TABLE OF CONTENTS Issue 39, December 2015

FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, December 2015

FICTION The Judas Child Damien Angelica Walters Reconstructing Amy Tim Lebbon The King of Ashland County Caspian Gray Honey in the Wound Nancy Etchemendy

NONFICTION The H Word: A Horde of Holiday Horror Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg Artist Showcase: Kerem Beyit Marina J. Lostetter Interview: Kim Liggett Lisa Morton

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Damien Angelica Walters Tim Lebbon Caspian Gray Nancy Etchemendy

MISCELLANY Coming Attractions Stay Connected Subscriptions and Ebooks About the Nightmare Team Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

© 2015 Nightmare Magazine Cover by Kerem Beyit www.nightmare-magazine.com FROM THE EDITOR Editorial, December 2015 John Joseph Adams | 932 words

Welcome to issue thirty-nine of Nightmare! Big news this month, friends: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publishers of my Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (and the rest of the Best American series), have offered me the opportunity to edit a science fiction/fantasy (and horror) novel line for them—and naturally I agreed! The line will be called John Joseph Adams Books (their idea, not mine!), and will be a tightly-curated list of 7-10 titles per year. We’ll be pre- launching the line in early 2016 with new editions of three Hugh Howey novels: Beacon 23, Shift, and Dust—making them available via traditional publishing for the first time, and then the line will kick things off in earnest in early 2017 with our first batch of never-before-published works. If you’re a regular reader of my magazines and/or anthologies, then you should already have a good idea what to expect—and if you like my work as a short fiction editor, then I suspect you’ll like the novels I publish as well. The John Joseph Adams Books website is still under development, but if you bookmark johnjosephadamsbooks.com, that’ll take you to it when it’s ready. And never fear, dear readers—I’ll still be here, working to bring you your monthly dose of nightmares, and I’ll still be editing Lightspeed and anthologies as well. How (?!), you may ask. Good question—I’m not entirely sure! I will probably have to get much better at delegating! But the good news is, I had to consider about three hundred novels this year as a judge for the National Book Award (Young People’s Literature category), so if I was able to do that without all of the wheels coming off the bus, then I’m confident I’ll also be able to figuring out a way to fit acquiring and editing 7-10 novels into my schedule. That, or I’ll just give up optional extracurricular activities, like sleep.

• • • •

In awards news: The World Fantasy Awards were presented at the World Fantasy Convention, held this year in Saratoga Springs, NY, in early November. Your humble editor was nominated once again in the “Special Award: Professional” category, and, alas, I lost once again—this time to the folks who run the wonderful press ChiZine Publications. Congratulations to them, and to all of the other winners and nominees. You can see a full list of the nominees and winners at worldfantasy.org/awards.

• • • •

ICYMI, October saw the debut of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. In it, guest editor Joe Hill and I present the top twenty stories of 2014 (ten science fiction, ten fantasy), by the following: Nathan Ballingrud, T.C. Boyle, Adam-Troy Castro, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Seanan McGuire, Sam J. Miller, Susan Palwick, Cat Rambo, Jess Row, Karen Russell, A. Merc Rustad, Sofia Samatar (two stories!), Kelly Sandoval, Jo Walton, and Daniel H. Wilson. Learn more at johnjosephadams.com/best-american. Also recently released was Loosed Upon the World (Saga Press, Sep. 2015), the definitive collection of climate fiction. These provocative stories explore our present and speculate about all of our tomorrows through terrifying struggle and hope. Join bestselling authors Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jim Shepard, and over twenty others as they presciently explore the greatest threat to our future. To learn more, visit johnjosephadams.com/loosed. And back in August, I published a new anthology co-edited with Daniel H. Wilson called Press Start to Play. It includes twenty-six works of fiction that put video games—and the people who play them—in the spotlight. Whether these authors are tackling the humble pixelated coin-op arcade games of the ’70s and ’80s, or the vivid, immersive form of entertainment that abounds today, you’ll never look at phrases like “save point,” “first- person shooter,” “dungeon crawl,” “pwned,” or “kill screen” in quite the same way again. With a foreword from Ernest Cline, bestselling author of Ready Player One, Press Start to Play includes work from: Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley, T.C. Boyle, Marc Laidlaw, Robin Wasserman, Micky Neilson, Cory Doctorow, Jessica Barber, Chris Kluwe, Marguerite K. Bennett, Rhianna Pratchett, Austin Grossman, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Catherynne M. Valente, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey. Visit johnjosephadams.com/press-start to learn more.

• • • •

With the announcements out of the way, here’s what we have on tap this month: We have original fiction from Damien Angelica Walters (“The Judas Child”) and Caspian Gray (“The King of Ashland County”), along with reprints by Tim Lebbon (“Reconstructing Amy”) and Nancy Etchemendy (“Honey in the Wound”). Over on our column on horror, “The H Word,” we’re exploring holiday horror, and of course we’ll have author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview with author Kim Liggett. It’s another great month for nightmares, so thanks for reading!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Nightmare, is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent and forthcoming projects include: Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated nine times) and is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Lightspeed Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams. FICTION The Judas Child Damien Angelica Walters | 2781 words

A kid in a baseball cap and a Ninja Turtles t-shirt is sitting on the park bench, swinging his legs. The boy stands off to the side until he’s sure there are no grown-ups nearby, and then he flops down on the bench, hiding his misshapen left hand while pretending to pick a scab from his knee with the other. Turtle leans forward, the hat’s brim turning his eyes to shadow. The boy guesses he’s eight, maybe, or close enough. Not too skinny either. The monster doesn’t like it when they’re skinny. “Did you get hurt?” Turtle asks, his gaze skimming the scars on the boy’s arms and legs. Even faded with the passage of time, the scars are ugly and pitted, as though his flesh was repeatedly gouged with a small ice-cream scoop. “I was in a car accident,” the boy says. “Did it hurt?” “A lot.” The boy peers over both shoulders. The park is still empty save for the two of them, and best of all, it’s surrounded by bushes and trees. The branches sway in the breeze, rattling like a knocked-over pile of bones. In between flashes of green and brown, he catches glimpses of small brick houses with wrought iron-railed concrete porches. It’s probably a nice neighborhood, a place where people have parties in back yards and walk their dogs on the sidewalks. Once he took a dog, a skinny thing he found eating out of a trash can, to the monster, but it ripped the trembling animal into pieces, roared in the boy’s face, and squeezed his hand until it crackled and popped like cereal in milk. Then it made him clean up the mess. (It’s hard to dig a hole with one hand; not much easier to fill it in.) It’s spring, which means Turtle should be in school. He doesn’t look sick, and if it were a holiday the park would be crowded. Questions linger on the boy’s tongue, but he swallows them down. Best not to know. The answers wouldn’t matter anyway. “Want to see something neat?” he says. Turtle scrunches his face. “What is it?” “A monster.” Turtle grins, revealing front teeth his mouth hasn’t grown into yet. “There’s no such thing as monsters. Really, what is it?” “What I said, a monster.” The boy shrugs. “You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to.” The boy stands, tucking his left hand in his pocket, like a secret you don’t want to share. “See you later, okay?” “Wait,” Turtle says. “Is it really a monster?” “Yeah, but it’s dead and gross and stuff.” “Cool,” Turtle says, slipping off the bench. “I want to see it.” Kids always trust other kids. It’s not the boy’s fault Turtle’s parents didn’t teach him not to talk to strangers. None of it’s his fault.

• • • •

When the boy was nine, a crack in the earth opened and he fell in. He didn’t know there was a monster waiting at the bottom, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The monster was clever. It built its lair in such a way that it only took one misstep. The boy fell end over end, scraping knees and elbows and chin along the way, and landed hard with all the breath knocked out of him. That’s why he didn’t scream right away. He couldn’t. Then he got a good look at the monster, at the ink-stain scales; the whip-thin tail; the ragged, filthy claws; the eyes the color of every nightmare that ever was; and all that emerged was a whispery little moan. When the monster bared its teeth, yellow and chipped and crusted dark at the gum line, the boy found his voice. He tried to get away. He did. He should’ve tried harder, should’ve screamed louder, but he was only nine, and small for his age. No match for a monster the size of five men. Its teeth were in his skin and his skin was sliding down its gullet before the boy could scream a second time. He thought it had bitten off his whole hand, but it had only taken the very tip of the pinkie finger on his left hand. (That was long before the squeezing.) Its jaws snapped again, taking a piece from his right arm, just below his elbow. It moved closer still and the boy shielded his face with his arms, sick to his stomach at the smell of blood and the sticky feel of it soaking through his clothes. The monster nudged his arms away with its snout and opened its mouth wide enough, revealing shreds of the boy’s skin between its teeth and worse, old skin, not the boy’s, that smelled rotten and foul. The boy said, “Please don’t hurt me anymore.” His words hung in the air for a long time before the monster made a low, choking sound. It sounded like a laugh, and then it sounded like a cough. But mostly like a laugh. The monster gathered him in its horrible arms, scales scraping skin wherever they came in contact, and the boy knew it was going to keep biting him until there was nothing left. But it didn’t. It carried him through tunnel after tunnel, deeper and ever deeper into the earth, the boy crying and bleeding the entire way. When they reached a large circular cave with a low ceiling, the monster dropped him onto the dirt floor, curled up in front of the entrance, and went to sleep. The boy scooted as far away as possible, his back pressed hard against the rough wall. He tried to be brave. Although he was deep underground, his parents would find him. Grown-ups could do anything. He was sure of it. He squeezed his eyes shut tight so the tears wouldn’t leak out. He missed the Star Wars poster on his bedroom wall, his Transformers, his mother’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. He even missed the way his father always burned everything he cooked on the grill, but that made him think of skin and fat and teeth and so, with the echoes of the monster’s rasping snores in his ears, he fell asleep too.

• • • •

“Do we have to walk far?” Turtle asks as they leave the park and head down a side street. It’s the best way to go; there’s only one house on the whole street, and the lady that lives there is old and wrinkled and walks one slow step at a time. When she comes outside to fetch the mail, she holds the envelopes right up to her face, so the boy knows she can’t see very well. Not being seen is one of the rules. “Nah, not too far,” the boy says. “Just to the end of this street and in the woods a little bit.” “Does it stink? The monster, I mean. Like really bad?” “Yeah, it does.” “What’s it look like?” “It has big teeth and long claws.” “Like a bear?” “Kinda, but it has scales, not fur, and it’s bigger and stronger and scarier.” “How do you know it’s stronger than a bear if it’s dead?” The boy bites the inside of his cheek before answering. “Monsters are always strong.” “My mom says there’s no such thing as monsters. She has to say it every night to my sister cause she thinks there’s one in her closet that comes out when she sleeps.” “Grown-ups always say that.” “Yeah, and my sister’s afraid of everything. I’m not. Not even monsters.” The street ends where the woods begin. The trees are dense, the ground a tangle of thorny vines and twigs that crackle beneath their feet, but the boy leads Turtle off to one side, onto a narrow, half-hidden path, prepared to grab him if he balks. Sometimes they hesitate; sometimes they get scared. Turtle doesn’t stop though. “What’s your name?” Turtle asks. The boy traces the tip of his tongue across his teeth. Names are dangerous. If you don’t have one, it can’t be taken away. “You first.” When Turtle says a name, the boy muffles his ears so he can’t hear it, but after, he says, “Hey, that’s my name too.” Turtle narrows his eyes, slows his steps. “You’re lying. I bet you’re lying about the monster. I bet you’re lying about everything.” “No, I’m not. We’re almost there. You’ll see.” The boy smiles. He’s very good at wearing the right smile. He’s also very good at lying.

• • • •

The monster bit and consumed; the boy bled and scabbed and scarred. He learned how to go away someplace else in his mind, someplace where there were no monsters, no teeth, no pain. He told himself that one day the make-believe world would become so powerful it would destroy the real and take its place, but it was a lie too big to believe. He guessed his parents figured he was dead. Their faces became fuzzy and indistinct until he was sure they were only ever a dream. He gathered his name and those almost-memories, tucked them far away so they couldn’t creep back in, so they couldn’t hurt. Sometimes in the dark they tried to sneak back in—that hurt more than the monster’s teeth. One day the monster bit his upper arm, spat out the flesh, and paced in circles, snapping its teeth and drooling from hunger. Some time later— minutes? Hours?—there was another bite, another glob spat onto the dirt. The boy didn’t understand what was wrong. He thought the monster would kill him, but it seized him, its claws digging into the fresh wounds, drew him near, and whispered in his ear, telling him what it wanted him to do. The boy said no. He said no a thousand times, but although he was much bigger than when he first fell into the monster’s lair, he was still only a boy and, eventually, he said yes. The sun hurt his eyes the first time the monster sent him outside. He stood for a few moments with the unfamiliar warmth on his skin, listening to birds chirp and insects buzz. He told himself he should run away, but he was too afraid to find out his dream parents weren’t real after all, and if they were, they wouldn’t want this scarred, damaged boy who wore a ghost of their son’s face. No one would. It didn’t take long to find what the monster wanted. Pale hair, freckles, dirty sneakers, and a Transformers sweatshirt; walking on the sidewalk, dragging a stick. When the boy asked if he wanted to see something neat, Autobot said yes. He held the boy’s hand tight; the boy didn’t want to remember that part, but he couldn’t make himself forget it. The boy covered his ears with his hands so he wouldn’t have to hear the wet tearing of skin, the sharp crunch of bones. When the sounds stopped, there was nothing left but a pile of shredded clothing, and the boy made up a story that the stains were spilled hot chocolate and the clothes, dirty laundry. Autobot was only the first. The dog came next, and then the others. Too many to count; too many to remember. The tears and screams never lasted very long, even when it felt as though they lasted forever. One day the boy didn’t put his hands over his ears, and the sound wasn’t as terrible as he feared. After a while he stopped paying attention at all, stopped looking at their faces, stopped thinking of them as anything other than meat. The boy knew this made him a monster too.

• • • •

Deep in the woods, the sun struggles to reach the ground, but the gloom doesn’t seem to bother Turtle. He keeps following the boy along the path, talking about his sister, his mother, his school, his favorite toys. The boy wishes he’d be quiet instead; his voice makes the boy’s head hurt. “I thought you said it wasn’t far,” Turtle says. “We’ve been walking forever.” “We’re almost there.” The boy points to a darker shadow in the ground several feet away. “See that hole there?” Turtle stops, crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t see anything.” “It’s hard to see from here. Look closer.” Turtle squints. “I see something, but it isn’t a monster. Are you sure you’re not lying?” “I’m sure. It’s a hole and the monster is inside it.” “You didn’t say anything about a hole. Do we have to go in it?” “It isn’t very deep. Geez, if I knew you were such a scaredy-cat, I wouldn’t have told you about it.” “I’m not scared.” Turtle says, taking off in the direction of the hole. The boy exhales through his nose. When he has to carry them, they scream and kick and punch, and he’s always afraid someone will hear. Nobody pays attention to kids walking together, but they do if they think one of them is hurt, especially if they think one of them is hurting the other. Turtle crouches by the hole. “It looks dark in there.” “It only looks that way from here. It isn’t that dark inside.” “I don’t smell anything either.” The boy begins to scoot into the hole. “Do you want to see it or not?” Turtle follows him in. The monster is on its side, perfectly still, and the boy can’t hear it breathing. Maybe it really is dead. His heart thrums hard and heavy. Maybe this time he told the truth. If the monster is dead, he won’t have to do this anymore. The hope tastes like chocolate chip cookies, and he smiles wide enough to make his cheeks hurt. He reaches for Turtle’s hand, but Turtle takes a step forward, his eyes huge. “Holy crap, it’s real.” The monster opens its eyes. It stretches, chest rumbling, claws scratching furrows into the ground, tail sweeping clouds of dirt-dust, and fixes both of them with its gaze. The boy’s smile crumples and falls apart, and something inside his chest does the same. Turtle shrieks and makes for the entrance, but the boy clutches his upper arms, holding him in place. “I’m sorry,” the boy says as he brings his mouth close to Turtle’s ear. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it too.” And he shoves him toward the monster. “No,” Turtle shrieks, reaching out as he falls. “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here!” But the boy scrambles up and out of the lair, skinning his palms and knees on the way. He runs through the woods, making no sound at all when tree branches smack his face, then he passes the old lady’s house, the wrought iron-railed porches, a barking dog and a man cooking a slab of meat on a grill. The smell makes his stomach clench, makes him think of teeth tearing into flesh, but he doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about anything at all. So he keeps running.

©2015 by Damien Angelica Walters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Damien Angelica Walters’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in various anthologies and magazines, including The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015, Year’s Best Weird Fiction: Volume One, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, Black Static, and Apex. She was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award for “The Floating Girls: A Documentary,” originally published in Jamais Vu. Sing Me Your Scars, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2015 from Apex Publications, and Paper Tigers, a novel, is forthcoming in 2016 from Dark House Press. Find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or on the web at damienangelicawalters.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight Reconstructing Amy Tim Lebbon | 4387 words

Sometimes life changes without letting anyone know. It’s said that a child becomes an adult when he or she recognises the fact of their inevitable death. And perhaps the process of death begins when the realisation that a partner is never, ever coming back first strikes home. Jake had been dying for months. Amy had gone, but it was only now— in cold, dark nights haunted by ’mares and nail-torn sheets—that he had begun to accept that she was gone for good. He avoided sleep, just as a drug addict on the mend will try to steer clear of all their old haunts. But Jake’s drug was contained within: Amy, injected through recollection, snorted with each fleeting image of her face. However far he walked—through streets pocked with violent rain and parks teeming with invisible night life—his addiction held on to him. It wasn’t that he did not want to remember his darling wife; it was just that he could not bear the awful, final truth of her death. In a village like this, traces of Amy were everywhere, not only in memory, but in reality too. With each breath he might inhale a part of her final sigh; any speck of dust on a café window could be a part of her skin. In pubs where they had drunk together, her fingerprints may still mark a glass, or an ashtray, or the underside of a table where she had always checked for rogue chewing-gum. If he saw a friend across the street, and they came over to see how he was doing, their first thoughts were always of Amy. He knew this because he could see her reflected in their eyes, as though she were standing just behind him. He chose nighttime to walk the streets; there were fewer people to hide his grief from. There was also less to see, so his mind turned inward, which he liked. Until he saw the ragged little mess in the gutter. At first, he thought it was a child. He stopped, looked around with a sudden, irrational guilt, certain that accusing eyes would fall on him and mark him forever as the killer. Then concern took over, and Amy’s voice came from memory. You’re a good man, Jake. He hurried along the wet pavement, trying to see further than he could, attempting to make out the truth before he was close enough to do so. It was a rag doll. He picked it up. It did not belong in the gutter and although he would never want it, he felt the need to put it somewhere dry. It was heavy with water and he recalled reading somewhere that dead bodies appeared to put on weight. Its original eyes had been lost and replacements painted on. In the rain the paint had run, and now it cried blue and black tears. It had Amy’s nose. Small, slight, upturned, a dainty baby’s nose, he had always told her. He sits next to her in their back garden, running a blade of grass up and down her top lip, trying not to laugh and wake her. Her hand comes up and waves him away, but her eyes remain closed. The sun has dipped noticeably before she stirs and swats him across the head, and he eats the blade of grass, straddles her on the seat and tickles until her cheeks turn red with backed-up laughter. Night and rain closed in, and this time his look of guilt was different. What if the doll’s owner was sitting at a window, looking out to see if anyone would be cruel enough to steal their favourite toy? He shoved it inside his coat and walked home. The dampness felt comfortable against his skin, like the tears of someone familiar.

• • • •

“How’re you doing?” Jamie said. Jake knew what he meant. “Learning to live without her.” The bar was noisy and smoky, just how he liked it. That way, nobody could hear him breathing. He may as well have not been there. He had met up with Jamie after work and now they were halfway through a bottle of good Irish whiskey. I’ve kissed the Blarney Stone, Jamie said before every swig of the potent brew. Amy had always said he was good value; undemanding, intelligent, entertaining company. He had also been a very good friend to both of them, and a rock since Amy’s death. Tonight, Jake could hardly wait for him to go home. “Move on, Jake,” Jamie said. The wrong thing, always the wrong thing. People told him to move on, place Amy in the fond shadow of memory, don’t worry about things, everything would be all right. But none of them had lost her. None of them had held her one night, then held only cold air the next, not even able to find warmth because their shuddering loss drove away everything but misery. “I’m moving on all the time,” Jake said, not angry. “There’s a difference between moving on and forgetting. Time moves me on, but it also makes me remember. Every minute of the day is another minute I spend on my own. Without Amy.” He took a slug of whiskey and grinned. He laughed at the foolishness of those who drank to forget. How could he ever forget Amy, ever, for even a second? It would be like missing a breath. One day that would happen. No more breaths. All he had to do was to find a way to fill the days between then, and now. “More Scotch!” he quipped, his playful tone fooling Jamie. “It’s Irish, you fool!” Jamie shouted, clapping Jake on the back, slamming his palm down on the bar. “Barman! Bring a further bottle of Ireland’s finest, if you would be so kind.” Jake smiled and sipped and Jamie talked and poured. Jake had placed the rag doll on the landing; it had seemed the right location, there was no other reason. A wet patch had appeared around it after the first hour as collected rain fled the body, but the heating soon dried it into a vague stain. Every time he walked by, he bent down and tweaked its nose. Last night, when the past shouldered him from sleep and the unbearable present slapped him around the face, he went out onto the landing and tickled the doll’s nose, careful not to wake it, smiling as he recalled the smell of Amy’s breath. Then he had gone back to sleep. Dawn had come without another nightmare. “Jamie, I’m going,” he said, slipping from his stool and twisting his ankle as he hit the deck. There was a muffled rustle of interest from around the bar—the squeal of moved chairs, sniggers, a high laugh—then Jamie was pulling him to his feet and guiding him from the smoky room. “Moved on,” Jake said, laughing through tears he did not even know he was crying. “I’ve moved on, eh, Jamie? Moved on. Amy? Amy who?” But it was a sad display, not humourous, and somehow the other patrons knew this. Eyes were averted as Jamie dragged his crying, slurring friend out into the night.

• • • •

There was something in his jacket pocket. It had hard angles and uncomfortable edges, but when it hit daylight it took form. A doll, all pink plastic, cherubic cheeks, knotted hair and grotesque lipstick smile. How the fuck it had got there he had no idea, but the nuclear hangover which was just kicking in hinted that anything, truly anything, was possible. He sat up slowly and the doll let out a long, painful groan. Jake shouted, hurting his head and shocking himself even more. The doll bounced from his knees and hit the floor, groaning again. Things went fuzzy for a while as his blood found its own level. Time seemed to dilute his foolish fears, for when he picked up the doll once more he could see that it was one of those fancy ones—sold via mail order, no doubt—with its own tilt-action voice. Conversations would be sparse, Jake knew. “Who are you, then?” he asked softly. Tilt. “Woorrgghhh.” “And what were you doing in my pocket?” Tilt. “Woorrgghhh.” “And look at your . . .” The doll’s eyes were big and green. Just like Amy’s. Clover eyes, his mother-in-law had called them, gained from her supposed Irish ancestry which Amy had maintained was a complete myth, made up by her mother to give their family some glamour. It’s not that her mother found Ireland in particular glamorous, but the fact that it was somewhere she’d never been was enough. Jake had never realised just how deep a doll’s eyes could be. Amy glances at him as they drive through country lanes, raising one eyebrow and smiling sexily. Jake feels so content sitting with his arm resting out of the open passenger window, smelling the air blasting through the car: cut grass; the tang of a summer shower; fields of rapeseed casting yellow shadows across the landscape. Amy slows the car and pulls into a lane leading to an open gate, the field beyond standing fallow. What? He says, but she smiles and does not reply. Instead she shrugs her blouse off her shoulders and unhooks her bra, freeing her breasts to the warm air. She says nothing, but her eyes tell him everything. I love you, they say. Let’s have fun, let’s be daring, like when we were courting, they say. Jake loves Amy. He is never one to argue with her. They make hay. Jake stumbled from his bed and walked slowly across the landing to the toilet. The rag doll was still there, still sniffing the air with Amy’s nose. He put the new plastic doll down next to the bath while he pissed and it ended up staying there. It watched him strip and shower, and even though his head felt fit to burst his cock twitched and stood to attention under the doll’s gaze. Later, he went out for a walk to clear the cobwebs, tickling the rag doll under its nose as he passed by. The scratching of his fingernail sounded like a dry giggle. Jamie rang just as he was opening the door. “Jake, let’s get away for a while,” he said. “Let’s up and leave. You could do with a break, and I’d like to go with you. Let’s go to the New Forest, or something. Do some tree climbing.” Jake said no thanks and went on his way. He put his head down and smoked so that nobody would want to talk to him.

• • • •

Amy had loved the woods. Jake had always hated them—they made him itch and the birds spooked him because they were always out of sight—but today he needed to be there. They were quiet. No one would tap him on the back and ask how he was doing. Amy had always been one for larking around when they came for a walk, as if to pass the threshold between field and wood was to shrug off adulthood and rediscover the careless, aimless abandon of youth. Jake had never been able to do this—Amy always mocked that he’d never even been a kid—and so he’d used to watch as she ran and rolled and climbed, exploring shadowy holes in the ground, peering between old trees to find something older, running away and hiding from him until he passed from angry to unsettled. And she climbed. She loved to climb. She’d been a tomboy when she was young, she said, and Jake could well believe it. She was thin and wiry, and when she swung herself up into the trees he just stood and gazed in marvel at her athleticism. He had never really liked these trips. But he put up with them because he knew Amy would always come home invigorated, and the first thing she’d want to do is make love hard and fast in the shower. So, the woods weren’t all that bad. Today they seemed even quieter than usual. There was the occasional twitter of a bird hidden somewhere high in the canopy, a rustle and scratch as some small mammal scampered through the undergrowth, but other than that, all was silent. Jake followed the well-worn path which came out on the other side of the woods by the village shops. He’d buy a paper and some orange juice, try to dilute his hangover with vitamin C while reading about all the woes of the world. He recognised parts of the wood, even though he had not been here since Amy’s death. A place where they had laughed and shouted and been bitten by wood ants as they watched the thousands of little creatures hurry about on their huge nest. Jake had wanted to throw a caterpillar in there to see what happened, but Amy hadn’t let him. She’s said it was cruel, and how would he like it. A small bridge spanned a dry stream. Their initials were carved here somewhere, another youthful antic Amy had been guilty of one summer day several years ago. Jake shut his eyes. He did not want to see their names. He hated the thought that a scar in old wood still existed, while the person who had whittled it there was little more than dust in his own frequent tears. He reached the shops and tried to buy some orange juice, but there were several people in there and they assaulted him with their pitying gaze. He turned around and walked out, back strafed by sibilant compassion. He went to the baker’s instead and bought a fresh loaf without looking up from the display case. “Forty pence,” the baker said, but Jake could hear the undertones: My God, his wife died, how can he handle that, poor bastard, what could I say, should I say anything, maybe best to just let him go . . . Back in the woods again, because the roads were busier now and there was always the chance of someone stopping and offering him a lift, and by the way how are you coping now that you’re on your own . . . Besides, from this end the woods looked nice. Welcoming. And even though memories of Amy made him sad, still he needed to remember. As he passed the tree where she’d had her accident he saw something propped against the trunk. A doll, he thought, even before he got close enough to see properly. Why he would think that he did not know, but he was right, it was a doll, though of a sort he had never seen. This one was made of the woods, a construct of twigs and leaves and wet bark and dried plant tendrils. It stared at him with acorn eyes and its fingers pointed with palm-frond dexterity. And its legs . . . its legs . . . Amy climbs the tree, swinging herself from branch to branch, higher and higher. Jake stays below, smiling up at her and bending and twisting so he can see up her skirt. “Great views from up here,” she says. “Down here, too,” he says. She does a forward roll across a branch to flash her knickers at him, then she slips and falls. “Oh,” is all she says as one branch pushes her into another. She hits the ground with a whoosh of air from her lungs, a fart and a crack as something breaks. Jake is there immediately, terrified at what he will see. Her leg is broken badly. She’s looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “Sorry, hon,” she says. She spends three weeks in hospital. He never knew exactly what she’d apologised for. The doll had a twisted left leg. It was knotted at the knee, just as Amy’s had been, and it was actually a thumbnail shorter that the other. Just like Amy. Jake carried the doll home, buzzed all the way by fresh memories he had thought lost forever, each one vibrant and surprising, like a dream recalled after twenty years. The doll sat in the crook of his arm as if watching the way they were going, ready to object should he take a wrong turn.

• • • •

It went in the dining room, which only seemed right. Small insects and dried bark fell from its innards for the first few hours, but Jake sucked them up with a vacuum cleaner and soon it sat on its own clean, dry table. He looked at it and remembered Amy’s legs kicking in the tree, curled beneath her as she watched television, wrapped around his neck as he nuzzled where she loved to be nuzzled. He tickled the rag doll’s nose on the landing and smiled at the green eyes in the bathroom. Later he rang Jamie and suggested a meal. His friend accepted willingly. Locking the front door behind him he whispered: “Be back soon.” He did not know to whom exactly he was talking, but they seemed to hear anyway.

• • • •

Jake and Jamie went to a small bistro in a neighbouring village, intended for tourists but frequented mostly by the bored youths of the area. Some of them were there now, smoking and looking hard and flashing tattoos and earrings. “I’ve found some things,” Jake said, but suddenly he did not feel like telling. There was something secret about the dolls, a sense of mystery which felt fresh and naïve but, if revealed, would take on a dangerous quality. He glanced at the chair beside him, sure for an instant that Amy was there. But there was only hazy smoke from the kid’s cigarettes. “I’ll get us a coffee,” Jamie said, “then we can order.” Not, so what have you found, Jake? Not, what were you going to say, Jake? He watched Jamie walk to the counter, pick up a menu and order a couple of coffees. When his friend sat back down he was taking something from his pocket. “What did Amy always call me?” Jamie asked suddenly. He barely mentioned her by name since her death, as if to do so would aggravate Jake’s grief. “Do you remember?” “What do you mean?” Jake asked. He felt the sting of tears threatening, coughed as if to blame it on the smoke. Even the mention of her name . . . “You remember,” Jamie said. He’d taken a small phial from his pocket, clear as glass but apparently flexible. He placed it gently on the table and it sounded like a feather hitting water. “All those times we went out together. All those intimate moments when there was just the three of us, drinking whiskey, talking about books and holidays and God and sex and food.” Jake did recall; those times were often all he thought of, because they were the best they’d had. The times before Amy had gone and walked in front of a car. “What did Amy call me at the end of those long nights, Jake? When I kissed you both goodbye with the innocence of good friends. When you watched me down the garden path and waved from your doorway as I went out into the night.” As Jamie talked he stroked the thing he’d taken from his pocket. It opened slowly, like the accelerated film of a flower turning and facing the sun, and a splash of white light leapt from it and drowned itself in Jake’s coffee. “Do you remember?” “She called you Jamie,” Jake said, but even as he spoke he could not picture Amy saying that name. No, not Jamie, something else. She’d called him something else. They sat in silence for a while until the waiter came to take their order, then Jamie reached across the table and grabbed one of Jake’s hands in both of his. There were sniggers from the group of kids; Jamie glanced at them and they were silent. “Jake,” he said, “drink your coffee. Then go to some places.” He told him which places. Jake did not question what he was being told, or even why. After the first whiff of coffee everything seemed to fall into place, and what Jamie was telling him made perfect sense even though the sense was yet to be made. The kids smoking cheap cigarettes glanced over and smiled, the smoke drifting in haloes around their shaven heads. At the first sip—hot, acidic, a tantalising touch to his throat—Amy kissed him on the back of the neck, though when he turned around there was only a man opening a door. The man had a bag over his shoulder which twitched with hidden lives, and Jake only realised as the door closed behind him that it was Jamie. What did Amy call me? He had asked. What name did she use? Tired, confused and completely rid of his hangover, Jake left the bistro and went to the first of the places Jamie had told him to visit.

• • • •

In the public toilet there were three cubicles, two of which were occupied. Jake went into the third and, without locking the door, stuck his hand into the pan. He curved his fingers and felt further around the bend until something solid brushed his fingertips. It was a beanie doll, clownish colours faded, one eye missing, leaving only the memory of stitches behind. It had Amy’s hair—long, dark, wild and yet always right, always perfect. Amy steps from the shower and shakes her head, hair splaying out and water spraying further still. Jake curses as his clean shirt is spotted and stained. They are going out tonight and they should have left already. Amy giggles at his anger, chases him into the bedroom and squeezes him tight, leaving two large breast-shaped patches on the front of his shirt. It is impossible to be angry with her. The beanie went in the living room.

• • • •

The second-hand shop looked like an explosion in a devout Christian’s parlour. Every tacky, exploitative and offensive item of religious paraphernalia ever thought of was for sale here: plastic Christs with glowing eyes; a hundred crosses, all certified portions of the one true cross; self- exorcism kits with warnings on the labels about having to be an adult to buy one. And a Jesus doll, poseable arms frozen by ignorance into a welcoming embrace, one leg missing, the crown of thorns missing too. Jake had felt uncomfortable in the shop until now, because Jesus had Amy’s ears. Big ears, hidden beneath flowing locks (or, in this case, stringy horse’s hair). Amy prepares tea in their caravan on the Cornish coast, and the smell tells Jake that the meal will discredit her claim of not being able to cook with the first mouthful. She’s often like that, not so much putting herself down as hiding obvious talents in order to produce surprises every now and then. When he opens the door and sees that she is wearing nothing but an apron, things get out of hand, and they have pudding first. The Jesus doll went in the kitchen, ears exposed by a hasty and decidedly unholy haircut.

• • • •

By the end of the day there were no more places to go. So Jake went home.

• • • •

Jake sat on their bed and watched the sun rise over the wooded hills to the east. He had not slept all night. He’d wandered the house, tending the dolls and letting them inspire memories long since forgotten. And all the time he’d been thinking of what Jamie had said the previous day, wondering where all these dolls had come from. Wondering also why it felt as though Amy were strolling around the house with him. Not only did the beanie have her hair, but he could smell her breath when he walked by. The doll with Amy’s nose inspired a discorporated giggle as Jake squatted before it, the sort of laugh she’d utter before playing some joke on him. Everywhere in the house reminded him more and more of his dead wife, and yet it was all still memory. Somehow, after the strangeness of yesterday, he had expected a little more. Then, as the sun rose fully, he remembered what Amy had used to call Jamie. Angel. Not my angel, or our angel, just plain angel. See you, angel, she’d say after a night on the town, and she’d peck him on the cheek. Hey, angel, she’d greet him as he stood on their doorstep, a bottle of wine in one hand and a recommended book in the other. “She called him angel,” Jake said. And the house began to breathe.

©2000 by Tim Lebbon. Originally published in As the Sun Goes Down. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tim Lebbon is a New York Times-bestselling writer with almost thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Recent releases include Coldbrook, Into the Void: Dawn of the Jedi (Star Wars), Reaper’s Legacy, and Alien: Out of the Shadows. Titan published The Silence this April in the UK and USA. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and been shortlisted for World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson awards. Fox2000 acquired film rights to The Secret Journeys of Jack London series (with Christopher Golden), and several other novels and stories are in development for screen. Learn more at timlebbon.net.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight The King of Ashland County Caspian Gray | 6515 words

Uncle Reggie couldn’t afford to fly to Ireland to find a selkie wife, so instead he drove across the country to Carmel-by-the-Sea and came back with a selkie queer. I was fifteen then, and so ready to get out of Perrysville that California sounded like paradise. “This is Cian,” Uncle Reggie announced, dragging a lanky teenager into the front room where the three of us were getting high. Netflix was trying to shame us into moving off the couch by pausing The Vampire Diaries with their “are you still watching?” message, but none of us had gotten up. Cian was a freckled brunet who sneered as he yanked his arm out of Uncle Reggie’s grip, which left red finger marks on his pale skin. I tried to make eye contact with him, but Cian looked past us to the wall. “Cian’ll be staying with us for the foreseeable future,” said Uncle Reggie. “You lot will treat him with respect, and he’s not to leave the house.” “Hey man,” said Vicki, hauling herself into a position that was almost sitting up. “You want a beer?” Cian looked from her to Uncle Reggie to the door. “Yes,” he said. “They’re in the fridge,” said Vicki, slumping down again. Cian stepped cautiously into the kitchen. Uncle Reggie stayed in the middle of the room, something the three of us tried to pretend didn’t matter. Cian came back with a can of Natty Light in each hand. He set one of them down on the coffee table, clearing aside other empties and a half-full package of Oreos. He picked up a mechanical pencil we used to unclog Dustin’s glass bowl and punched a hole into the beer, then shotgunned it with the neatness of experience. Morga whooped, and the rest of us cheered with more cautious enthusiasm. “See?” said Uncle Reggie. “I knew you’d get along.” He clapped Cian’s shoulder. Cian flinched but reached for the second beer and cracked the top, sliding away from Uncle Reggie to join us on the couch. “Fuck this place,” said Cian. “And fuck you, too.” But he was smart enough to have gotten out of range of Uncle Reggie’s hands before he said it. “Hope you enjoyed your little vacation while I was gone,” said Uncle Reggie to the rest of us. “Tomorrow’s Monday, and I expect you to get back to fucking work.” He started to leave the room, but Morga, our frizzy-haired middle school kid, called, “Wait, wait, would you hit play?” and pointed at the battered laptop. Uncle Reggie stopped. “I won’t tolerate that lazy bullshit,” he said, turning on her. “If you can’t get off the couch for a half second you don’t deserve TV.” He pushed the power button and held it ‘til the laptop screen blacked out, then reached over Morga’s head to tear down the bed sheet we were using for a curtain. The early afternoon sunlight made the room look even smaller and dirtier than it had in the dark. “Get outta here,” he ordered. “I don’t care where you go, but don’t come back until tomorrow. Except you.” He pointed at Cian, who’d stood up faster than anyone else and was already two steps towards the door. “You stay. And you, Vicki.” He paused and stared hard at me and Morga. “Morga and John, get out. And don’t take any more of my pot with you, either.” But of course we did.

• • • •

“So why is your name Irish if you’re not Irish?” asked Dustin a few days later. He’d moved to the biggest city around—Cleveland—and we didn’t see much of him anymore, so it was kind of a special occasion for him to be back on the couch with us, talking shit and taking charge. Uncle Reggie was actually his uncle, and Dustin was the reason the rest of us called Reggie that. “Why is your name Dustin? Or why is her name fuckin’ Morga?” asked Cian. “Cause your parents were twats, that’s why. Same with me as with everybody, yeah?” His accent wasn’t quite Irish; it was too slight to place, too slight even to be sure that it was there from word to word. Cian was a good looking kid, the way Vicki was, or cool kids generally were. He always looked like he’d just popped out of the shower, something about him a little bit fresh and a little bit damp, and this was sensual enough to make me feel weird. Granted, I was a teenage boy. The wallpaper could give me an erection if I looked at it slantwise. “Morga’s short for ‘Morgan,’” said Morga. “It sounds cooler.” Dustin talked over her. “Are you gonna go to school?” he asked Cian. “I mean put it off as long as possible, but not so long you bring the fucking police around to check on you.” The Vampire Dairies was on in the background again. Vicki had scooted up close and turned on the subtitles so she didn’t have to miss a word. “I’ve never been in school,” said Cian. “I’m not in anybody’s record books, and nobody’s going to look for me.” His tone made this seem admirable and mysterious instead of pathetic. “So what the fuck are you doing here, then?” Dustin asked. “If you’re not going to school and not dealing drugs, what’s the point of you?” Cian shrugged. “I’m a lucky charm.” Morga giggled. “Get it?” she asked. “You’re Irish, and Lucky Charms?” “I’m not Irish,” said Cian. “You’re magically delicious,” Morga cackled to herself. “Are you still working for Reggie?” Vicki asked, glancing at Dustin over her shoulder. “Now and then,” said Dustin. “But Cleveland isn’t Loudonville High. There’s rules, there’s an infrastructure, and it’s not like I know anybody. Anyway, I’m trying to get a job at the airport, and they do drug tests.” Not using drugs to get a job seemed incredibly grown-up. Getting out of Perrysville was a high priority for everyone who happened to be born there. That Dustin had done it made it look easy, made me confident that I’d get out, too. There wasn’t anything for the people who stayed except drugs and grinding rural poverty. “Seriously, though,” Dustin said. “How are you guys?” He brushed his hand along Vicki’s shoulder as he said this, sliding his fingers under the oversized neckline of her sweater. “Fine,” said Morga. As the youngest we never let her get as high and drunk as the rest of us, so she was always moving faster than we were. “We’re all fine even though you moved to Cleveland, and we didn’t need you here anyway. We’ve got Cian now, he’s the new you.” Both Cian and Dustin looked surprised at this. I was surprised, too, to hear Morga so inelegantly articulate a hurt I’d been trying to ignore. Vicki reached over her shoulder to cover Dustin’s hand with her own, still not looking away from Netflix. “It’s more like,” she said mildly, “Cian is the new me.” “Actually I have a question for you,” I said. I felt sleepy and warm and zen, surrounded by all the people I cared about, with a case of Natty Light in the fridge and the knowledge that I could sleep here on the couch in Uncle Reggie’s doublewide rather than slogging home through the February cold. “What, John?” asked Dustin. “No, no, for Cian.” Cian tilted his head and blinked at me. His brown eyes were warm and liquid, half-hidden by messy bangs. “Can you really, uh, not leave?” Everyone was quiet. Even The Vampire Diaries seemed caught in a dramatic pause. Cian blinked again, then said, “Yes.” The zen drained out of me, and I turned to Dustin. “So is this a thing now?” I asked. “Like, kidnapping?” I could totally play being hard at school—shit, even Morga could play being hard—but basically nothing we did was difficult or scary or cool. Everybody knew my mom was in and out of jail, and people took it for granted that I’d inherited her criminal instability. I sold eighths that were always short, or let rich kids pay me $20 to show up with a bowl and smoke with them while their parents worked. I even kept a straight face while they acted proud of themselves for engaging with the underworld of Ashland County. Tough older kids who’d graduated to meth instead of adulthood knew my name because they all came around to Uncle Reggie’s, and by knowing me they lent me the appearance of their sad, desperate edge. Reggie took a good cut of everything I did, and even though I liked to throw around the phrase “drug dealer,” I didn’t really feel like a person who was hard. Uncle Reggie called himself the King of Ashland County, but no one else did. “Kidnapping’s not really Uncle Reggie’s . . . thing,” said Dustin. “I’m not trying to be dramatic,” said Cian. “But your uncle brought me here from California and I’m not supposed to leave the trailer. So it is kind of a thing, yeah?” “I mean.” Dustin gestured at Cian sprawled out on the couch, a beer in one hand and the other picking at a hole in his jeans. “It doesn’t look like you’re trying very hard to escape.” “He took something of mine.” Cian finished his beer and then crunched up the empty can. “I can’t leave without it.” We waited to hear what object was so important: drugs, money, even a passport, which would explain his almost-accent. Instead he said, “Do you guys have any big bodies of water around here? I mean, big?” “Um, Pleasant Hill Lake,” said Vicki. “I dunno how big ‘big’ is, but it’s big enough to drown in.” “Lake Erie,” added Dustin. “That’s the big one.” A slow grin spread across his face. “Uncle Reggie steal your swim trunks?” Cian ignored him. “Not big enough. I live in the ocean and your uncle stole my skin and now I’m stuck ‘til I get it back. And believe me, I’ve torn this fuckin’ trailer apart looking for it. I don’t think it’s here.” “Your skin,” repeated Dustin. Morga reached out and touched Cian, running her palm along his arm, and he allowed this with only a roll of his eyes. “If you guys help me get it back,” he said, “I can get you the fuck out of here. I can show you what the world looks like from under the sea.”

• • • •

Okay, the thing is, I’ve never done enough drugs to make me crazy. Once, when I ate some shrooms, I thought my body was a mobile city, home to a nest of termites who controlled my every move and whose primary motivation was to cause me pain. And that scared me, right? That my entire life was a lie and I was just this hollow simulacrum. But then like twenty minutes later I remembered I was me, and that everything was fine, and that termites had never been inside me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a really scary, mind-blowing twenty minutes. But that’s the worst it’s ever been. I’ve never sobered up and still believed that crazy things were real, or had one enduring fallacy that followed me from trip to trip. So it was a little bit over the top to have this hot dude only a little younger than Dustin, a dude who seemed cool, who seemed hard, and who also believed something totally insane. It made it hard to take him seriously about Uncle Reggie “kidnapping” him, too. A few days after Cian first used the word “selkie” (which sounded exactly like the kind of word you’d make up while tripping balls), I cut my last class and showed up at Uncle Reggie’s doublewide to find it empty. I was excited to have the whole place to myself, to know that I could smoke in peace and listen to whatever Pandora station I wanted and finally get a break from Vicki and Morga’s goddamn Vampire Diaries. I’d just settled in with a bowl when the door slammed open and Cian trudged out of the snow in bare shoulders and unlaced Chuck Taylors. It wasn’t ’til he walked in that I remembered he wasn’t supposed to be gone. “Hey,” I said quietly. He startled like a deer and blinked at me. “Hey,” he said after a moment, then settled in next to me on the couch, so close that our arms brushed. He was shivering and smiling and there was frost in his hair. “I just stepped out for a minute to cool off,” he said. “Figured nobody’d mind. Don’t tell Reggie, okay? Not that it fucking matters though, yeah? Fucking doesn’t. You want a beer?” He stood up again and brought a couple cans back from the fridge without waiting for an answer, then sat back down just as close. “If you’d told me I’d ever end up living in a trailer in Ohio with a bunch of baby druggies, I’d have told you to fuck off,” he said, almost to himself. “Of course, nobody ever told me that, because who’d’ve thought it up? I mean, drugs are the problem in the first place, yeah? If I didn’t get too high and leave my skin fucking laying around, I wouldn’t be here. There were times when I thought the whole ocean was too small to contain me, and now . . . this.” He spread his arms to take in either the trailer or Ohio or both, and when he settled back down again one of his arms draped over my shoulder, as if he’d left it there by mistake. “Look, it’s not . . .” I tried to remember how it felt when I first started showing up here, when all the people who were my friends now were intimidating strangers and Uncle Reggie—who could be gentle, could be kind—was nothing but a white-trash Fagin in a wife-beater. “And you’re all okay with everything,” he continued. “Drugs again. Otherwise how could Dustin . . . I mean, his girlfriend and his uncle. It’s gross, isn’t it? It’s all sex and drugs in the first place, that’s the problem, yeah. Can I have a hit of that?” Still moving too fast, he undraped his arm and used both hands to cradle the bowl, then exhaled a long stream of smoke. I didn’t want this strung-out California selkie to think badly of us. “It’s a little gross, I guess. But Uncle Reggie takes care of us, you know? I have fucking spending money, something my own mom couldn’t give me even if it occurred to her. And food. He literally feeds us when we’re hungry.” This point was impossible to overstate. Not that I was starving to death at home, but Uncle Reggie fed us all the time, as a matter of course, even if it was just day-old pizza or box mac and cheese. He was the person who’d bought me new socks when all my old ones were full of holes and washed my hoodie when it reeked of weed. He handled the minutiae of caretaking that had so overwhelmed my mom, and he made it look easy. “And it’s different for Vickie, anyway. Sometimes girls just have sex with people they don’t want to. It sucks, but it’s not like some massive tragedy.” “What about boys?” Cian asked. “Do boys ever do that?” “I mean if they get too drunk maybe,” I said. “Go home with a fugly girl by mistake.” “And those are the same thing?” Cian opened the second can of beer as he spoke, the one I thought he’d brought over for me. He set it down next to the first open can and then looked at both of them, bewildered. “Sure,” I said. “Obviously.” “What about you? Have you ever had sex with anybody you didn’t want to?” I tried to put together a story—a girl at school, Emily Summers maybe, who wanted me but that I couldn’t be seen with, on account of she was too fat. She’d fall in love with me while I laughed at her, and out of pity we’d fuck and the whole thing would be a terrible mistake, and Cian would understand then that I was a complicated person, and also maybe a person that other people loved and desired. “I haven’t had sex at all,” I said instead, keeping the words low and close. Cian looked over at me for the first time. His bangs fell down into his face, wet with the melted frost, and I wanted to move them out of his eyes. “I mean, I want to, though,” I said. “It’s not my fault.” Cian laughed as he picked up the two beers and finally handed one of them to me. “It’s like everything I’m saying hits you backwards,” he said. “We’re living in the exact same rooms and seeing the exact same things and living utterly opposite lives.” “Of course a dude like you gets laid all the time,” I snapped, putting the beer down on the table. I pictured him and Vicki, the two most attractive people I knew, tangled up like my favorite YouPorns. Cian’s laughter was loud and mocking; the only other sound in the room was the buzzing of the space heater. “I gotta go.” I stood up, even though what I really wanted was to pass the bowl back and forth. “Oh, c’mon,” Cian called after me. “Stay awhile!” But I slammed the door behind me, angry with him for laughing at my virginity.

• • • •

Morga hunted me down at lunch, abandoning the middle school playground to slog almost a mile and find me smoking a cigarette behind the Loudonville High cafeteria. “I think he’s telling the truth,” she said. She was wearing a goofy striped anorak, her frizzy hair peeking out of the hood in random directions. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Can’t this wait? I don’t want to be seen hanging out with little kids.” “I think Cian’s for real,” she announced. “Like, Uncle Reggie did kidnap him, and he does live in the ocean, and I think he needs us to rescue him.” I felt a surge of tenderness at her sincerity, and also a surge of irritation that I was the person who had to shoot her down. “Look,” I said gently. “I’m pretty sure Cian’s a junkie and I’m definitely sure he’s a liar, and anyway you’re too old to believe in fantasy creatures.” She glared up at me. “I didn’t say he was a fantasy creature. I said he lives in the ocean, which is probably full of homeless people if you think about it.” “Dead homeless people, maybe,” I said, finishing my cigarette and flicking it into a pitiful snow drift. It was too cold for more snow to fall and make everything look nice, and too cold for the shit that was left to melt. “Well I’m getting him out of here,” said Morga. “And you can help me if you want to get out of here, too. Cian said if I get his skin back, he’ll take me to California and I can live on the beach and he can live on the shore and we’ll eat fish and steal beer and keep moving south until there’s never a winter again.” I exhaled and watched my breath cloud up between us. “Do you even like fish, Morga?” She wrinkled her nose and glared at me. “I like tuna noodle casserole.” “Look, just don’t . . .” I started to say, hang out with junkies, but really that precluded her from ever visiting Uncle Reggie’s trailer again, and she was better off there than at home. “Don’t believe crazy shit, okay? Cian’s kinda sad, and sometimes sad people tell themselves stories to feel better. But believing something doesn’t make it real, okay?” “Don’t patronize me,” she snapped. “If you’re gonna help us, then help us. If you’re not, then at least don’t be a dick about it.” She turned and flounced down the road. It even looked like she was going back to school instead of taking off. Morga was a good kid in her own dumb way, and that weird striped anorak was the only spot of bright color against the February grays and browns.

• • • •

How I came to be on Morga’s side of things was by cutting class again. Once upon a time, I tried really hard in school, until I realized no amount of try-hard was going to pay for me to go to college, and that anyway I wasn’t smart enough for scholarships. Not stupid, just not smart enough. It was a shitty, gloomy day, threatening snow and already dusk-dark at 2pm. All the lights in the trailer were on, and it looked cozy as I came up the gravel road. The trailer sat alone on a couple acres of wooded property that wasn’t worth doing anything with, a little less than a mile from the nearest paved road. In the summer, it was a fun place to run around, and Dustin used to organize us into games of cops-and-robbers even after we were way too old, so we could get a good buzz on and chase each other through the woods with all the glee of little kids. Nobody ever tacked the bed sheet back up over the window after Uncle Reggie ripped it down on Cian’s first day, and as I got closer I could make out two figures on the couch: Uncle Reggie and Cian. It took me maybe longer than it should have to see that they were fucking. Cian was on Uncle Reggie’s lap, facing away from him, his body moving in the same rapid pulse as Uncle Reggie’s, his eyes open and a look of utter boredom on his face. And that was what creeped me out even more than Uncle Reggie acting gay all of a sudden: Cian looking like any other kid during a test, after he’s glanced through the questions and realized he doesn’t know the answer to any of them, and that it’s going to be a long, long time until the bell rings. They were doing it on the same stupid couch where we drank and smoked and watched Netflix and talked. For a minute, I had the weird feeling that Cian could see me looking in at them, that his boredom and contempt were directed at me personally, but it was dark outside and light inside and of course he had no idea I was there. I went off the path and walked out into the woods behind the trailer. I didn’t know exactly where Uncle Reggie’s property ended—I had the impression he didn’t, either—but between two dead trees at the bottom of a hill was a big rock that I was just barely strong enough to lift on my own. Underneath was a cheap wooden box, and in the wooden box were two gallon Ziploc bags, a pistol in one and $1000 in the other. Uncle Reggie took me out and showed me the day after Dustin moved away. “You’re the back-up man of the house now,” he said. “This shit is for emergencies only, and if I ever, ever catch you fucking around with any of it in a non-emergency situation, you’ll regret it. But I know you’re a good kid, and that you wouldn’t fucking steal from me. Am I right?” And he made it right by saying it was right. I thought of myself as a secret guardian, and I’d fallen asleep at night imagining drug deals gone wrong and Vicki and Morga in need of rescue. Uncle Reggie’s gratitude, Dustin’s respect, Morga’s worship, sex with Vicki. Cian didn’t figure in: I didn’t know what to do with his sideways glares and casual touches and damp hair. Obviously Uncle Reggie did. I wondered how Morga had known before I did. I had a weird moment as I lifted the rock, when I guessed maybe that was what Morga fell asleep to at night: seeing herself as a rescuer too, saving Cian and maybe Vicki and maybe even me, her villains and mine always different people. I tried to guess what Cian fell asleep to at night, and all I could think of was drowning. The box wasn’t closed tight, and as I lifted it out of the ground I saw that was because it couldn’t close tight. Messily folded over the plastic bags was a thick brown pelt that smelled like musky fur and salt. I pulled it out and held it up in the dim light. It could’ve been a cape or a blanket or a coat, and as I stood there looking at it, snow started to fall. I wrapped it around myself, and it smelled like Cian smelled when he was drunk and leaned over me to grab another beer. The fur was the same color as his hair. I stood in the woods and the snow, wearing someone else’s skin, and I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the ocean.

• • • •

If I was a better person, I guess I would’ve been in more of a hurry, but here’s what makes me not a better person: I liked things the way they were. Before Cian, I’d never had to wonder if Vicki liked sleeping with Uncle Reggie, because it had always been that way. Now I had to wonder all kinds of stupid shit: had he ever slept with Dustin? Morga? Had he been secretly fucking everybody but me? Had he ever tried to sleep with me, and I was just too dumb to notice? Because I was fifteen and lived in rural Ohio and maybe wasn’t as quick to put shit together as I should have been, the word “rape” wouldn’t occur to me for years. It’s not like any of us had a functional family unit to compare to what went on at Uncle Reggie’s. We just felt lucky to be cared for, lucky to be loved. And I would never have used that word, right? But that was what it felt like when Uncle Reggie cooked us food and bought us clothes and gave us weed. So I put it off until Cian and I just happened to be alone, instead of finding a way to make us alone and tell him sooner. “I can get your skin back,” I said, as we sat on either side of the space heater in bare feet. “No you can’t,” he said. “You don’t even believe me.” “I touched your fur,” I said. “It still smelled like the ocean.” He drew up into himself, and then we weren’t two friends hanging out on a slow Sunday morning anymore. He was like the sorry meth-mouthed motherfuckers who came around with nothing to give and that angry hunger that nothing else could fill. “Yeah?” he said, voice tight. “What do you want for it?” And here is what makes me the least better person of all: I understood how Uncle Reggie felt when he got to play God. I knew that Cian would do anything I said, and for a minute I pictured it: me not a virgin anymore, him cooler and older and hotter than me but suddenly less than. I wanted to run my hand through his seal-brown hair, and for him to look at me with the intimacy of fear and respect, with the look that Vicki started wearing more often after Dustin moved away. What I said was: “When you skip town, you gotta take Morga with you. And you gotta take care of her, okay? She fuckin’ adores you.” “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” There was honest surprise in his voice. “I mean it. She’s like thirteen. I’m basically saying you’d have to be her dad from now on.” “Jesus,” said Cian. “That’s a lot to ask, man.” “She can’t stay here,” I said. “You know what kind of shit happens here. And her home isn’t any better.” Cian stared at me, biting the bottom of his lip and looking faraway. “I’m not . . .” he said. “I don’t have a history of being very responsible.” “You start now,” I said, and swallowed. “She deserves better.” He was quiet for a minute, fingers busy picking at the lose threads in the giant knee-hole he’d worn into his jeans. “Yeah,” he said finally. “If I can get Morga to California, I promise to give her a better life than this.” “Okay, then. Get your shit together and follow me.” Cian laughed. “I never had any shit in the first place, yeah? I’ve been ready to go since I got here.” So I led him out back, down the hill to the two dead trees and the Ziploc bags, which had always been meant as an escape plan rather than a rescue— just not an escape plan for us. “Shit,” he said, as I took his pelt out of the box. “I’d never have found it out here. Never.” He held out his hands, and I only hesitated a little bit before I handed it over. Cian wrapped himself up in the fur and skin, laughing with a more sincere sound than I’d heard him make before. He pulled me into a hug, all warm wet skin and cold fur and the smell of salt and sweat. He kissed the corner of my lips, and I clutched him close and kissed him with my mouth open, all awkward teeth, and he let me blunder for a moment. Then he put his arms around me and was careful with his tongue, and other than this I’m totally straight, but that was maybe the hardest I’d ever been. “What the fuck is this,” said Uncle Reggie from halfway up the hill between us and the doublewide. “Nothing,” I said, pulling away and tugging my coat down to hide my erection. “It’s fuck you forever, that’s what it is!” crowed Cian, holding the sealskin up high so that it hung behind him like a cloak. “You’re not the King of Ashland County; you’re just the king of shit!” “I’ll show you shit,” said Uncle Reggie, with a remarkable sense of calm. “Both of you. I thought you were better than this, John.” And the dumbest thing in the world was that I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. “Fuck you,” said Cian again, and as Uncle Reggie kept coming towards us Cian picked up a rock and threw it at him. It missed, but he picked up another and did it again, and this one struck Uncle Reggie in the shoulder. Uncle Reggie broke into a run down the last of the slope and tackled Cian. They sprawled on the ground with Cian’s sealskin haloed around them, and Uncle Reggie brought his fist down on Cian’s face. Cian was tangled up in his skin and tried to throw Uncle Reggie off, but didn’t manage. “Stop it,” I said, not loud enough to matter. Uncle Reggie hit Cian again, and Cian was laughing or yelling or crying, so Uncle Reggie hit him again, and again, until he quieted. “Stop it!” I yelled, and I was really afraid, the way I hadn’t felt for a long time. “You’re hurting him!” Cian smiled up at the sky with bloody teeth, and Uncle Reggie stood up, taking the sealskin with him. “This shit is done,” he said. “Absolutely done. John, get Cian inside and clean him up. I’m going to forgive you both, but I’m not fucking happy about it.” “Give him back his skin,” I said. “I really thought I could trust you like I trusted Dustin,” said Uncle Reggie. “I’ll have to find a new place to keep everything now.” The box was still at my feet, so I bent down and picked up the Ziploc bag with the gun in it. For a country kid, I’d had relatively little experience with firearms, and all it would take to fuck me over now was something as simple as Uncle Reggie not storing this one loaded. “You put that down,” Uncle Reggie snapped, as I took the gun out of the bag. “Give him back his skin,” I said. “Jesus Christ, John. Put that down, I’m not dealing with this right now.” I had to point the gun at Uncle Reggie and say it a third time to make him take me seriously. “Please,” I added, swallowing. “Just shoot him!” said Cian, sitting up with obvious difficulty. Uncle Reggie tossed the sealskin down, and Cian scrambled for it. “Now what?” asked Uncle Reggie. “Do you have a next fucking step here, John? How long are we going to hang out in the backyard while you wait for your little friend to hitchhike out of here?” “Shoot him,” said Cian. “He’s a piece of shit, and he deserves to be shot.” “An hour,” I said. “We’re going to stand out here in the freezing fucking February weather for an hour. Cian, come over here and take this money.” “You little shit,” said Uncle Reggie. “You won’t shoot me. You don’t even know how.” But he didn’t move. Cian came over and took the bag of twenties. “Don’t worry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll take Morga, too.” I listened to Cian’s muffled footsteps as he crossed the snow, and then the gravel road. “You can’t . . .” I said to Uncle Reggie. “You can’t treat people like that. It’s not okay.” He just shook his head. And the weird thing was that I knew I’d hurt his feelings with this betrayal, that he really had trusted me. It was more like forty minutes than an hour when Uncle Reggie spat on the ground and turned to go back inside his doublewide. I let him, and tucked the gun into the waistband of my pants like any other gangster or meth head, and walked home through the gray Sunday afternoon.

• • • •

I didn’t try to go back to Reggie’s after that. He was arrested a couple months later, after a series of anonymous tips about his myriad criminal activities. I imagined Morga and Cian blasting the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office with calls as they traveled west. I tried to text Morga a couple times, but she didn’t answer, and when they threw out an Amber Alert and interviewed everybody about her disappearance, I could honestly say I had no idea where she was. Cian’s name didn’t come up—he wasn’t in anybody’s record books after all. Vicki ran off to Cleveland with Dustin without bothering to graduate from high school first, and Reggie got shipped out to prison. I tried to avoid hearing about him, which was hard because that was all anybody wanted to talk about now that they had to find new sources for their shit. And since I already knew everybody, since I’d spent so much time there anyway, it was easy to set up in Reggie’s old doublewide, to handle not the width or depth of business that he had, but to contribute in my own small way. And unlike Dustin and Vicki and Morga and Cian, it was a long, long time before I got out of Perrysville.

©2015 by Caspian Gray.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Caspian Gray is a used car salesman who has previously worked as a funeral director’s apprentice, a pet nutritionist, an English teacher in Japan, a Japanese teacher in America, and a crystal healing “expert” in a head shop. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he shares a home with a tall man and a small dachshund.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight Honey in the Wound Nancy Etchemendy | 6632 words

For the better part of my life, I have borne the circumstances of Avery Channing’s death in silence, at first because I wished to forget them, later because I doubted anyone would believe the truth, and later still because I feared I might suffer eternal damnation for my part in the whole terrible business. But time has worked a certain alchemy. I have no greater wish than to die with a clear conscience, and the prospect of confessing seems less awful now than it once did. I was only a child. When that is considered, what I did seems easier to forgive. I was ten years old when, on the afternoon of November 13, 1925, we heard a shuffling on the porch followed by a scream and whimpers. I was in the kitchen at the time, arguing with my mother about Lon Chaney’s new movie, The Phantom of the Opera, which was showing at the cinema down the street. Mother said it was hideous trash, and no, I could not go see it. The house was warm and smelled of apple pie. There was a window over the sink, and the reds, oranges, and yellows of the leaves outside were so vibrant that they flowed into the room, permeating it with surreal color. “What on Earth was that?” said Mother, and hurried toward the parlor, drying her hands on her apron. She threw the front door open, never pausing to look through the glass. The things we feared—wars, and sickness, and grief—could not be kept out by doors or locks anyway. Before us stood a clump of sweaty boys. There were four at the bottom of the steps and three on the porch—Charlie Boynton, Will Lowder, and between them their friend, my brother Avery. All of them were scratched and streaked with mud. That wasn’t so unusual. They were twelve and thirteen years old, and boys play rough. The unusual thing was the silence. No jostling, no laughter. Just the whisper of frantic breath. “We . . . we were only playing,” said Charlie. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.” His face was tight with the effort it took not to cry. Only then did I notice that Charlie and Will had their arms under Avery in a fireman’s carry. His hair hung over his eyes in dark, wet strings. His skin looked pale as bone. He was shivering, and grunting with pain. Blood soaked his right pant leg, drip drip dripping onto the gray painted boards in a crimson pool the size of a dinner plate. Mother, it must now be said, knew what it was like to lose a child. My brother George, three years older than Avery, had died in the influenza pandemic at the age of nine. I was very small at the time. I didn’t remember much about him. But I did recall Mother’s eyes on the day of his death. Their emptiness had terrified me, as had the stillness of her hands when I tried to make them hold me. She had the same look about her now, as if she were slipping toward the edge of the Earth, beyond which lay a great and nameless abyss. A lone crow yawped from the branches of the chestnut tree across the street. A gust of wind rattled the leaves, bringing with it the scent of fear. “Mama!” I cried, grabbing at her dress. But Avery wasn’t dead yet, might still be saved, and he needed her more than I did. She helped the boys lay him down on the porch, where the brightening red puddle spread around him. “Hester, go get your father! Tell him to bring his bag,” she said, her voice so twisted with dread that I only knew it was hers by watching her lips. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, glad to turn away and run from Avery’s bone face and Mother’s eyes and the blood. Gumtree was a much smaller town in those days than it is now. There weren’t but a few thousand people in all of Hamilton County, and most of those lived fifty miles north of us in Ferrensburg, which we thought of as “the city.” My father was Gumtree’s only doctor—a lucky thing, you’ll say. Perhaps. Perhaps not. If he had been a grocer or a haberdasher, I do not think the horror would have come to pass. Avery would simply have died, and very probably it would have happened right there on the porch. As it was, I changed the natural course of things by making a headlong dash through the house and down the back steps to the small, separate cottage where my father saw his patients. I found him listening, probably in vain, to the black and shriveled heart of Thomas Thatcher, the owner of Gumtree Bank and Trust, whose flabby, hairy chest I remember to this day. I tried to tell Father what had happened, but all that came out of my mouth was a mishmash of nonsense. It would have been easier for me to sprout wings and fly to New Orleans than it was to tell him to bring his bag. But I suppose my face must have told the story, for he took one look, snatched up his black satchel and tore after me as I headed back toward the porch, leaving Mr. Thatcher all a’sputter. Father had spent time on the Western Front in the Great War, something Mother hadn’t yet forgiven him for. At age 32, he’d been too old for the draft. He didn’t have to go. He volunteered. When George died, Father was four thousand miles away in a hospital tent in Arleux, tending someone else’s son. The war taught him many things, but perhaps the most important was the value of his own children. The next most important was what to do with a leg that looked like Avery’s. With a practiced hand, Father applied a tourniquet. He and the boys carried Avery around to the cottage, where Mr. Thatcher, still buttoning his shirt, beat a hasty retreat. There, they stretched my brother out in the surgery and tied him down while Father sterilized his instruments and scrubbed his hands. Mother scrubbed hers as well, for he had trained her to assist him with such cases, and like it or not, there was no one else who knew how to help. The boys and I were sent out to wait in the little anteroom. There we sat in misery as the fearsome smell of ether drifted out from under the door. While the first hour passed, they told me the story in whispered gasps, their voices rising now and then in spite of them. They had been playing, it turned out, in the Redfield house, long abandoned, boarded up and condemned. On a dare, Avery had crept up the broken, sagging stairs to the second story, where—it was rumored—the glowing ghost of old Mr. Redfield had occasionally been seen peering out a window. There in the shadowy master bedroom he was startled, not by a ghost, but by a large rat that ran out from under the bed. No doubt it had lived unmolested for years in the stuffing of the rotten mattress and was as electrified by the sight of Avery as Avery was by the flash of something horrid and alive festooned in cobwebs. He jumped backwards, landing hard and off-balance on the termite- ridden floor. I have pictured the scene too many times to count—the boards giving way with a splintering crack, his hands scrabbling at wood that came away in them, his scream as he crashed down into the parlor, a milky dust of vermin smut rising around him, bats fluttering from their roosts in the corners of the high ceiling. And above all, how it must have felt when the bone of his leg split and came up like a knife through the muscles and tendons, puncturing the artery. One by one, the boys left to go home to dinners that went largely uneaten. By dusk there was no one left but me. I thought of walking up to the house for some bread and cheese or an apple, but after all that I had seen and heard, monsters lurked in every shadow. So I sat rigid on a hard, white-painted chair listening to the rumble of my stomach and the wind in the trees till fear of the dark overcame my fear of moving, and I got up and lit a lamp. I do not know what time it was when Father carried me to bed. He and our neighbor, Mr. Hoskins, had already moved Avery on a stretcher to a downstairs room in the house near enough to the kitchen so he could be easily nursed. By then, the artery and the wound had been cleaned and stitched closed, the bone set, and a plaster cast applied. And Avery had received a pint of Father’s blood topped off with an injection of morphine. Still, his groans echoed up the stairwell all night long as if from Hell itself. Demons walked my dreams. I woke shivering a number of times. But no one came when I called out. Avery needed our parents more than I. It was to be the unspoken rule for some time to come. Avery’s recovery went well at first. Within twenty-four hours, he was able to eat a little clear broth, and within forty-eight Charlie and Will were allowed to come for a brief visit. Within sixty hours, I was pressed into service reading pulp westerns and playing endless games of checkers with the invalid to keep his mind off the pain. And within seventy-two, Avery had homework from the inimitable Miss Miller, and he and I were quarreling energetically in the usual way. Things were going beautifully. Then one evening he developed a fever. Father had left a hole in the cast so air could get to the wound where the bone had broken the skin, and by the next morning brownish, foul-smelling pus bubbled from it. Our patient lay tossing and turning in sheets soaked with sweat. I thought of Redfield’s house—the poisoned snow of dust laden with rat filth and dry rot sifting down over Avery’s opened skin. Just an infection, you’ll say. Nothing a ten-day course of antibiotics couldn’t cure. But in 1925, antibiotics had not yet been discovered. We were still relying on carbolic acid, scalpels, bone saws, and hope in cases like Avery’s. The word “infection” struck the same fear in the belly then as “cancer” does now. Father had to remove the cast and clean the wound with carbolic while Mother and I did our best to hold Avery still. Even after a dose of morphine and a shot of bourbon whisky, he thrashed and screamed. I held my eyes closed tight and prayed to be forgiven for quarreling with him, and I prayed he wouldn’t die—prayed so hard that for a time the rest of the world receded. Someone called my name. The first time, I heard it as if in a dream; the second time more clearly; and the third time, as my shoulders were shaken by strong hands, I opened my eyes. It was Mother. She pressed a quarter into my hand. “Run to Mr. Ursari’s,” she said. “Bring back a honey comb. Hurry!” “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, and made a dash for the front door, leaping high over the place where Avery’s blood had pooled when they brought him home, traces of which remained. A bank of clouds had rolled in from the north, and a cold wind moaned through the trees. I’d forgotten my coat. Goosebumps rose on my skin. Still I ran and did not turn back. Petrus Ursari’s place wasn’t far, just down the street and around the corner at the edge of town. He lived alone in a tiny house—little more than a shack, really—on three acres of land dotted with beehives, chicken coops, and peach trees. I didn’t know him very well, though I felt as if I did, for my friends and I had spent many hours trying to imagine a history that might explain what had brought him to our town and why he stayed. Though the house was small, it was tidy, and painted bright, unlikely colors—reds and yellows and blues—irresistible to children. Flattened spoons and bits of glass hung from the eves so that every passing breeze made music from them. Mr. Ursari himself wore a braided beard that hid the chestnut brown of his face, and a leather vest incised with vines and flowers the same colors as his house. He didn’t speak much, and when he did, his words were so heavily accented it was hard to make heads or tails of them. His eyes lay like dark eggs in nests of wrinkles, though there was no sign of gray in his jet black hair. As far as we could tell, there was no Mrs. Ursari or any sons or daughters, nor had there ever been. But because of his taciturn nature, no one knew for sure. People in Gumtree returned the favor by not having much to do with him. Mother said he wasn’t “our kind.” Yet he stayed. And everyone bought his eggs, peaches, and honey, for they were famous far and wide for their flavor. You might think it odd for Mother to send me after honey while my brother lay on what she feared might be his death bed. Yet it made perfect sense at that time and in that place. The year Mr. Ursari came to Gumtree, Tom Mumford, a local farmer, sliced his leg with an ax. Father treated the wound in the usual way, but in spite of his best efforts an infection developed and spread. It looked as if Mumford would lose his leg. On the morning of the planned surgery, Father arrived with his tools sharpened and sterilized only to find the infection gone and Mumford seated in bed dining on ham and grits. According to Mrs. Mumford, Petrus Ursari had stopped by the previous evening with a special piece of honeycomb and instructions to pour some of the honey into the wound and give the rest to Mr. Mumford by mouth. A miracle cure, said the wife. Father pooh-poohed this, saying it was more likely the carbolic acid and blind luck had healed the wound. He’d seen spontaneous disappearance of infections in the war, not often, but enough to know it sometimes happened. The fact remained that Mumford’s leg was saved, apparently by gypsy honey, and the story traveled like wildfire. After that, as much of Mr. Ursari’s honey was used on cuts and scrapes as was used on griddlecakes. Not in our house, however, where Father denounced the practice as ignorant and harmful and lumped it in the same general category with the Scopes trial—a sorry illustration, he said, of how little respect his countrymen had for science and reason. When I arrived at Mr. Ursari’s door, I pounded on it with both fists and called his name. But I got no answer. I opened it a crack and called again. Still no answer, so I stepped inside. The house was warm. Something savory simmered in a kettle on a small wood stove. A coppery beam of sunlight found its way through a break in the clouds to spill across a simple table cluttered with bread and green apples. I could not see a single square inch of wall space that wasn’t occupied by some object. Pots and pans hung everywhere, crucifixes, a violin, dried herbs in tied bundles, a mummified frog, a photograph. I stepped closer. The picture showed a family—mother, father, and three children, one a babe in the mother’s arms. They had the stiff look of people dressed in clothes they didn’t wear often, intricate with embroidery and starched lace. The man was Mr. Ursari. Tucked under his arm was the violin. Who were they, I wondered, those others? And why were they not here with him now? Not far from the picture stood a shelf that ran from floor to ceiling. Jars of golden honey were ranked upon it, glowing in the slanted sunlight, each one labeled in careful but indecipherable script. Some of the jars had beeswax combs in them. Others did not. I was about to pick one, trusting to Providence, and leave the quarter on the table when someone behind me said, “Good day. May I be of service?” I knew before I turned around that it was Mr. Ursari. His voice was unmistakable—foreign, musical, tinged with the same sorrow as his eyes. “Oh, Mr. Ursari! Thank goodness,” I said. “I need some honey for Avery. I’m in the awfulest rush.” “Ah, yes, of course,” said Ursari, as if he already knew the whole story, and perhaps he did. In the town of Gumtree, we all knew each other’s business. It’s just that I couldn’t recall any visitors that day who might have carried news of Avery’s condition abroad. He reached a jar from the shelf, not the one I would have taken, and knelt to fold my hands around it. “It is made from the nectar of lilies in a place known only to my bees. This is the last jar. I pray it is powerful enough. But . . .” He held me in a gaze that pierced my heart, his face lined with some unspoken burden. “. . . know that if God wants him, it is best not to stand in the way.” “Thank you. Thank you so much. I have a quarter.” “Keep it,” replied Ursari. “Did you understand what I said?” I nodded, though in fact his warning made very little impression on me at the time. “Thank you. I have to get home.” “Of course.” I turned, back through the door and down the worn stairs, torn by a desire to hurry and the need to be careful of the treasure I cradled in my cold, skinny arms—the last jar of lily honey from a place known only to bees, and the last hope for my brother. Somehow the jar made it home in one piece. My mother whisked it from my hands and administered the first of it to Avery the minute my father’s back was turned. When Father discovered what she’d done, he literally pulled his hair. He shouted at her till she shrank into a corner in tears. The honey wasn’t sterile, he said. It would just make Avery sicker, and she had done a stupid, stupid thing. In his rage, he went so far as to ask her if she wanted their only remaining son to die. Then he went to the cottage and got his instruments, and prepared to amputate Avery’s leg. I hid in my room and sobbed. I did not want Avery to be crippled, nor did I want to be an only child. Neither did I want to think that I had made things worse by going to Mr. Ursari’s. Having been held in Ursari’s dark, sad gaze, I knew he truly thought the honey might cure Avery. A great confusion descended on my young mind, for I had hitherto thought of all adults as fonts of wisdom. Yet there was the wise, good man Ursari giving me honey, and there was the wise, good man my father raging at how wrong that was. Where had the truth gone? This I wondered often in the coming hours. I must have slept awhile, for it was sunset when I awoke. Cherry-red clouds swirled across the sky. I cracked the door and listened for some sound—a laugh, a moan, a sob—that might tell me what it was for which I must now prepare myself. Someone was singing. Very softly. I crept down the stairs, my heart flinging itself against my ribs as if they were a cage. For beneath the scents of cut roses in the entryway, the broth on the stove, the tart leather of Father’s favorite chair, and every other smell in the house, the stink of rotting meat lay like the low drone of flies. When I peeked around the corner into Avery’s sickroom, I could not at first make sense of what I saw. His eyes, ordinarily gas-flame blue, were cloudy gray, staring fixedly at nothing. An ether mask lay on his pillow like some forgotten toy. Father’s instruments, spattered crimson, sat in a tray on a side table. Avery’s leg lay on the bed beside him. Below the scraped knee, it looked powdery and pale as an egg. Above, it looked like spoiled fruit. I say the leg lay beside him advisedly, for that is the literal truth. Father had succeeded in amputating it. But then something had happened—something that made him tear the ether mask from Avery’s face, forget to clean his tools, leave a surgically severed limb in plain sight dripping on the patient’s blanket. Avery had died. Obvious though it was, Mother did not appear to believe it. My brother’s jaw had stiffened in death, but still Mother spooned honey into his mouth, wrenching his teeth apart to do it. “When you wake, you’ll have cake, and all the pretty little horses,” she crooned. “Mama, what are you doing? Where’s Father?” I said. She looked up as if surprised to see me. “Why, Hester, it’s you. I don’t know where he’s gone. Perhaps to see a patient.” She dipped the spoon into the honey jar. “I wonder, could you get me a cup of tea? I can’t leave Avery just now.” I stared hard at the corpse, uncertain what to do. What made her think he was still alive? I leaned closer. With a jerk, Avery’s arm rose two inches off the bed and an inhuman groan issued from his mouth. I squealed and jumped back so fast and so far that I hit the opposite wall, where I cringed, gripped as if by ague. Mother calmly reached out and pushed the arm back down onto the bed. “Yes, Avery, it’s Sister,” she said. “She’s come to see how you are.” Avery moaned again. Only then did it dawn on me that he was saying my name, or trying to. “Hester, what’s the matter with you? Go get the tea, please,” said Mother, and held the spoon to her son’s gray lips. Honey ran down his chin in yellow rivulets, pooling in the hollow of his throat. Picking myself up, I gladly ran for the kitchen. There, I set about stoking the stove and checking the water in the kettle, trying hard to do the job Mother had given me and to think about nothing else. Still, my teeth chattered, and it was not from the cold. I was spooning Darjeeling into the blue china pot when the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs outside froze me in place. I could not turn to peer through the black glass panes of the door. I could not so much as squeak. “Hester?” It was Father. I threw down the spoon and tried to fling my arms around him. But instead of the familiar smell of his soap and the soft wool of his coat and trousers, my face met with hard, gouging corners. His arms were full of books. His hair, which he generally kept neat to a fault, stuck out at odd angles. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed. I took a step backward without meaning to. “Something’s wrong with Avery,” I said. “Yes, I know,” he replied. “You’re making tea?” I nodded. “Would you bring me a cup? I’ll be with Mother.” He moved toward the doorway. I touched his coat sleeve. “Is he dead?” He looked at me, the deep lines between his eyes growing deeper still, his nostrils large and dark, the corners of his handsome mouth drooping. “I don’t know,” he said, and brushed past me with his burden. When the tea was ready, I loaded a tray and carried it to the sickroom. Mother had fallen asleep in the rocking chair, just as well. The honey jar gleamed at her elbow, half empty. Father hunched on the edge of the bed with two books open on his lap and the others stacked at his feet. Now I could see their titles, gleaming gold on the good leather spines. Humphrey’s Remedies. Nature of Living Organisms. The Merck Manual. I poured him a cup of tea and set it in a saucer on the topmost book, Horner’s Physiology of Death. The leg still lay on the bed. I saw quite suddenly that in all that sea of terrors it was the one problem I had the power to solve. That leg had carried me pig-a-back, walked me home from school, run from me in games of hide-and-seek, and climbed the stairs of Redfield’s house to seal Avery’s fate. It ought to be treated better than some forgotten piece of meat. So while Father sought his answers in the written works of rational men, I took an old sheet from the linen cupboard and carefully wrapped the errant limb. I do not know how much a human leg weighs. Avery was not full grown, and what I carried was not his entire leg, some portion of which was still attached to his body. Nevertheless, it was heavy. It took me quite some time just to get my strange parcel out to the garden, and longer still to locate a shovel. The hardest part of all was the digging, which I chose to do in Mother’s rose bed, because I knew the soil was soft there. All of this took place by the light of a lantern in a brisk wind. When I had finished, I removed my muddy shoes, came back into the house, and washed my hands in the kitchen sink. The exertion had done me good. The shivering had stopped, and my mind was clearer. I went straight to the sickroom to see what Father had found out. The books lay scattered across the floor. A few were open, face down, the beloved spines cracked. “Father?” I whispered. But he didn’t answer. He was far too busy spooning honey into Avery’s mouth and onto the open stump of his leg. By the light of the coal oil lamp, I could see that Avery’s muscles had begun to relax a little. His eyes, deep in the sockets of his skull, were closed. His lips had slightly parted to reveal his strong white teeth, which I had long envied. His pallid skin lay draped over the bones of his face like a sheet of melted wax. “Father?” I said again, a little louder. Still he did not respond. His arm moved again and again, spooning the honey. I crept up close enough to touch Avery’s hand. It was cold as snow. It did not move, nor did any other part of him—no rise or fall of lungs, no flutter of veins, no whisper of breath. Surely I had imagined his crying my name, or merely wished it. It was as if something broke loose inside me then. I put my hands on Father’s shoulders and tried with all my child’s might to shake him. I meant to speak in a normal way, but the words would not be spoken. They had to be screamed. “Stop it! Can’t you see he’s dead? Stop!” At last Father responded. “No he’s not.” “He is, he is!” I cried. That is when Avery’s eyelids flew open to reveal the shrunken gray orbs beneath, which he turned on me like a stream of ice water. As I listened in horror, the effigy of a song began to issue from him. “Way down yonder in the meadow, there’s a poor wee little lamby.” I hesitate to say that he was singing, for it wasn’t a human voice. Rather it was a rattle that forced its way up through bubbles of honey. “Birds and butterflies pickin’ at its eyes, crying for its mammy,” he went on—the second verse of Mother’s lullaby. At which point, words abandoned me entirely, and I ran screaming up the stairs to my room, where I bolted the door and jammed a chair against it. After I had lit the lamp, I pushed my bed into the corner of the room farthest from the door, climbed into it fully clothed and pulled the covers over my head. I couldn’t stop shaking, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. The worst of it was that my parents frightened me just as much as poor, ruined Avery. My child’s mind parsed the situation out this way: either they had taken leave of their senses, in which case I was at the mercy of lunatics, or I had taken leave of my own and would be sent to an asylum as soon as someone noticed. Like a dog with a bone stuck in its teeth, I worried the question of what to do, turning and twisting in the dark shelter of the blanket, wetting my pillowcase and my beloved rag doll with tears. I could go find a neighbor— Mr. Hoskins, or Will or Charlie’s mother perhaps—and place myself in their hands. But if I turned out to be the crazy one, this would only hasten my exile to Bedlam. I could run away. I had a small suitcase. There was a large piece of bacon and some potatoes in the pantry that I could take with me to eat. Maybe I could hop a train. But Mother said never to hang about by the tracks, for bad men sometimes idled there, waiting to make trouble for unwary little girls. And besides, there was no moon. The branch of a tree outside my window scritch-scratched against the glass like the bone of an amputated leg. I do not know how many hours passed, for there was no clock in my room. I do not think I slept, lit up as I was with the peculiar energy of hysteria. I can only say that the lamp was still burning when I poked my head out from beneath the covers. There was a sound on the stairs. Not an ordinary sound like Father’s footsteps or a mouse. No. This was a sound like the dragging of a gunny sack filled with things both hard and soft, slither, thud, slither, thud, coming closer and closer to my room. Something scratched at the door. Then the handle of the doorknob rattled. I could not help but look. I saw the knob turn. “Hester, Hester.” It was the bubbling, honeyed voice of Avery’s corpse. “Get away!” I screamed. “Jesus, help me. Please.” This was followed by a heavy thump and a pitiful scrabbling against the wood. I pictured Avery there, having dragged himself up the stairs on his elbows because he had only one leg. Blind. Doing everything by feel, or by following the scent of his sister. I felt as if a heavy board with rocks upon it lay over my heart. My breath came in gasps. I could not imagine how I might help him. I could think only of how I might help myself. Knock him down the stairs? He would just come back up. Cut off his head? It would probably still implore me. It was then that Mr. Ursari’s words came back to me. Know that if God wants him, it is best not to stand in the way. Quite suddenly I knew what I must do. I leaped out of bed, grabbed my coat from the hook in the closet. I would not brave what lay beyond my door. I climbed out the window instead, hiking up my skirt to shinny down the trellis that, in softer seasons, supported the large violet blossoms of Mother’s clematis. Hence I ran through the moonless streets to the house of Petrus Ursari and pounded on his door with both my fists, shrieking like a child banshee, and weeping. Lamplight flared in the window, the door opened, and there he stood, barefoot, lace-trimmed nightshirt stuffed into his trousers, his sad face creased and cloudy with sleep. “Child, what is wrong?” he said, and shepherded me into his dim abode. Soon I was seated beside the stove, my hands wrapped around a cup of hot cider, telling him the whole miserable tale. When I was finished, he said, “Ones you love, it is hard to let go.” I knew somehow by the way he said it that he had done more than his fair share of letting go. “Was it them?” I said, looking toward the photograph of the woman and children. “Were they who you had to let go?” He nodded, gazing not at me but at them, or through them, to the faraway land where they all had once lived together. Without rising, he reached up and took a small, blue bottle from the shelf. He set it on the table before me. It was square like a medicine bottle, and corked. The wax seal was broken. Whatever the bottle contained, it had been used at least once before. “What is it?” I asked. “A liqueur, made from many things, living and dead.” I was afraid to ask what those things might be. Mummified peaches from trees in graveyards? Mashed eyeballs? Toad claws? The water from some haunted stream in the Carpathian Mountains? But those abominations could hold no candle to what came next. “You must rub it on his heart,” said Mr. Ursari. I pressed my hand against the place under which I thought my own heart must lie. “Here, you mean?” But he shook his head, and the lines of sorrow in his face deepened. “The heart itself.” I squinted at him, trying hard to find some subtle and harmless meaning in those awful words, but there was none. I stuttered. “Y . . . you don’t mean . . .” He leaned forward, placed his palms upon the table, and held me in that powerful gaze of his. “The heart itself,” he repeated. “Tell no one. I am sorry. There is no other way.” That is how I came to stand at the top of our stairs at sunrise on a November day, a kitchen knife in one hand and a small blue bottle in my pocket. Avery lay on his side, still as a winter-killed hare, his cheek pressed against the thin carpet. I suppose they had taken off his clothes before the surgery, for he was naked. There were big purple splotches on his back, which I later learned were probably from pooled blood. The stump of his leg was still unbandaged and unclosed, sticky with honey. It stank like the bin behind the butcher shop on a hot day. “Avery?” I whispered. He did not move. My spirits leapt at the possibility that perhaps he was dead well and true after all. I called again. “Avery?” praying he wouldn’t answer. There was no response. “Oh,” I sobbed, and went down on my knees in a paroxysm of pain and gratitude, the knife forgotten. Imagine the purity of my horror when he rolled onto his back and a long, anguished groan escaped his throat. I scuttled backward, my own vocal cords shocked silent. Outside, the first little bit of sun peeped over the horizon. My bedroom door stood open, and through the window came a finger of light. Red as blood, it lay across Avery’s dead face, warming it. I swear a tear rolled glimmering down his cheek. I inched back toward him, my arm stretched out for the knife, and when I got close enough I seized it. I held it in both hands. I still recall how the hard wood of the handle pressed into my skin. “Hold still,” I said, opened my eyes, and did what had to be done. I will not leave you with the details, which are predictably grim, as my knowledge of anatomy was minimal at the time. There was a good deal of fumbling. I will say that when I applied Ursari’s potion as directed, Avery sighed. To this day I believe a pale, glittering shape drifted up from him to meet that crimson shaft of sunlight. Before my parents awoke and discovered my handiwork, I went back to Mr. Ursari’s and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I left the blue bottle and its remaining contents on the porch, the cork stuck in as far as it would go. My father, who was on good terms with the Hamilton county Coroner, arranged the legalities in such a way that no questions were ever asked. I became my parents’ only child, and the love they had once lavished on their sons was thereafter mine, and mine alone. We did not speak of Avery’s death except in the most general terms. Nor did we speak of Ursari’s honey, which we never tasted again, though Mother purchased his eggs—and in season his peaches—every week until the day she died. All this time, it has been as if it never happened. My brother died of an infected wound, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Except for that which I have carried inside me like a heavy stone all these years, and now gladly lay down before you. May I rest as well as he.

©2007 by Nancy Etchemendy. Originally published in The Restless Dead: Ten Original Stories of the Supernatural, Candlewick Press, 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nancy Etchemendy’s novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly for the past twenty-five years, both in the U.S. and abroad. Her work has earned a number of awards, including three Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award. Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural, her collection of short dark fantasy, was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She lives and works in Northern California where she leads a somewhat schizophrenic life, alternating between unkempt, introverted writer of weird tales and gracious (she prays) wife of Stanford University’s Provost. NONFICTION The H Word: A Horde of Holiday Horror Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg | 834 words

Christmastime. Cold white snow outside, warmth from a glowing fire and loved ones inside. A tree beaming with decorations and tinsel. Brightly wrapped presents beneath. A veritable feast of turkey and all the trimmings. The hope of a new year ahead and treasured memories of the year coming to an end. And somewhere, lurking in the shadows, a vicious murderer in a Santa Claus suit, wielding a blood-soaked axe . . . That can’t be right. I’ll start again . . . Mother’s Day. A time to pay loving tribute to the woman that brought you into the world, to share in the joy of life and do her evil bidding as she sends you into the world to murder and rampage through . . . Okay, something is seriously wrong here. Maybe St. Patrick’s Day? No. Well how about Valentine’s Day? Uh-uh. Halloween, that’s it, Halloween! Wait . . . If there’s a holiday, there’s probably a horror film that has built its roller coaster ride of carnage around that date, and if not . . . just wait a little longer. Holidays are sacred times of celebration and tradition. Holidays feed upon and fuel nostalgia and remind us of who we are and what we cherish. And because of that special blend of happiness and harmony steeped in history, they’re the perfect times for murder and mayhem. Seriously? Yes! The horror genre is, after all, about confronting our deepest fears and our darkest taboos, and what better times to do that than on dreamlike days that should remain untainted by our worst nightmares? When we gather together to share a time intended for fun and family, it’s just the right place for a film to subvert all expectations by turning triumph into terror. In the last few decades, holiday-themed horror movies have proliferated, especially during the dual booms in direct-to-VHS and direct- to-DVD releases, and there’s the added benefit of creating a convenient marketing angle by making a movie that can be sold to horror fans as a suitably sinister accompaniment to whatever holiday is just around the corner. When producer Irwin Yablans talks about the development of the seminal slasher film, John Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween, he often notes that they were surprised to learn that no one had yet staked a claim on that most obvious holiday choice for a horror film. It is odd considering that of all the celebrations through the year, Halloween is the most perfectly suited for the genre. In fact, so indelible was that film’s impact with Michael Myers’ first outing, it took a long time before any other horror filmmakers dared tread near October 31st. But beyond that season of witches, ghouls, and goblins, holidays that have nothing to do with horror have often been the best settings for a bit of bloody havoc. Christmas—and the figure of Santa Claus in particular—has been the unlikely setting for numerous harrowing encounters with death and demonic doings, enhancing the irreverent quality that often goes hand in hand with horror. Some credit 1974’s Black Christmas (directed by the late Bob Clark, the same man that would later contribute one of the most beloved family cinema classics, A Christmas Story) with kicking off the “holiday horror” category, and when you add the Silent Night, Deadly Night series, Don’t Open Till Christmas, Gremlins, and countless others, it’s clear that the Yuletide season is the busiest of all when it comes to horror. Like a few of the films already mentioned, many of the memorable murderous holiday outings come from the slasher sub-genre, including movies set on New Year’s (Terror Train, New Year’s Evil), April Fool’s Day (April Fool’s Day, duh), Easter (Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill!), and even birthdays (Happy Birthday To Me)! The tradition continues with recent releases like A Christmas Horror Story and Tales of Halloween, and those two holidays remain the most influential in this sub-category (several movies seem to have specifically seized on the Christmas Krampus legend in particular as fodder). And if Thanksgiving is one of the rare holidays that wasn’t given its due until a few years ago, Eli Roth had covered the Pilgrim feast via a fake but funny (and pitch perfect) trailer included in 2007’s ode to schlock cinema, Grindhouse. If they want to make their mark on the subgenre of holiday horror and become immortalized in articles like this one, future titans of terror might turn their efforts toward finding a festival not yet soaked in blood and guts. Unfortunately, there are precious few left. President’s Day? The Tripper. Memorial Day? Deathdream. Arbor Day? The Happening (no, really). Columbus Day? Hmm!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg is the “Doctor of the Dead,” world-renowned zombie expert and co-author of Zombiemania (one of the first exhaustive guides to zombie cinema; updated edition Zombiemania Rises forthcoming). Blumberg appears in the documentary Doc of the Dead, on TV, radio, online, and teaches the University of Baltimore course “Media Genres: Zombies” that garnered worldwide coverage. A contributor to multiple essay collections on zombies, The Walking Dead, and horror, he has also presented his “Zombies: Monsters with Meaning” lecture at conventions and symposia, and his podcast Doctor of the Dead (doctorofthedead.com) is on iTunes, YouTube, and other podcast apps. Find him on Twitter @DoctoroftheDead. Artist Showcase: Kerem Beyit Marina J. Lostetter | 143 words

Kerem Beyit is a Turkish illustrator, whose work has been featured by Wizards of the Coast, Disney, Paizo Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Lucasarts, Simone & Schuster, and many others. Drawing has been a passion of his ever since he could remember. In his homeland, art is not perceived to be a way to earn a living, therefore it took a while for him to adopt his passion professionally, but since 2004 he has been working in a very disciplined fashion. Book covers, character design and fantasy-themed illustrations in general make up the bulk of his works. Learn more at kerembeyit.daportfolio.com. [Editor’s Note: Typically we would publish an interview with the artist here, but Kerem was not available to answer our questions, so herewith we present solely his art gallery instead. Enjoy!]

[To view the gallery, turn the page.]

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER Marina J. Lostetter’s short fiction has appeared in venues such as InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, and Writers of the Future. Her most recent publications include a tie-in novelette for the Star Citizen game universe, which was serialized over the first four months of 2014. Originally from Oregon, Marina now lives in Arkansas with her husband, Alex. She tweets as @MarinaLostetter. Please visit her homepage at lostetter.net. Interview: Kim Liggett Lisa Morton | 2229 words

Every year at BookExpo, the annual publishing industry trade show, there are a few books that generate an almost audible buzz around the packed convention floor. This year, one of those was a young adult horror book called Blood and Salt, by first-time novelist Kim Liggett. Blood and Salt—the buzz for which continued well past BookExpo, including high- profile mentions in places like Entertainment Weekly—is a complex, beautifully-crafted book mixing horror, romance, history, and a coming-of- age story, released by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in September. It centers on Ash Larkin, a seventeen-year-old New Yorker who tries to rescue her mother from a cult hidden in a Kansas corn field, and the antagonist is Coronado, who in real life led an expedition to Kansas in search of a city of gold. Liggett, who in the past has worked as a singer, spent years working on the book, and has already written the follow-up. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.

You sound like you’ve had some interesting careers in the past—back- up singer, actress, entrepreneur. Have you always written?

This is the first book I’ve ever written—the first anything I’ve ever written. I’m dyslexic, so reading didn’t come easy for me. I learned how to write in order to tell this story.

Overcoming dyslexia to write? How did you do that?

The short answer is acceptance and perseverance. First, I read everything I could get my hands on. I may have read it wrong or misinterpreted the material at times, but I learned to let that go. You don’t have to be a perfect reader to enjoy books. There are certain grammar rules that I’m never going to fully grasp and that’s okay. And the most important element is that I’m incredibly stubborn. If there’s something I really want, I’ll find a way to make it happen.

Okay, we’ve got to know: who are some of the bands you sang back- up for?

I was a studio musician in the 80’s—I worked on everything from punk to country. It was a crazy time.

Since you’ve got two teens of your own, did you read a lot of young adult fiction and become inspired by it?

Absolutely! I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I got completely addicted to the pacing in YA.

Were you very conscious of wanting to use that pacing in Blood and Salt? How did you go about that?

I have a low boredom threshold, which helps. I’m really into the economy of words. I’ll take a gutting three-word sentence over a flowery one-page description any day of the week.

When did you start work on Blood and Salt?

I started thinking about the story about ten years ago, but didn’t fully commit until about five years ago. It took me a year to write the first draft, another year to revise it for submission, two years of revision with my editor, and another year in the cooker at Penguin. Such a long process.

How did you decide your book was finally ready for submission? Did you make use of beta readers?

I did. But towards the end, I had to rely on my inner voice. I knew I’d put in the work. I’d agonized over every word. I was able to let go of the manuscript knowing that I’d done the best work I could possibly do on my own. It was extremely gratifying to have such a strong and immediate response from agents and editors. I knew I was on to something good.

Blood and Salt’s protagonist, Ash, has a little bit of the wild child about her, and that phrase also appears in your biography. How much of Ash comes from you?

A bit. I’m a rebel at heart, but Ash is based on my daughter, Maddie. I originally wrote the first few chapters of Blood and Salt as a love letter to my daughter. She had her first crushing love and I wanted to show her how brave, smart and fascinating I thought she was.

How did you choose the real conquistador Coronado for your villain?

That was a no-brainer. I grew up in a tiny town in Kansas, entrenched in the legend of Coronado. He came to Kansas in 1541 searching for Quivira— the land of gold.

There’s an interesting and very sympathetic thread involving Native Americans running just under the surface of Blood and Salt. What was the genesis of that?

While the rest of my hometown glorified Coronado’s expedition, I always saw it as the beginning of the end for the Quivira tribe. A tragedy.

How much research did you do for Blood and Salt?

Years and years of research, much of which I never had the opportunity to use, but it was vital to the process. I delved into alchemy, sacred geography, the Quivira and their language—I even got a chance to read a transcript of Coronado’s journal from the expedition. The truth is more fantastic than anything I could ever come up with.

Much of the plot hinges on Katia Larkin, a 16th-century alchemist who found the secret of immortality. I wondered how you came up with that name, since it seems to mix European and English, and yet Katia also seems to have ties to Spain . . .

I didn’t want her to be from anywhere specific. I wanted her to be a woman of the world and I wanted her name to reflect that. She was the most fun to write. I’d love to write a prequel just about Katia and how she came to be immortal.

I know that many of your readers—including me!—would love to read that prequel. Can you see yourself writing about Blood and Salt’s characters and world for many years, or do you think you’ll soon be anxious to tell new stories?

I’m already anxious to tell new stories! The prequel is definitely on my list, but that would probably have to be more of an adult book.

The use of scent fills the novel from beginning to end, with the protagonist often identifying other characters by their smells. Why did you decide to focus on scent rather than other senses?

I’ve always been fascinated with perfume, which has its roots in alchemy. It was a natural marriage. I developed a fragrance for each character and each location in the book. It was a captivating way to experience these characters.

Blood and Salt is surprisingly complex, with a wealth of characters, a large cult that has its own rituals and systems, and a backstory that spans five centuries. Did you ever have a hard time keeping track of it all?

YES! I ended up carrying around a giant piece of poster board with me at all times, with the components for each scene on tiny post-it notes. I moved them around endlessly, like a crazy person.

The five different families of Quivira, who come complete with their own architectural styles, reminded me a little of the Hogwarts “houses” in the Harry Potter books. Are different houses or families becoming a trope in young adult fiction?

I can’t speak for the genre as a whole, but for me, I grew up in a community with very distinct neighborhoods—East, West, North, and South. I wanted to find a way to differentiate the families and still stay true to the original inspiration.

Blood and Salt opens with the image of a dead girl hung upside-down above a kitchen table, her blood dripping into a cereal bowl that an oblivious boy is eating from. It’s a great mix of the horrifying and mundane, and is later contrasted by scenes of big supernatural fantasy. Do you enjoy writing both types of horror equally? And did you set out to deliberately contrast the everyday with the cosmic?

It’s one of my favorite aspects of this book, combining the supernatural with the mundane. And I find there’s a natural sweet spot for some surprising levity and humor in those moments.

Both the horror scenes (some of which are wincingly gruesome!) and the eroticism in Blood and Salt are fairly intense. Did you ever have to pull back on either of those elements, given that the book was a young adult novel?

I’m constantly having to pull back. It can get really frustrating. I think there’s a huge rift between what teens are watching on TV and what they’re allowed to read. I will forever be pushing the boundaries.

Do those limitations make you think you’d like to try an adult horror novel one day?

I’d love to write an adult horror book someday, but I’m really drawn to the teen years. I mean let’s face it, is there anything more horrifying than high school?

In the Acknowledgements for Blood and Salt, you say that the book has brought you “the most unexpected career.” Can you talk more about that?

I never thought I would be a writer. I never thought I could be a writer. And now I have four books under contract and more in the works. It’s a beautiful thing.

Do you now see writing as being your permanent career?

I don’t see anything as being permanent. I will always write, that much I know. Whether it’s for publication or not is another matter.

The buzz around Blood and Salt has been massive, and you seem to enjoy meeting fans and working with social media. Is that a skill you already possessed? How important do you think mastering social media is to a writer’s career these days?

I’m not sure. I do it because I enjoy it. I wasn’t on social media until I started writing. It was a great way to meet other writers and learn about the industry. What was the single most important thing you learned?

Keep writing. Don’t get too bogged down in the business end of things. The best thing you can do for yourself is to write your next best thing.

You’ve called Blood and Salt a “duology”—is the second volume already finished?

We’re in the editing phase right now with book two.

Any movie buzz yet (at least that you can talk about)?

Lots of buzz, but nothing concrete yet. Fingers crossed. I’d love to see this story on the big screen.

Would you ever want to try writing a screenplay version of Blood and Salt?

I think I might. I just signed up for my first screenwriting class last week.

You’ve mentioned some darker horror novels you have forthcoming from Tor. Can you tell us anything about those yet?

The first one is titled The Last Harvest. Pitched as Friday Night Lights meets Rosemary’s Baby, it’s the story of 17-year-old former football star Clay Tate, who, as the one-year anniversary of a horrific slaughter approaches, is forced to come to terms with his family’s—and his rural Oklahoma town’s—role in a plot to deliver Satan back to earth.

You recently spent some time in rural Spain. Did that inspire you to explore some new territory in your fiction? I was so inspired. There will be lots of amazing tidbits surfacing from this trip in Blood and Salt book two, but I also started working on a brand new book that I’m extremely excited about. Stay tuned . . .

Have you written any shorter fiction? Do you want to?

I’d love to. I feel like I’m just getting started.

Have your kids read Blood and Salt?

Of course. My daughter cried for days. My son thought it was a little racy, but other than that— all thumbs up.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” Her most recent books include Ghosts: A Haunted History (which The Times Literary Supplement said “excels at presenting us with instances of the persistence of belief, across all times and cultures”), and the short story collection Cemetery Dance Select: Lisa Morton. A lifelong Californian, she lives in North Hollywood, and can be found online at lisamorton.com. AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS Author Spotlight: Damien Angelica Walters E.C. Myers | 1198 words

“The Judas Child” is one of those stories where I’m actually afraid to ask: What inspired it? And how did it evolve from there?

I’m honestly not sure. Of late, most of what I’m writing is solicited fiction written around specific themes. I was struggling with one of those stories and needed to take a break. So I opened a Word doc, stared at it for a bit, and then typed this: Sometimes the world cracks open and a monster emerges. People don’t like to talk about it; they like to pretend that monsters don’t exist. It’s better—easier—that way. But monsters are real, they’re worse than you could possibly imagine, and they’re always, always hungry. Monsters are always fun to write about, right? Of a surety, the world is full of them. After I wrote that intro, I stepped away from the computer to do some brainstorming with notebook and pen. It didn’t take long for the story to take shape, but when I realized where it was going and the underlying metaphor, I almost didn’t write it. Then I asked myself What Would Livia Llewellyn Do? (my recurring mantra when I hold back) and plowed ahead.

Although Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are still current and popular, those references immediately recall my own childhood—and it’s probably rarer today to see kids playing alone at the park. Is there a nostalgic element to this story? Although it really reads as timeless, did you imagine it in a contemporary setting or in the 1980s?

This is where I get to extol the virtues of a good editor. Originally, the boy in the story referred to the others as Blue Cap, Red Shoes, etc., and John Joseph Adams suggested changing those names to reflect familiar childhood characters. Transformers was one of his suggestions. I came very close to using names from Star Wars, but opted to use Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles instead as they aligned more closely time- wise, and picking characters that wouldn’t lock the story down to one specific timeframe was a deliberate choice. With respect to the setting, I see it both ways—from a child’s perspective then and a parent’s perspective now. My hope is that a reader will decide when the story is set according to their own experiences. I’m grateful that John has such a discerning eye. The story worked with the original names, but the changes gave it a richer, more poignant feel. I also owe Brian Keene a thank you, too, and he knows why.

A popular piece of writing advice is “kill your darlings,” but sometimes that’s a challenge even for horror writers. Can you tell us what your favorite line or moment is from “The Judas Child”—or one that didn’t survive to publication?

My favorite line is: The boy knew this made him a monster too. I think it encapsulates the entire story. Although calling the boy a monster isn’t quite fair, given what he’s gone through, but it’s definitely how he thinks of himself. My favorite deleted lines are from the first draft. In one section, the boy was thinking of escape and I wrote this: Other ways to escape:

1. Sleep. 2. Pick the scabs off the bites. 3. Count your heartbeats, until you realize that you’re not sure if you’re counting them from one to whatever or hoping you’re counting down to the end.

I ended up cutting it when I found the right voice to use for the boy and switched the story to third person, but I still like that snippet.

Do you have any particular writing rituals or habits that are either essential to your process or help your creativity?

I used to just sit at my desk and write, but I’ve started relying on things like walking away from the computer to write with a notebook and pen or sitting on my front porch, staring off into space while I mull over stories or characters or sticky points, or working things out while walking the dogs. I think, hope, it’s helped me craft stronger stories.

I was reading your Tweets even before I discovered your fiction. On Twitter, you frequently signal boost other writers and stories that you’ve enjoyed. What are some recent horror novels/stories/authors you think everyone should be reading?

I love talking about good books and stories, and word of mouth is a powerful thing for both readers and writers. With that being said, the best horror novel I’ve read so far this year is A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. It’s beautifully written and unsettling. The Death House by Sarah Pinborough is a very close runner-up. It’s dark and lovely and heartbreaking with an ending I won’t forget anytime soon. With respect to anthologies and collections, I recommend Aickman’s Heirs edited by Simon Strantzas, Skein and Bone by V.H. Leslie, The End of the End of Everything by Dale Bailey, and you can’t go wrong with Ellen Datlow and Paula Guran’s Year’s Bests. Some of my favorite authors working in the genre right now are Helen Marshall, Laird Barron, John Langan, and, of course, the aforementioned Livia Llewellyn. Some of my favorite short stories published so far this year are “Fabulous Beasts” by Priya Sharma )Tor.com, July), “Snow” by Dale Bailey, and “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong, (Nightmare, June and October, respectively).

Now a little more about your own work . . . You’re very prolific, and I see from your website that you have many stories forthcoming as well as a new novel, Paper Tigers. Can you tell us about the book and what readers can expect to see from you soon? Paper Tigers is, at its heart, a ghost story, but it’s about the things that haunt the main character as much as it about the ghosts she encounters. To some degree, it’s also a commentary on the destructive power of society’s concept of beauty. I have short fiction forthcoming in several anthologies including Cassilda’s Song, Chiral Mad 3, Autumn Cthulhu, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu: New Lovecraftian Fiction, and others. A complete list can be found here: damienangelicawalters.com/short-fiction.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and the public library in Yonkers, New York. He is the author of numerous short stories and three young adult books: the Andre Norton Award–winning Fair Coin, Quantum Coin, and The Silence of Six. His next novel, Against All Silence, a thriller about teenage hacktivists investigating a vast conspiracy, is scheduled to appear next spring from Adaptive Books. E.C. currently lives with his wife, son, and three doofy pets in Pennsylvania. You can find traces of him all over the internet, but especially at ecmyers.net and on Twitter @ecmyers. Author Spotlight: Tim Lebbon Sandra Odell | 705 words

“Reconstructing Amy” won the 2001 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. What did it mean to you to have your work recognized by your peers with such an award?

That was very nice, and quite a surprise! I was also up for Best Collection that year, so it was quite an honour sitting at the table and hearing my name read out with so many writers I read and respected. I think that was the year Neil Gaiman turned up with a spider bite on his face. Cool guy.

To me, “Reconstructing Amy” is a love story told through the exploration of grief and pain. What inspired this particular tale?

It’s a long time ago to even remember that . . . I think it was the idea of dolls and how different people imbue them with different meanings. Some people will look at a doll and think it’s cute, others that it’s horrific. I liked the idea of a grieving man finding solace in the strangest of places. Grief can do peculiar things to you.

Dolls are a favorite trope of the horror genre. Hollow eyes, painted faces, bits of stuffing and tattered cloth; dolls are both comfortable and chilling. Here you shake things up a bit and make good use of dolls as vehicles of the supernatural and as agents of grief, turning the trope on its ear. How do you push your own boundaries? How do you challenge yourself as a writer?

I think the first thing I try to do is tell a good story. Pushing boundaries isn’t necessarily on my mind while I’m writing, although I try to be as original as I can. As for challenging myself, I try not to get too comfortable with what I’m working on. If that happens, I’ll slip onto another project for a while, or try a different approach. Being too comfortable can lead to being too laid back, and to write well you always need to be on edge.

You cannot separate horror from the emotional experience. The genre thrives on latching on to the lighter, happier parts of the psyche and dragging them into the shadows. In your opinion, what is it about the thrill of fear that keeps some readers coming back for more?

I think people like being assured that their life isn’t really that bad, and reading something horrendous in a book—which they can then put down and step away from—helps. Maybe. But I’m also cautious not to examine our love of darker themes too much. I just accept it, work with it, and I have that fascination myself, too. I think the more of a thinker you are, the more likely you are to dwell on darker subjects. I’ve heard it suggested that we’re the only intelligent animal that is aware of its own mortality, and for some, the idea of that limited lifespan can be hard to handle. Maybe reading and indulging in horror is the only way to not go mad with it all . . .

“Pay The Ghost” is the most recent of your works to be made into a film (the trailer of which looks fabulous). How do you feel the horror experience differs based on the presentation media (film, written word, audio, video game)?

It’s easier to scare people with a movie, but a novel can be more disturbing. I’ve never jumped while reading a novel, but often do watching something on the screen. Sometimes it’s a cheap jump—a door slamming open accompanied with a jolt of music. Sometimes it’s a more refined effect (the tall guy walking through the door in It Follows). A book can have a longer lasting, more subtle effect.

What scares Tim Lebbon? What gives you shivers in the middle of the night?

Not a lot. I get my fears down on the page. Although I have developed a fear of heights!

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER Sandra Odell is a forty-seven-year old, happily married mother of two, an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. Her work has appeared in such venues as Jim Baen’s UNIVERSE, Daily Science Fiction, Crosssed Genres, Pseudopod, and The Drabblecast. She is hard at work plotting her second novel or world domination. Whichever comes first. Author Spotlight: Caspian Gray Lisa Nohealani Morton | 534 words

What inspired you to write “The King of Ashland County”?

Stories from friends who grew up in various rural Ohio towns, particularly Chillicothe, a small city that’s been in the news this year after a local sex worker put down a serial killer who’d been preying on drug addicts. This is a place that had a vampire scare in the late 1990s, and a friend of mine was stopped by local police on the suspicion that he might have robbed a bank or been living as a vampire. Heroin usage there has risen sharply over the past decade, which is true of most of the Midwest, and very few of these places have the forethought and infrastructure for needle exchange programs, so we’re also seeing sharp rises in completely preventable HIV and Hep C infections. Over and over again, you see this combination of arduous rural poverty and police departments whose ineptitude would be humorous if it didn’t get people killed—the kind of places where anything could happen, but none of it will be good.

“The King of Ashland County” relentlessly strips away any possibility of romanticism from the traditional selkie story to expose the horror underneath: instead of a poor fisherman, Reggie is a drug dealer; instead of finding the skin, it’s strongly implied that he set out purposefully to capture Cian. Were you bothered by the romantic light that selkies are usually cast in?

No. I get bored sometimes, because selkies are almost always women who spend their long periods of captivity in relative passivity. My favorite selkie women burn down houses and murder fishermen to get back to the sea. People still resist seeing men in damsel roles, so male selkies are rare. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single butch selkie of any gender, which would be a delight. Everyone except John (and Reggie, of course) gets something we can imagine as “happily ever after.” Is the line between fairy tales and horror just POV?

Ha! Maybe. I didn’t really think of this as a horror story when I wrote it —it was just kind of sad. Publishers are always releasing new collections of horrific “original” versions of fairy tales, which is ridiculous, because when you’re talking about centuries of oral storytelling we don’t have access to “original” versions of anything. But lots of people prefer versions of fairy tales with the sex and violence turned up to 11, and who can blame them? They’re more exciting that way.

What are you working on these days? Any upcoming publications readers should watch for?

Nope! Just working on a passel of short stories that are all over the place.

You’ve fallen into a teen horror movie. Which archetype are you?

The guy who shows up to the party with a bong and a Ouija board, saying, “What could go wrong? It’s just a game.”

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER Born and raised in Honolulu, Lisa Nohealani Morton lives in Washington, DC. By day she is a mild-mannered database wrangler, computer programmer, and all-around data geek, and by night she writes science fiction, fantasy, and combinations of the two. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, and the anthology Hellebore and Rue. She can be found on Twitter as @lnmorton. Author Spotlight: Nancy Etchemendy Jude Griffin | 1096 words

What was the seed for this story?

I don’t like zombies, perhaps because they scare the bejeezus out of me and have ever since I was a little girl. So this is the first zombie story I’ve ever written and it will probably be the last. You’ll also notice that Avery is not a classic brain-eating zombie. He’s just undead and wishing he weren’t. The impetus for this story was, in some sense, a deal with the devil. Deb Noyes at Candlewick contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to contribute a story for her anthology of zombie stories, The Restless Dead. I would not have considered it, but the pay was very good, and the list of other authors was impressive. So I agreed to contribute, and “Honey” is the result. I should clarify that the devil in this deal is not Deb. It’s the fat check. I had to mull over ideas for a long time before I settled on one I liked. I had just read an article about the curative properties of raw honey, and particularly its ability to aid in the healing of wounds. So that was probably the actual seed. It’s a real thing, by the way. Raw honey is legendary for its ability to cure stubborn wounds, and now there’s scientific evidence to support that folk remedy.

Was Hester always going to be the instrument of Avery’s passing or did you envision other scenarios?

I don’t recall seriously considering any endings except the one in which Hester does the honors. Sometimes a story seems to write itself, and the author doesn’t always know where it’s coming from. This one fits that pattern. One thing I do recall clearly about it is that it felt almost like automatic writing, the supernatural kind. My goal with any ending is to make it seem both surprising and inevitable. And I think “Honey” achieves that. What was the most difficult thing to get right in “Honey”?

Some stories are a royal pain to write—like slugging your way through a quagmire. Others almost write themselves. As mentioned, “Honey” falls into the latter category. It was a pure pleasure to write. I enjoyed researching the period details, and the history and culture of the Romani people. (Petrus Ursari is Romani, more commonly known as gypsy.) Because of its history, the southern U.S. is one of the most fertile settings for horror, and I wanted to set the story there, but I’m not from the south. I needed a region where the dialect would be reasonably easy for a westerner with a good ear to reproduce. So I decided to set the story in Tennessee. Then, as it happened, someone very like Hester Channing took control of my writing faculties when it was time to produce the actual words. Seriously, it felt like that. Nothing about it was difficult.

Why does the mother still purchase eggs and peaches from Mr. Ursari? (I would have thought she would never want to interact with him again.)

Keep in mind that neither of Hester’s parents are particularly sane even before the events described in the story. Her father has spent time in the World War I equivalent of a MASH unit, a sure recipe for PTSD. Her mother has never forgiven him for leaving her to go and help strangers when she needed him at home. And neither of them has fully recovered from the death of their oldest child, which happened while Hester’s father was away in the war. So there’s all this emotional tension from the outset. Then this horrible thing with Avery and Hester happens, and as the story unfolds both parents react in ways that are increasingly off kilter. Hester is the only normal one in the story, and she uses a lot of energy trying to reconcile her parents’ actions with what most people would do under the circumstances. She can’t, of course, because they are getting weirder and weirder. At the end of the story, we see in them almost a psychotic break. They can’t accept what has happened, especially the parts they played in it. Their reaction is to lie to the coroner about it and never speak of it again. In other words, to pretend that it never happened, that Avery died an ordinary death from infection—unfortunate, but nobody’s fault. That would also involve pretending that nothing has changed between them and Mr. Ursari.

What else would you like readers to know about “Honey in the Wound”?

I’m grateful to Deb Noyes for making this story happen, and to the International Horror Guild for recognizing it. Even so, I doubt I’ll ever write another zombie story. This one really gives me the creeps.

Which stories of quiet horror still stick with you?

I think Ray Bradbury was one of the great masters of quiet horror. “Heavy Set” and “Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar” are two of my favorites. If you’re familiar with “The Emissary,” you may have noticed my homage in the scene where Hester waits in her dark bedroom, listening as Avery drags himself up the stairs.

Any news or projects you want to tell us about?

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on a non-fiction YA book tentatively entitled The Horror of Money. It’s slow going, partly because I find nonfiction more difficult than fiction, and because I’m not currently living in a way that allows me to spend hours each day writing. But also because to write meaningfully about money, you have to write about how to live a satisfying life. Complicated. Someone suggested that I try undergoing a Peruvian Quechua despacho ceremony to free myself up and maybe go a little faster. “Despacho” comes from the Spanish word for a letter or missive. The ceremony involves a shaman and various unusual materials. The idea is to send a request to the gods. So that’s next up on my agenda. A first-hand taste of shamanism. What horror writer wouldn’t jump at the chance? Plus, who knows, a story might come out of it. ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She has trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon. MISCELLANY Coming Attractions The Editors | 113 words

Coming up in January, in Nightmare . . . We have original fiction from Sam J. Miller (“Angel, Monster, Man”) and Nisi Shawl (“Vulcanization”), along with reprints by Richard Bowes (“There’s a Hole in the City”) and Tia V. Travis (“Down here in the Garden”). We also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview. It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Nightmare. Thanks for reading! Stay Connected The Editors

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If you enjoy reading Nightmare, please consider subscribing. It’s a great way to support the magazine, and you’ll get your issues in the convenient ebook format of your choice. You can subscribe directly from our website, via Weightless Books, or via Amazon.com. For more information, visit nightmare-magazine.com/subscribe. We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors, and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Nightmare ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! Buying a Bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. Buying either of the half-year Bundles saves you $3 (so you’re basically getting one issue for free), or if you spring for the Year One Bundle, you’ll save $11 off the cover price. So if you need to catch up on Nightmare, that’s a great way to do so. Visit nightmare-magazine.com/store for more information. About the Nightmare Team The Editors

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief John Joseph Adams

Managing/Associate Editor Wendy N. Wagner

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Reprint Editor John Langan

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Art Director Cory Skerry Assistant Editors Erika Holt E.C. Myers

Editorial Assistant Lisa Nohealani Morton

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Webmaster Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios Also Edited by John Joseph Adams The Editors

If you enjoy reading Nightmare, you might also enjoy these anthologies edited (or co-edited) by John Joseph Adams.

THE APOC​ALYPSE TRIP​TYCH, Vol. 1: The End is Nigh (with Hugh Howey) THE APOC​ALYPSE TRIP​TYCH, Vol. 2: The End is Now (with Hugh Howey) THE APOC​ALYPSE TRIP​TYCH, Vol. 3: The End Has Come (with Hugh Howey) Armored Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 (with Joe Hill) Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 [forthcoming Oct. 2016] Brave New Worlds By Blood We Live Dead Man’s Hand Epic: Legends Of Fantasy Federations The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects Lightspeed: Year One The Living Dead The Living Dead 2 Loosed Upon the World The Mad Scientist’s Guide To World Domination Operation Arcana Other Worlds Than These Oz Reimagined (with Douglas Cohen) Press Start to Play (with Daniel H. Wilson) Robot Uprisings (with Daniel H. Wilson) Seeds of Change Under the Moons of Mars Wastelands Wastelands 2 The Way Of The Wizard What the #@&% Is That? (with Douglas Cohen) [forthcoming Aug. 2016]

Visit johnjosephadams.com to learn more about all of the above. Each project also has a mini-site devoted to it specifically, where you’ll find free fiction, interviews, and more.