HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY THE work of H. P. Lovecraft, John Ramsey Campbell (1946–) published three short story collections in a similar style before producing his first novel, The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976; revised edition 1985). The following year, 1977, he wrote the novelizations of three films (The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s Daughter, and The Wolfman) as Carl Dreadstone, a house name under which three additional novels were written by others. He was successful in bringing a pulpy style that evoked those classic films. Among the best of his later novels are The Face That Must Die (1979), Incarnate (1983), Ancient Images (1989), Midnight Sun (1991), and Grin of the Dark (2008). Among the many accolades Campbell has received are six World Fantasy nominations (four winners), sixteen British Fantasy Society nominations (ten winners), and two Bram Stoker Award nominations (both winners). He has been named the Lifetime President of the British Fantasy Society. Often described by critics and fellow writers as the greatest stylist of the contemporary horror genre, Campbell was born in Liverpool. He set many of his novels and stories there and in the fictional city of Brichester in the same region. While much of his work is explicitly violent, Campbell’s use of metaphor, symbolism, and imagery allows a poetic tone to suffuse his prose, suggesting horrors that remain in the memory long after the initial shock of a starkly brutal occurrence has passed.
“Just Behind You” was first published in Poe’s Progeny, edited by Gary Fry (Bradford, U.K., Gray Friar Press, 2005).