The Board of Governors meets again: these upstanding men have much to decide. There is the construction of the Hospital to manage, the hiring of reliable, discreet staff, the first intake of boys – and, of course, the mysterious needs of the Founder to attend to...

For readers of M.R. James and House of Leaves, ‘A Hospital for Boys’ is a short story of creeping horror, of unspoken evil and the business of dark deeds.

Alan Trotter is a writer based in Edinburgh. His first novel, Muscle (Faber & Faber, 2019) is now available to buy.