9 stories from The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII. Edited by Karl Edward Wagner (1984).

9 stories from The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII

Edited by Karl Edward Wagner (1984).

Introduction: Of Fads and Frights

....the public's appetite for junk-food horror has been sated, and that readers have become more sophisticated in their tastes and expectations. To the bewilderment of those who have cashed in on the high tide of the horror fad, people are no longer standing in line to see films like Rototiller Dentist or assaulting the paperback racks to buy novels about giant maggots gobbling up Los Angeles or possessed teenagers turning other teenagers inside out. Readers have been affronted by enough garbage served up as horror; now they demand something better....

3.47 AM by David Langford

Apparently Langford wrote this for a teenage audience. So the emphasis is on the gross-out. 

I have been a reader of Langford's Ansible and an admirer of his contributions to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and the Encyclopedia of Fantasy for several decades. 

"3.47 AM" is, unlike Langford's non-fiction, leaden and obvious. 

Mistral by Jon Wynne-Tyson

Like several other stories in this volume, "Mistral" is about a protagonist meeting up in adulthood with an odd old-school-chum.

....mine is not a psychic or complicated nature. I prefer rational explanations to overimaginative speculation. Nevertheless, when the wind gets up and I am alone—and that is most of the time now that Christine has died and I come out to Gassin more often—I go out onto the terrace and look across to the distant hills of the Maures. And something in me tells me to walk off into the scrub in search of Angelina, who I know cannot possibly still be there. And something else in me, which invariably wins, tells me to come indoors, to close the windows and the shutters, and to lose myself in books until the mistral has blown itself out....

Out of Africa by David Drake

A cool and perfect throwback Great-White-Hunter raconteur tale.

...."The reeds were bucking like a ship's deck now as the jimpegwe ripped through the last few yards of matted vegetation separating us. The screams of my boys, still floundering on the path behind me, were drowned by the sound of the beast's approach as it frothed reeds and water alike into the air. I watched the whipping stalks, waiting for a patch of gray-green hide to flash among them. I was afraid to chance a shot, more afraid of being pulped without firing. I even considered loosing at the blank, swaying mass before me and then trying to follow my boys.

     "When it was within twenty feet—and I still had no fair sight of the beast—the jimpegwe made a wheezing sound and lurched into full view. Its forefeet were upraised. I could see each webbed foot was armed with a horny spike where a man's thumb would be. I squeezed the front trigger when my muzzle steadied a hand's breadth behind the glaring eye, then followed with the left barrel into the red-wattled throat...."

The Wall-Painting by Roger Johnson

Along with Schow and Bradfield's stories, "The Wall-Painting" is one of the strongest stories in the collection

...."How very interesting. Then what was it that caused people to regard him as a saint?"

     "There are the vaguest references to miracles. For the moment, Gifford, you will have to be satisfied with that. You see, all the records that I've come across date from long after Tosti's supposed death." Faragher's long face brightened suddenly. "Ah, yes. That is an interesting matter. A clerk who wrote in about the year 1120 says that Tosti was actually in the midst of an address or sermon to his brothers—that's the word he uses—when he simply disappeared. The statement is quite unequivocal: he did not die, he disappeared. That is the only surviving account of the end of St Tosti, and our clerk says that he had the story from an eye-witness. Curious, eh?"

     "Very curious," I said. "And why do you think that the wall-painting depicts this rather dubious saint?"

     My companion stifled a yawn, and I suddenly realised how tired he looked. "I think," he replied, "that I'll answer that question tomorrow, when you see the picture. Afterwards, perhaps, the two of us could make the journey into Colchester and investigate the Archdeaconry Records. Now, if you don't mind, we'll change the subject. I should like just one more drink, and then I'll be ready for a good night's sleep."

The Ventriloquist's Daughter by Juleen Brantingham

A heartbreaker about a daughter convinced her father has placed her soul in a ventriloquist's dummy. 

Keepsake by Vincent McHardy

A uncanny battle of wits between teacher and student.

....Years and years of collecting made her greedy. She wasn't satisfied with collecting the other children's charms. She smelled out the last great dessert. Swallowed and digested, Biffle rotted in the dark. She wouldn't give him back and Will was powerless to force her. He might work a deal if only he had an offering suitable for exchange. But what? He had nothing. It took all his resourcefulness to push away the snakes, snakes that wouldn't have dared show their heads if Biffle were with him. Alone he was weak, a dry husk shaking with the slightest breeze.

     From his lonely outpost he watched Miss Brock work her magic. Her power as a witch was incomprehensible. She never once used charms, markings or hand movements. She knew what everyone was doing at all times. With her back turned she picked out truants and punished them with a cold determination. No one questioned her authority.

     Will watched a bead of sweat gather at her chin, swell and slide down her neck into deep folds of dress.

The Chair by Dennis Etchison

Another school/reunion tale.

....The figure stood so stiffly for so long that Martin began to wonder if it might be a manikin. Finally he detected movement in the eyes, tiny dots peering out of tunneled sockets. Then the shoulders slumped, the low bulk shuffling aside, the thinning spikes of uncombed hair vibrating in the flare of a dozen or more high-intensity light bulbs which were plugged into every corner of the small room.

     She fidgeted, her tone winding up like a violin string again.

     "You remember Jack, don't you?"

     Her eyes darted nervously between them. The irises were closed down to pinpoints. He could not help but notice now a fine webbing of lines etched around her eyes, radiating outward, imprinted there as if by years of squinting under a merciless sun. The pupils were washed out like a faded photograph.

     "Don't you, Sherm?" she said.

     Martin stared at her.

     What the hell is she doing? he thought. What kind of sick game is this?

     The man in the bedroom smoothed his hair and rubbed his soft hands over his white face, and straightened.

     Martin had no choice. He stepped over the threshold.

     There was a closeness in the air, a sickly-sweet incense that was a mixture of old clothes and unchanged bedding and slow currents of exhaled air circulating and recirculating above overheated lamps. The man made an effort to draw himself up to his full height, and Martin was overcome with disbelief.

One for the Horrors by David J. Schow

Schow ploughed his furrow wide and deep in the 1980s. Yet for all his "black-leather required" schtick, in "One for the Horrors" he gives the reader a tender and melancholy masterpiece about loss, horror, and the consolation of films.

....Next on the roster was King Kong.

     The college kid who vended Clay's ticket that evening after work was gangly and bearded, his forehead mottled, as though by a pox. Five years ago, Clay would have dismissed him as a hippie; ten years, a queer. Now hippies did not exist and he regarded the gay community with a detached, laissez-faire attitude. He queued before the cramped snackbar to provision himself.

     He had taken a dim view of the uninspired "remake" of the 1933 RKO Studio's King Kong—in fact, had avoided an opportunity to see it for free. The chance to again relish the original on a big screen was pleasant; in this one, unlike the new version, the only profiteering fame-grubbers were the characters on the screen.

     Clay conjured various other joys of the original while conversing with the lobby-smokers: the glass-painted forests, the delightfully anachronistic dinosaurs of Skull Island. He was told that this was not a "butchered" print, that is, not lacking scenes previously excised by some overzealous moralist in a position of petty authority—shots of Kong jawing a squirming man in tight closeup, picking at Fay Wray's garments with the simian equivalent of eroticism, and a shot of Kong dropping a woman several stories to her death were all intact.

     This time around, Clay was more palpably disturbed. He clearly recalled reading an article on King Kong concerning scenes that had never made it to the screen in the first place—not outtakes, or restorative footage, or bandaids over some editor's butchery—and among those were bits that were now streaming out of J.A. Bijou's projection booth.

     Carl Denham's film crew was perched precariously atop a log bridge being shaken by an enraged King Kong. One by one, the marooned explorers plummeted, howling, into a crevasse and were set upon greedily by grotesque, truck-sized spiders. It stopped the show, the film's original producer had claimed, over forty-five years ago. It was enough justification to excerpt the whole scene; no audience had ever seen it, because it would have stopped the show.

     It certainly does, thought an astonished Clay, as he watched the men crash to the slimy floor of the pit. Those who survived the killing fall confronted the fantastic black horrors; not only giant spiders but shuffling reptiles and chitenous scorpions the size of Bengal tigers. The audience sat, mouths agape.

     New wonders of Skull Island manifested themselves: A triceratops with a brood of young, plodding along via stop-motion animation, and a bulky-horned mammal Clay later looked up in a paleontology text and found out it was an Arsinoittherium. Incredible.

     "Where did you come across this print?" he questioned the bearded kid, with genuine awe. He was not alone. Fans, buffs, and experts had been drilling him since the beginning of the week, and the only answer he or the other staff could offer against the clamor was that they had nothing to do with it. The films came from the normal distribution houses, the secretaries of which were unable to fathom what the J.A. Bijou employees were babbling about, when they phoned long-distance—an expense just recently affordable. Word of mouth drew crowds faster than Free Booze or Meet Jesus signs, and the theatre's limited capacity was starting to show the strain of good business. No one else had ever seen these films. In all of history….

The Flash! Kid by Scott Bradfield

Bradfield revels in the new and challenging, all the while savoring masters like Emil Zola, Ray Bradbury, Georges Simenon; readers who watch his YouTube channel get a doctorate in literature purely by osmosis.

"The Flash! Kid" is unlike any other horror story I have read. It has a disturbed teen, neglectful parents, and strange powers, but Bradfield accommodates them by turning all our genre expectations inside out. It's a thing of beauty.

....The van's door slammed shut, bolts were thrown. Rudy chewed pepperoni, mozzarella, briny anchovies.

     The van's engine erupted, along with a nervous spasm in Rudy's gut.

     The van moved out. An air vent communicated with the driver's seat.

     Everything will be fine, Rudy. They dig out a tiny chunk of your brain—no bigger than a sausage. You'll be happy, then. People will like you; you'll like people. We'll start you on an exercise regimen, a diet. Hell, with your money, you can just take your pick of the ladies. You won't be lonely anymore. You'll be just like everybody else.

     But I'm not like everybody else, Rudy reassured himself, and placed his palm against his stomach. Something percolated deep inside, his bowels contracted. He tried to hold it in. Father would get very mad. Father hated when Rudy smelled up the car, and rolled down all the electric windows.

     Just you wait and see, Rudy. We can command top dollar from the university, once I inform them of your condition. Let me handle it. Did I tell you they fired me? I used to know Johnny Carson and his wife personally. Now what's my doctorate worth? All-night-delivering pizzas to junkies, high school parties, perverts. But I've learned. This time they'll deal on my conditions. This time I'll demand tenure—

     The pressure mounted in Rudy's stomach. He cried out.

     What's that? Watch your temper, Rudy. I don't want you ending up like the others at UC Med. Armstraps and thorazine—very uncomfortable. And more than anything, Rudy, I want you to be comfortable. The fridge at our motel is packed with Candy Cakes, Twinky Pies, Rice Puffies, and plenty of that white soul food—mayonnaise and Wonder Bread.

     Rudy returned the final slice of pizza to the container, closed the lid. He had lost his appetite.

     —Did I mention the color teevee?

Jay

13 September 2020

"The Depths" by Ramsey Campbell [1982]

....streets of small houses and shops that looked dusty as furniture shoved out of sight in an attic. They were deserted except for a man in an ankle-length overcoat, who limped by like a sack with a head.

"The Depths" by Ramsey Campbell (1982)

The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XI edited by Karl Edward Wagner (1983).

A number of Ramsey Campbell stories and novels could be titled "The Depths." The depths are, for Campbell, a continuing theme:  depths of psychopathology, of family romance, of blighted rural and urban landscapes, and of a certain inhabited lake.

"The Depths" (1982) is a close-up of depths  plumbed by mystery novelist Jonathan Miles. (Question names in Campbell: they are often anagrams).

At a loose end in his career, Miles decides to write a nonfiction account of a particularly gruesome local killing.  He moves into the murder house.

....He hadn't realized until now how untrustworthy inspirations were.

Perhaps he ought to have foreseen the problem. The owners had told him that there was nothing wrong with the house—nothing except the aloofness and silent disgust of their neighbors. If they had known what had happened there they would never have bought the house; why should they be treated as though by living there they had taken on the guilt?

Still, that was no more unreasonable than the crime itself. The previous owner had been a bank manager, as relaxed as a man could be in his job; his wife had owned a small boutique. They'd seemed entirely at peace with each other. Nobody who had known them could believe what he had done to her. Everyone Miles approached had refused to discuss it, as though by keeping quiet about it they might prevent it from having taken place at all.

Like an atomized underground man of Dostoevsky, Miles becomes obsessed: are his surroundings affecting his perceptions, or vice versa?

....Long dark houses slumbered beyond an archway between cottages, lit windows hovered in the arch. A signboard reserved a weedy patch of ground for a library. A gray figure was caged by the pillars of the village cross. On the roof of a pub extension, gargoyles began barking, for they were dogs. A cottage claimed to be a sawmill, but the smell seemed to be of manure. Though his brain was taking notes, it wouldn't stop nagging.

The house, or the violence that has infected the house, attempts to find a new home in the author.

....When he switched off the lights, darkness came upstairs from the hall. He lay in bed and watched the shadows of the curtains furling and unfurling above him. He was touching the gate, which felt like flesh; it split open and his hand plunged in. Though the image was unpleasant it seemed remote, drawing him down into sleep. 

  The room appeared to have grown much darker when he woke in the grip of utter panic....

....Was the light failing? The room looked steeped in dimness, a grimy fluid whose sediment clung to his eyes. If anything the light had made him worse, for another thought came welling up like bile, and another. They were worse than the atrocities which the house had seen. He had to get out of the house.

He slammed his suitcase—thank God he'd lived out of it, rather than use the wardrobe—and dragged it onto the landing. He was halfway down, and the thuds of the case on the stairs were making his scalp crawl, when he realized that he'd left a notebook in the living room.

He faltered in the hallway. He mustn't be fully awake: the carpet felt moist underfoot. His skull felt soft and porous, no protection at all for his mind. He had to have the notebook. Shouldering the door aside, he strode blindly into the room.

The light which dangled spiderlike from the central plaster flower showed him the notebook on a fat armchair. Had the chairs soaked up all that had been done here? If he touched them, what might well up? But there was worse in his head, which was seething. He grabbed the notebook and ran into the hall, gasping for air.

His car sounded harsh as a saw among the sleeping houses. He felt as though the neat hygienic facades had cast him out. At least he had to concentrate on his driving, and was deaf to the rest of his mind. The road through Liverpool was as unnaturally bright as a playing Field. When the Mersey Tunnel closed overhead he felt that an insubstantial but suffocating burden had settled on his scalp.

Miles returns home, but finds no sanctuary there.

....He sat in the living room, too exhausted to make himself dinner. Van Gogh landscapes, frozen in the instant before they became unbearably intense, throbbed on the walls. Shelves of Miles' novels reminded him of how he'd lost momentum. The last nightmare was still demanding to be written, until he forced it into the depths of his mind. He would rather have no ideas than that.

Sharpening personal and professional crises multiply. Miles faces a demand publisher about his overdue book draft, but the only thing he can write are stories of violence and depravity brought him from the murder house. Worried about loss of income, Miles offers these as fiction to the slick magazine Ghastly.

....he sat forward, gaping. Surely he must have misheard; perhaps his insomnia was talking. The newsreader looked unreal as a talking bust, but his voice went on, measured, concerned, inexorable. "The baby was found in a microwave oven. Neighbors broke into the house on hearing the cries, but were unable to locate it in time." Even worse than the scene he was describing was the fact that it was the last of Miles' nightmares, the one he had refused to write down.

Consequences of an encounter on the street seem to offer hope. Miles recognizes a fellow pedestrian, but she flees. Next morning, Miles reads she was killed. Could he save the next victim, thwarting the overmasting dreams from the West Derby muder house?

He opens his mind, and follows what seem to be unconscious directions.

....As soon as he turned the car the urgency seized him. It was agonizing now. It rushed him out of the center of Chester, into streets of small houses and shops that looked dusty as furniture shoved out of sight in an attic. They were deserted except for a man in an ankle-length overcoat, who limped by like a sack with a head.

Miles stamped on the brake as the car passed the mouth of an alley. Snatching the keys, he slammed the door and ran into the alley, between two shops whose posters looked ancient and faded like Victorian photographs. The walls of the alley were chunks of spiky darkness above which cramped windows peered, but he didn't need to see to know where he was going.

He was shocked to find how slowly he had to run, how out of condition he was. His lungs seemed to be filling with lumps of rust, his throat was scraped raw. He was less running than staggering forward. Amid the uproar of his senses, it took him a while to feel that he was too late.

He halted as best he could. His feet slithered on the uneven flagstones, his hands clawed at the walls. As soon as he began to listen he wished he had not. Ahead in the dark, there was a faint incessant shriek that seemed to be trying to emerge from more than one mouth. He knew there was only one victim.

Before long he made out a dark object farther down the alley. In fact it was two objects, one of which lay on the flagstones while the other rose to its feet, a dull gleam in its hand. A moment later the figure with the gleam was fleeing, its footsteps flapping like wings between the close walls.

The shrieking had stopped. The dark object lay still. Miles forced himself forward, to see what he'd failed to prevent. As soon as he'd glimpsed it he staggered away, choking back a scream.

Miles painfully grapples with this failure, and with the thought that his existence is turning to ashes.

....there had been occasions when a story had surged up from his unconscious and demanded to be written. Those stories had been products of his own mind, yet he couldn't shake them off except by writing—but now he was suffering nightmares on behalf of the world.

No wonder they were so terrible, and that they were growing worse. If material repressed into the unconscious was bound to erupt in some less manageable form, how much more powerful that must be when the unconscious was collective! Precisely because people were unable to come to terms with the crimes, repudiated them as utterly inhuman or simply unimaginable, the horrors would reappear in a worse form and possess whoever they pleased. He remembered thinking that the patterns of life in the tower blocks had something to do with the West Derby murder. They had, of course. Everything had.

And now the repressions were focused on him. There was no reason why they should ever leave him; on the contrary, they seemed likely to grow more numerous and more peremptory. Was he releasing them by writing them out, or was the writing another form of repudiation?

One was still left in his brain. It felt like a boil in his skull. Suddenly he knew that he wasn't equal to writing it out, whatever else might happen. Had his imagination burned out at last? He would be content never to write another word. It occurred to him that the book he'd discussed with Hugo was just another form of rejection: knowing you were reading about real people reassured you they were other than yourself.

He slumped at his desk. He was a burden of flesh that felt encrusted with grit. Nothing moved except the festering nightmare in his head. Unless he got rid of it somehow, it felt as though it would never go away. He'd failed twice to intervene in reality, but need he fail again? If he succeeded, was it possible that might change things for good?

Miles makes a final attempt to thwart accumulated  repressions. He permits himself to be directed again.

....Streets still led from the opposite pavement, and despite the ache—which had aborted nearly all his thoughts—he knew that the street directly opposite was where he must go.

There was silence. Everything was yet to happen. The lull seemed to give him a brief chance to think. Suppose he managed to prevent it? Repressing the ideas of the crimes only made them erupt in a worse form—how much worse might it be to repress the crimes themselves?

Nevertheless he stepped forward. Something had to cure him of his agony. He stayed on the treacherous pavement of the side street, for the roadway was skinless, a mass of bricks and mud. Houses pressed close to him, almost forcing him into the road. Where their doors and windows ought to be were patches of new brick. The far end of the street was impenetrably dark.

When he reached it, he saw why. A wall at least ten feet high was built against the last houses. Peering upward, he made out the glint of broken glass. He was closed in by the wall and the plugged houses, in the midst of desolation.

Without warning—quite irrelevantly, it seemed—he remembered something he'd read about years ago while researching a novel: the Mosaic ritual of the Day of Atonement. They'd driven out the scapegoat, burdened with all the sins of the people, into the wilderness. Another goat had been sacrificed. The images chafed together in his head; he couldn't grasp their meaning—and then he realized why there was so much room for them in his mind. The aching nightmare was fading.

At once he was unable to turn away from the wall, for he was atrociously afraid. He knew why this nightmare could not have been acted out without him. Along the bricked-up street he heard footsteps approaching.

When he risked a glance over his shoulder, he saw that there were two figures. Their faces were blacked out by the darkness, but the glints in their hands were sharp. He was trying to claw his way up the wall, though already his lungs were laboring. Everything was over—the sleepless nights, the poison in his brain, the nightmare of responsibility—but he knew that while he would soon not be able to scream, it would take him much longer to die.

*   *   *

Scapegoats are selected, and perish in flight after social expulsion.

Miles was selected for the task when he fled the West Derby murder house. He wrote down the nightmares he experienced, expiating their toxins. But the volume of the world's repressed violence could not be expunged by one man's writing skills. It took his life.

Campbell writes often of protagonists burdened with more than their own woes, or the mundane world's hallucinatory torments. In all that, the character Miles is first among equals. None of his actions correlate to the sufferings imposed upon him. 

The horrific balancing of the world cries out for blood, not absolution. 

Jay

14 September 2020

10 Stories from The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XI. Edited by Karl Edward Wagner (1983)

….It sounded dry as an insect, but much larger. Was it peering over the edge at him?

"The Show Goes On" by Ramsey Campbell

 

10 Stories from The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XI 

Edited by Karl Edward Wagner

(1983)

INTRODUCTION: One from the Vault

    K.E.W. introduces readers to 1982, certainly a peak of the decade, with new magazines, movies, anthologies, zines, and addresses to send away for monthly book catalogues.

....the horror genre continues to prosper and develop, as older writers perfect their art and new writers come along to lead the genre in new directions.

    Horror stories have a way of springing up everywhere—not just in science fiction/fantasy magazines and anthologies, but in amateur publications and in any sort of periodical that might publish fiction: from The New Yorker to Easy Rider, High Times to Running Times, Rocky Mountain Magazine to Gallery, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine to Harper's, Ms. to Hustler. Trying to read all the horror stories published during each year and then select the best of them is no easy task. You are holding the result of a year's reading and selecting. Here is state-of-the-art horror fiction from 1982: The Year's Best Horror Stones: Series XI.

    The big news of 1982 for horror/fantasy fans was that Twilight Zone Magazine treated us to twelve consecutive monthly issues. Starting on a monthly schedule in April of the previous year, Twilight Zone Magazine's accomplishment at a time when most new science fiction/fantasy magazines rarely last half a dozen issues cannot be overpraised. Much of its success is due to the excellent work of editor T.E.D. Klein (himself one of the leading writers in the field), who manages to cram a surprising number of fine stories into each issue, along with articles and reviews, color photographs and commentary on new films, as well as stills and transcripts of the famous Twilight Zone television series. The bad news is that Twilight Zone Magazine went bi-monthly at the beginning of 1983, thus providing fans only half as many issues to enjoy. A major new subscription campaign should help the magazine prosper, however, as newsstand distribution has always been a problem. Discover Twilight Zone Magazine for yourself—and subscribe. You won't regret it.

....1982 was a superior year for single-author collections of horror stories, some of which included original material. Nightmare Seasons (Doubleday) contained four new novellas by the versatile Charles L. Grant. Dark Companions (Macmillan) by Ramsey Campbell, part reprint and part original, is Campbell's finest collection of short stories to date. The Dark Country (Scream/Press) is the long-awaited collection of Dennis Etchison's best stories. Lonely Vigils (Carcosa) by Manly Wade Wellman was an omnibus collection of his Judge Pursuivant, Professor Enderby, and John Thunstone stories—three occult investigators from the pulp era. Another specialty press collection was Harlan Ellison's Stalking the Nightmare (Phantasia Press). From England came Joan Aiken's A Whisper in the Night (Gollancz)—marketed for younger readers, but don't you believe it. Charles Beaumont, who died in 1967, was honored by Bantam Books with the collection The Best of Beaumont. Add all these to your horror library, and you'll be patting yourself on the back for many years to come.

THE GRAB by Richard Laymon

....Jerry set aside the padlock. He climbed onto the bar and stood over the metal container. Then he raised it. The cover slid slowly upward, revealing a glass tank like a tall, narrow aquarium. All around me, people gasped and moaned as they saw what lay at the bottom, barely visible through its gray, murky liquid. A stench of formaldehyde filled my nostrils, and I gagged.

    Face up at the bottom of the tank was a severed head, its black hair and moustache moving as if stirred by a breeze, its skin wrinkled and yellow, its eyes wide open, its mouth agape.

    "Well, well," Clark muttered.

    Two friends visit a local country and western bar, which advertises a gruesome exhibit where the brave can test their mettle.  

    This is a sharply understated and economically executed piece of fiction. I have read a few later novels by Laymon, which always implicated me [as reader] in their delineation of depravity. "The Grab" is black humor among friends, and calming in its way.

THE SHOW GOES ON by Ramsey Campbell

    Here is Campbell's urban hellscape of wrecked and rotting streets, shops, and people. And the protagonist, a local man now alone in the world, running the carry-out his late parents probably held on to for too long. All he can do at night is try to protect it from local kids bent on stealing and defacing. He searches the theater next door for culprits.

    ....Once as a child, he had been meant to sneak into the Gents' and open the window so that his friends could get in without paying. He'd had to stand on the toilet seat in order to reach the window. Beyond a grille whose gaps were thin as matchsticks, he had just been able to make out a small dismal space enclosed by walls which looked coated with darkness or dirt. Even if he had been able to shift the grille he wouldn't have dared to do so, for something had been staring at him from a corner of the yard.

    Of course it couldn't really have been staring. Perhaps it had been a half-deflated football; it looked leathery. It must have been there for a long time, for the two socketlike dents near its top were full of cobwebs. He'd fled, not caring what his friends might do to him—but in fact they hadn't been able to find their way to the yard. For years he hadn't wanted to look out of that window, especially when he'd dreamed—or had seemed to remember—that something had moved, gleaming, behind the cobwebs. When he'd been old enough to look out of the window without climbing up, the object was still there, growing dustier. Now there had been a gap low down in it, widening as years passed. It had resembled a grin stuffed with dirt.

    Again he heard movement beyond the grille. He couldn't quite make out that corner of the yard, and retreated, trying to make no noise, before he could. Nearly at the corridor, he saw that a door lay open against the wall. He dragged the door shut as he emerged—to trap the thieves, that was all; if they were in the yard that might teach them a lesson. He would certainly have been uneasy if he had still been a child.

THE HOUSE AT EVENING 

by Frances Garfield

Faux southern gothic about two genteel ladies. Garfield is unable to obscure the tale's punchline. After paragraph one, I thought: "I hope this isn't one where the protagonist turns out to be a vampire/werewolf/lamia."

I HAE DREAM'D A DREARY DREAM by John Alfred Taylor

John Alfred Taylor is new to me, but "I Hae Dream'd a Dreary Dream" is a perfect rural Scots horror story, filled with raw weather and a treacherous geological point of interest that has taken the lives of several curious hikers and climbers. The depiction of landscape is comparable to a tale like Buchan's "Skule Skerry" from The Runagates Club (1928).

....In the bar at the back of the inn after dinner, Harold asked Angus Donnan about the place he'd found. Angus's usually expressive eyes were still. "I really don't know of any path like that, Mr. Percy."

    "Perhaps I haven't described where I found it clearly—"

    "Oh no sir. I recognize the place."

    Percy wondered if Angus knew more than he was telling, especially when Angus said something in Gaelic to the two islanders he was serving at the other end of the bar, and both glanced sidewise at Percy. One of them answered, repeating a phrase Angus had used. Percy repeated it to himself so as not to forget it while he finished his whisky. Bealach—that meant "pass" or "gap"—but the rest?

    In his room Percy opened his MacAlpine. Even with his new-found understanding of the vagaries of Gaelic orthography, it took Percy ten minutes, and then he wasn't sure. But that was what it sounded like. Sinister. Baelach a' du Mairbh—Pass of the Dead.

    Perhaps tomorrow Angus Donnan would be more forthcoming.

    As he drifted toward sleep the words came into his mind unbidden:

    

    But I hae dream'd a dreary dream

    Beyond the isle o' Skye,

    I saw a dead man win a fight

    And I thought that man was I.

DEATHTRACKS by Dennis Etchison

Etchison was a writer's writer, and found promising material in the quotidian. "Deathtracks" is about the carnage and cost of the Vietnam War. It does not leave the living room of a dead soldier's parents.

...."It was a long time ago. He—our son—was the last American boy to be killed in Vietnam."

    It was four minutes to six and he didn't know what to say.

    "When it happened, we didn't know what to think," said Mrs. Morrison. "We talked to people like us. Mostly they wanted to pretend it never happened."

    "They didn't understand, either," said Mr. Morrison.

    "So we read everything. The magazines, books. We listened to the news commentators. It was terribly confusing. We finally decided even they didn't know any more than we did about what went on over there, or why."

    "What was it to them? Another story for The Six O'Clock News, right, Jenny?"

    Mrs. Morrison drew a deep, pained breath. Her eyes fluttered as she spoke, the television screen at her back lost in a grainy storm of deep blue snow.

    "Finally the day came for me to clear David's room . . ."

    "Please," said the young man, "you don't have to explain."

    But she went ahead with it, a story she had gone over so many times she might have been recalling another life. Her eyes opened. They were dry and startlingly clear.

    It was three minutes to six.

    "I started packing David's belongings. Then it occurred to us that he might have known the reason. So we went through his papers and so forth, even his record albums, searching. So much of it seemed strange, in another language, practically from another planet. But we trusted that the answer would be revealed to us in time."

COME, FOLLOW by Sheila Hodgson

Hodgson has a fine feel for the Jamesian touch (and you know which James I mean).

"Come, Follow" is a modest liitle Christmas story that rewards rereading. 

....It came as a mild surprise when (the ordeal of eating mercifully finished) Alaric Halsey moved across the threadbare carpet, sat himself down at an old upright piano, and declared that his companion would entertain them with a song.

    It emerged that Nicholas, in common with others who suffer his disability, could sing with no trace of a stammer; he produced a moderate tenor voice and the company joined in a variety of carols. That done, the pianist changed key and the singer moved on to ballads, folk tunes, old roundelays . . .

    

    "Come, follow follow—follow follow—follow

    follow me!

    Whither shall I follow—follow—follow,

    follow thee?"

    

    The reedy notes echoed curiously in the gloom; only candles fought against the encroaching night, the rectory had not yet been equipped with gas. Melting wax splashed down onto the piano top.

    

    "Come, follow follow—follow follow"

    

    Paul turned abruptly; the high windows had no curtains and for one second he had an impression—the merest hint—of something peering through the glass.

    

    "Whither shall I follow—follow"

    

    A mistake of course. Black countryside lay all around the house.

    

    "To the greenwood, to the greenwood, to the greenwood tree"

    

    "Trees," said the Reverend Alaric, "trees figure prominently in the ancient Saxon religion. My dear Mr. Bernays, what is the matter?"

    For Paul had leapt up: something, yes, positively Something, tapped on the window pane—a faint rattle as of drumming fingertips, a staccato impatient knock. But now he had gained the window and now he stared out and it had gone. He stood there feeling very slightly ridiculous. His mind clutched at the notion of a tree, for there were trees, certainly; a couple of elms etched sharply against the sky. But too far away, surely, to account for the sound and the singular impression he had received of a figure, just beyond the glass, waiting....

THE SMELL OF CHERRIES by Jeffrey Goddin

Those who bought and steeped themselves in every monthly (or bi-monthly) issue of Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone Magazine in the early 80s will acknowledge Goddin's "The Smell of Cherries" as a perfect example of why RSTZM was worthy of reading and rereading. 

"The Smell of Cherries" is about one night shift in the life of a security guard at an isolated trucking company.

..."Well, hope you enjoy yourself out here. They kind of have a hard time keeping guards here."

    Taylor had a brief suspicion that Stahl might know something about the "tricks" someone was playing. But looking into the brown, lined face, he thought not.

    "Spooks, probably," said Taylor. "This is kind of a weird spot, what with the old barracks and all. Wouldn't be surprised if somebody might try a few tricks to scare a guard off."

    Stahl's eyes narrowed, his nose twitching above his close-rimmed gray moustache, as if he might sneeze.

    "You seen something?"

    Taylor smiled, "Thought I did see somebody around earlier, but it turned out I was wrong."

    Stahl sipped his coffee, watching Taylor closely.

    "You haven't heard the history of this place, have you?"

    "Only that it was once part of the military base."

    Stahl smiled almost mischievously.

    "Well, there's a bit more to it than that. This was a real active base, on around World War II. Had two, three thousand men in training at a time. They'd work 'em up, outfit 'em, and send 'em on down to Fort Knot, Kentucky, to fly out for parts unknown.

    "I've lived around the Valley all my life. Soldiers used to come into town on weekends, raised holy hell. But we liked 'em."

    Stahl paused, eyes distant.

    "But part of the history of this place is a little darker. Between World War II and Korea, they brought in some scientists, chemists. Top secret, hush-hush kind of thing. We'd see 'em around town sometimes, but they were a pretty close-mouthed bunch, wouldn't say what they were up to....

It has a real flavor of early Romero. Very welcome.

A POSTHUMOUS BEQUEST by David Campton

The continuity of macabre UK wit is beautifully displayed here.

...."We have already agreed on the main bequests, have we not? My feathered friends must be provided for. The bulk of my estate is to be divided, therefore, among various ornithological charities—and how painstakingly you have researched those various headquarters and offices, thank you so much—with a little over for a local reminder of our mutual affection, to take the form of a bird sanctuary. But . . ." Pentrip could imagine Miss Coule holding up a forefinger which any bird might have mistaken for a twig. "But on reflection I have reached the conclusion that in my preoccupation with humbler creation, I have done less than justice to my nephew, Roger. I believe you yourself once brought up this very point, but at the time I failed to grasp the full import of your suggestion."

    "Please take note, then," concluded Miss Coule, "that I now wish my nephew to enjoy my garden. I leave my nephew to the garden."

    "You mean leave the garden to your nephew," mentally corrected the solicitor, then continued to repeat "garden to nephew" "nephew to garden" until his head swam and he paused to rub his eyes....

ROUSE HIM NOT by Manly Wade Wellman

I have always disliked occult investigator stories. Wellman's are, however, above the mark: vernacular, curious about the folkways of everyday life. "Rouse Him Knot" checks the boxes with brio. Mercifully no Yog Sothothery.

    "Interesting story?" She came out on the stoop. Thunstone thought she was eighteen or nineteen, small but healthy, with a cascade of chestnut hair. Her long face was pretty. In one hand she held a kitchen knife, in the other a half-peeled potato. "Interesting story?" she said again.

    "About a circle in your yard," said Thunstone. "with no grass on its circumference. It's mentioned briefly in an old folklore treatise, and I heard about it at your courthouse today."

    "Oh, that," she said. "Here comes Bill—my husband. Maybe he can tell you."

    A young man carrying a big pair of iron pincers came around the corner of the house. He was middle-sized and sinewy, in dungarees and checked shirt, with a denim apron, He had heavy hair and a close-clipped beard, and a blotch of soot on his nose. No older than, say, twenty-two. This couple, reflected Thunstone, had married early. "Yes, sir?" said the young man.

    "This is Mr. Thunstone, Bill," said the girl. "Oh, I didn't say who we were. This is my husband Bill Bracy, and my name's Prue."

    "How do you do?" said Thunstone, but Bill Bracy was staring.

    "I've seen your picture in the papers," he said. "Read about your researches into the supernatural."

    "I do such things." Thunstone nodded. "At your county seat, I looked up the old colonial records of the trial of Crett Marrowby, for sorcery."

    "Yes, sir," said Bill Bracy. "We've heard of that, too."

    "Mr. Packer, the clerk of the court, mentioned this house of yours," went on Thunstone. "He called it the Trumbull house. And said that there's a circular patch in the yard, and some old people connect it with the Marrowby case."

    He looked around him, as though in quest of the circular patch.

    "That's around in the back yard," said Prue Bracy. "We've only lived here a few months. When we bought from the Trumbulls, they said we'd do well to leave the thing alone."

    "Might I see it?" asked Thunstone.

    "I'll show it to you," said Bill Bracy. "Prue, could you maybe fix us some drinks? Come this way, sir."

    He and Thunstone rounded the corner of the house and went into the back yard. That was an open stretch of coarse grass, with woods beyond.

    "There it is," and Bracy pointed with his tongs.

    Almost at the center of the grassy stretch lay a moist roundness, greener than the grass. Thunstone walked toward it. The circle seemed nine or ten feet across. It was bordered with a hard, base ring of pale brown earth. Thunstone paced all around, moving lightly for so large a man. The inner expanse looked somewhat like a great pot of wet spinach. It seemed to stir slightly as he studied it. It seethed. He reached out with the tip of his spotted stick.

    "Don't," warned Bracy, but Thunstone had driven the stick into the mass.

    For a moment, something seemed to fasten upon the stick, to drag powerfully upon it. Thunstone strongly dragged it clear and lifted it. Where it had touched the dampness showed a momentary churning whirl. He heard, or imagined, a droning hum.

    "I did that when we first came here," Bill Bracy said, a tremble in his voice. "I put a hoe in there, and the hoe popped out of my hand and was swallowed up before I looked."

SPARE THE CHILD by Thomas F. Monteleone

I have not read Monteleone before today. This is a terrible admission for someone who has been reading horror fiction since 1979.

"Spare the Child" is a comedy about supernatural curses harrowing-up middle class complacency. Monteleone's deadpan narration recalls Waugh, Collier, and Dahl in its elegant brevity.

Jay

13 September 2020