“He imagined for a moment, what it would be like to be a Skinship, to have spent so long in space, only to return. Space giving way to atmosphere and cloud and then the lights of cities and the cold night black of towns and villages and there, somewhere far below, hundreds of little yellow fires, guiding the way like landing beacons. Would someone be waiting for him?”
Dan is another member of our Gaslamp writers group, and his new collection of horror stories, Hunting by the River, is not to be missed. I love this story because it really showcases what his writing does best: dark, dystopian stories that never fail to twist the knife, paired with an incredibly detailed and immersive sense of place – in this case, a frightening and futuristic Manchester.
‘Skin’ by Daniel Carpenter (First published in Manchester Climate Monthly, 2013, and available to read online here)
A Personal Anthology 