These are the ones that have stuck with me over the years, burrowed into my brain. It may be that that's a function of the age I was when I first read them and the effect they had on the twelve or fifteen year-old me, but in a way that's the joy of these things - the appreciation of the stories being coloured by who you were when you first encountered them!

 So, in no particular order...

 
The Clinic - Alex White
Slime - Joseph Payne Brennan
Unburied Bane - N. Dennett
Spinalonga - John Ware
The Little Girl Eater - Septimus Dale
The Streets Of Ashkelon - Harry Harrison
The Heaven Maker - Craig Herbertson
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me - M. S. Waddell
The Quiet Girl - Robert Holdstock
The Inn - Guy Preston

Of all the stories I can remember (and these must have been the best or I’d have forgotten them by now..) there are a number that still stick out in my mind even from all those years ago. I’ll try and do this…(God help me..)

FLIES by Anthony Vercoe, THE BLACK CAT by Edgar Allan Poe. UNBURIED BANE by N. Dennett, and I still remember with affection THE PALE BOY by M.S. Waddell, THE LITTLE GIRL EATER by Septimus Dale and, another of my all time favourite short stories, the magnificent THE ATTIC EXPRESS by Alex Hamilton.
THE REVENGE by Adobe Jame, PARTY GAMES by John Burke. NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS by Alex White, THE FUR BROOCH by Dulcie Gray, THE SNAIL WATCHER by Patricia Highsmith (maybe an unconscious influence for SLUGS many years later…) THE BATS by David Grant and one of my own favourite short stories of all time, THE MONKEY’S PAW by W.W. Jacobs (before anyone had even heard of Stephen King and Pet Sematary…doubtless where he got the idea from).
PLAYTIME and SUGAR AND SPICE both by A.G.J. Rough and THE CHILDREN by W. Baker Evans. JOLLY UNCLE by Lindsay Stewart, THE HAPPY RETURN by Dulcie Gray, BLOODTHIRSTY by Martin Waddell and EUSTACE by Tanith Lee. THE NECKLACE by Dulcie Gray.

It was bleedin’ hard narrowing this down to 10. I’ve avoided the more well-known more widely anthologised stories, and chosen these favourites. On another day Mrs Anstey’s Scarecrow, The Claygo Worm, Thy Intention Turn … and any number of others could well be in there.

Little Girl Eater - Septimus Dale
Strictly for the Birds - Lindsay Stewart
A Question of Fear - Bryan Lewis
The Lurkers in the Abyss - David A. Riley
Spinalonga - John Ware
The Clinic - Alex White
The Abscess - Myc Harrison
Kowlongo Plaything - Alan Temperley
The Architect’s Tale - Ian C Strachan
The Surgeon’s Tale - J. P. Dixon