Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Overnight
    Unavailable
    The Overnight
    Unavailable
    The Overnight
    Ebook473 pages10 hours

    The Overnight

    By Ramsey Campbell

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A bookstore can be a wonderful, welcoming place of both commerce and curiosity. That's the goal for Woody, an American recently transferred to England to run a branch of Texts. He wants a clean, orderly store and lots of sales to show his bosses when they arrive from the States for a pre-Christmas inspection. Not easy given the shop's location in a foggy strip mall.

    And things keep going wrong. No matter how often the shelves are put in order before the doors are locked at night, when the staff returns in the morning, books are lying all over the floor, many damp and damaged beyond repair. The store's computers keep acting up-errors appear in brochures and ads and orders disappear completely. And even when the machines are turned off, they seem to glow with a spectral gray light.

    The hit-and-run death of an employee in the store's parking lot marks a turning point. One employee accuses another of making sexual advances and they come to blows. Between one sentence and the next, one loses his ability to read. The security monitors display half-seen things crawling between the stacks that vanish before anyone can find them.

    Desperate, Woody musters his staff for an overnight inventory. When the last customers reluctantly depart, leaving almost-visible trails of slime shining behind them, the doors are locked, sealing Woody and the others inside for a final orgy of shelving.

    The damp, grey, silent things that have been lurking in the basement and hiding in the fog may move slowly, but they are inexorable. This bookstore is no haven. It is the doorway to a hell unlike any other.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 4, 2006
    ISBN9781429910828
    Unavailable
    The Overnight
    Author

    Ramsey Campbell

    Ramsey Campbell has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award.

    Read more from Ramsey Campbell

    Related to The Overnight

    Related ebooks

    Horror Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Colours

      Mar 8, 2020

      Colours
      2 min read

    • Article

      Born Slippy

      Jan 16, 2020

      Born Slippy
      14 min read

    • Article

      Bucksaw

      Jun 3, 2019

      From the back seat of the car, Benjamin read the gold-lettered sign at the edge of the rolling green lawn and said, “Why do they call it a correctional facility?” He’d meant only to think the question, rather than speak it, but lately, more and more,

      23 min read

    • Article

      All My Tomorrows

      May 10, 2022

      It was Misha’s first day minding the shop, and already she’d broken the fifth rule. Always lock the door immediately. When you had the most valuable merchandise in the universe, you had to take the utmost precautions. She hadn’t meant to disobey. It

      13 min read

    • Article

      The End Of THE LINE

      Jul 2, 2020

      The End Of THE LINE
      2 min read

    • Article

      Memories Of A Miracle

      Dec 1, 2023

      Memories Of A Miracle
      8 min read

    • Article

      Hardly Never in Vegas: Fat Johnny Little and Salty Salt Sue make a break for the desert.

      Aug 8, 2013

      Salty Salt Sue met Fat Johnny Little at a card game so hot it burned a girl, the sultry Louisiana night dampening her clothes, making her tingle from the waist down. She sat next to Vinnie DeLuca, who bore a passing resemblance to Dillinger—his penci

      11 min read

    • Article

      Hardly Never in Vegas: Fat Johnny Little and Salty Salt Sue make a break for the desert.

      Jun 18, 2015

      Salty Salt Sue met Fat Johnny Little at a card game so hot it burned a girl, the sultry Louisiana night dampening her clothes, making her tingle from the waist down. She sat next to Vinnie DeLuca, who bore a passing resemblance to Dillinger—his penci

      11 min read

    • Article

      Chop-chop

      Feb 6, 2020

      Chop-chop
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Room in August Town

      Sep 12, 2023

      A Room in August Town
      25 min read

    • Article

      ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg

      Sep 30, 2020

      An excerpt from a novel Kirkus called "A moody, atmospheric domestic drama with a mystery novel somewhere in its family tree." The post ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE

      Mar 1, 2023

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Desk Flowers

      May 6, 2021

      Desk Flowers
      11 min read

    • Article

      AUNT MAUD’S SECRET Part 1

      Sep 1, 2021

      “WHAT! SERIOUSLY?” “Settle down, Martin,” said Ms. Phelps as she poured herself a second mug of coffee that morning. She sat down at the kitchen table, gently blowing on the steam. “Aunt Maud is so excited about her visit and really looking forward

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE

      Mar 1, 2023

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Flat Panic

      Feb 17, 2023

      AT the end of last year, Twenty-three and Twenty-two announced that they were looking around for a flat to share with a friend. ‘At last!’ said my husband. ‘We can finally set up that meth lab in the basement.’ They rolled their eyes. ‘You guys are g

      3 min read

    • Article

      Turn Out The Lights

      Sep 1, 2023

      Turn Out The Lights
      21 min read

    • Article

      The Last Call

      Jul 17, 2022

      The Last Call
      3 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      Echos

      Jan 10, 2019

      Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending in a twist rather than a split. Her last name was the French word for “swimsuit” but he never mentioned that. This seemed s

      17 min read

    • Article

      A Picture Of Dear Raymond

      Aug 24, 2022

      One of the great joys of Raymond Briggs’s column in The Oldie was that we got two geniuses for the price of one. As well as receiving his charming sideways look at life in the column, we got one of his peerless drawings every month. A compilation was

      3 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      He threw the pale pink envelopes into the trashand smashed the Mickey Mouse phone hanging up. And when his wife asked you okay? he said okay,then took a twistoff to the back, screaming FUCK so loud he spooked the treefrogs and cicadas.He’d got canned

      2 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2017

      Table Talk
      8 min read

    • Article

      HOT Property

      May 2, 2021

      HOT Property
      3 min read

    Reviews for The Overnight

    3.5/5

    43 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Grand Master Ramsey Campbell is unfailingly a genius. THE OVERNIGHT is a strong and stirring example: an unputdownable, unforgettable, novel of a group of individuals close-knit not by genetics or friendship, but by the confines of their employment situation. An American expat (again, not by choice or by design, but by the demands of his employment) is shipped to a nearly-rural small strip shopping mall between Liverpool and Manchester, to manage the new branch of the bookshop chain Texts. Woody is a rather odd individual, apparently, even prior to the events of the novel. If there is one character arc in this novel which is more extensive in evolution than any others, that is Woody, American among a passel of Brits, and well aware of it. His is not the only character evolution, but it is perhaps his which preys most extensively on my mind. Among the secondary characters, possibly my favourite is the local historian who appears intermittently, both through the local history he wrote, sold in the shop, and in person and over the phone as well. His is the backdrop narrative, and he provides (parceling the history out little by little) the backstory of why that locality is as it is, and a horrifying story and outcome it is.

      I cannot highly enough recommend this perfect horror novel!
    • 3/5
      Ramsey Campbell is an extremely talented writer of the horror genre. I have over the years enjoyed so many of the books he has produced. This one though was just "okay". Not a bad plot for a haunted story...the problem was mostly with the characters. Too much time was spent developing them which made parts of the story drag. I didn't like any of them and found myself just wishing that what was in the shop would just get them all. 3 stars because I loved the idea behind the story and there were some really chilling moments in the shop.
    • 1/5
      Unreadable
    • 4/5
      Gotta say, that Ramsey Campbell writes some pretty disturbing sh*t .... Not in the Stephen-King-piledriver sense at all (see Under the Dome)... almost the opposite – Campbell crawls inside your head, gets nice and comfy, and then opens up his little box of dark slimy things after it's too late for you to uninvite him. As of this writing, I am about 75% of the way through both this book, and Silent Children, and I have, shall we say, paused for a while, because both tales have gotten to the point where they have become more or less relentlessly disturbing, in a way that King or D. Koontz hardly ever is. King, for example, always breaks up his horror with humor. But there is nothing funny going on in the last 30% of The Overnight, and it requires a certain grim dedication to, even relish for, the sheer horror of the situation, to keep on reading in earnest. I do intend to do this! But I want to do it when I'm in the proper frame of mind, so that I can properly appreciate the horrific sequence of events for which Campbell has so carefully, even lovingly, prepared us.

      A word of mild warning: Some readers will find said "preparation" to be intolerably "slow" or "boring" or "pointless". I say this without having read any other reviews of the book because, as I say, I haven't finished reading it yet, and I don't wish to be confronted with anything even remotely resembling a "spoiler"! But let me say, the comments of anyone who makes this sort of remark really should be taken with a serious chunk of salt; I do believe it says more about their troublesome attention spans than it does about the book they're reading, and more about their unwillingness to invest more than a minimal amount of energy in a book in return for its "payoff". Most readers who are in that category probably haven't even gotten that far in this review, I imagine. But if you are, and if you have, please forgive me for intentionally making fun of you, but also consider the possibility that The Overnight, and Ramsey Campbell in general, may not be "your cup of tea". Not entirely sure it's mine, either ... but we'll see.

      UPDATE: Finished the book, and my rating stands, although the ending did pack more of a punch than I expected ... another example of Campbell's insidious writerly ways of shocking the reader but saving the most unsettling shocks -- appropriately enough -- for the end.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I was really looking forward to a good horror novel. It’s been ages since I read one and thought how great it would be to spend some time with dread, revulsion and angst. Alas, I did not get that. Not even any decent mystery. What a waste. This had possibilities. I think what the author was going for, was a combination of The Shining and Poltergeist. A place that is haunted because of some tragedy that took place on the spot in the distant past, combined with a place that turns its inhabitants into strangers to themselves and everyone else. A madness inducing place where strange creatures lurk in the corners, but eventually will come out to get you. A place that will make the reader agonize and worry over the sympathetic characters that inhabit it.Yeah, I think that’s what Campbell was going for. Too bad he got caught up in showcasing the totally asshole nature of all of his characters. That’s right; total asshole nature. He forgot to show us how they were BEFORE the place got to them. He didn’t make them likeable. Every single one of them was a jerk. Not just to one or two people on the staff, but to everyone else they worked with. How the hell can one function like that if you’re always at odds with everyone you have to deal with 5 days a week? And strangely, I’ve only ever seen this from British writers portraying British people and situations. It’s weird. It’s as if the author is overcompensating for the possibility that they create people too saccharine. Whatever the reason, Campbell did not create a single person for me to feel anything except contempt for.As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was the whole lack of, well, horror. Sure there were things going bump in the night and all, but their presence wasn’t really felt. Every once in a while someone’s bookshelf would get messed up. Or someone would see a patch of damp on the carpet one minute, and it would be gone the next. No one else would see it. Or there would be strange patterns on the computer screens. Odd figures in the fog that seemed to trail long, gray dreadlocks. When something did actually happen (a clerk was run over in the parking lot), it wasn’t really that dramatic or agonizing. Lorraine wasn’t that well known to us, and what we did know was annoying so who would mourn her loss? And the creepy and portentous explanation for these malignant entities is never given. How the hell are we supposed to be afraid of that? That's half of what creates fear and dread. Hello. Aren't you supposed to be a famous HORROR novelist? Even the multiple POV gimmick couldn’t save this book.
    • 4/5
      I have just recently discovered Ramsey Campbell. How is that possible?! I really enjoyed this book. It's scary and quirky and almost funny. A really interesting read.
    • 5/5
      For any bookseller who's participated in a yearly inventory, this book is both scary and hilarious.Those customers who just won't leave, sit around reading for hours? Books that jump off the shelves? Now we know the REAL reasons behind these mysteries. :)That said, this book has characters you care about, a very chilling, ancient evil, and some real scares. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      This book caught my attention because the setting is in a bookstore and I work in a small antiquarian bookstore. In the Acknowledgments Campbell mentions that his inspiration for writing this book came from the time he spent working at Borders. This gave the story credibility. It is the story of ancient evil that saps you of your intelligence and your sanity. The evil preys on each individual that works in the store. It takes special pleasure in tormenting a young man who had overcome a reading disability. The evil takes away his ability to read. The American manager of the British bookstore slowly goes insane as members of his staff start to disappear during an overnight inventory.