costs. I know this was probably the wrong way to handle you, but I didn’t know any other way to deal with you.
It’s no wonder then that the good, loving and understanding version of me was not made to last either. I let you build up inside me for so long, I couldn’t hide you inside me any more.
So, one day I got angry. But I was angry at such a small thing, the amount of hot, bright-red anger I felt to what had happened just didn’t make sense. He was stunned too. He couldn’t believe I’d give this all up for such a little thing, for such a small mistake. He never imagined I’d destroy everything, and would burn down the last few bridges between us.
© Bani Lamba, 2026
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Images from Canva
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