The Year's Best Horror Stories 21 Read online

  WALK DOWN FEAR’S DARK ALLEY—WHERE EVERY GLIMPSE INTO SHADOW REVEALS TERROR’S GHASTLY FACE ...

  A “bad girl” is taught a lesson no one else in her life will ever forget ...

  A sketch artist takes from his model more than just her likeness ...

  A Vietnam vet survives only to return to a hell worse than any he has ever known ...

  A young woman escapes her abusive past by using some very unorthodox methods ...

  Welcome to the world where nightmares never end. The only passport you’ll need is ...

  THE YEAR’S BEST HORROR: XXI

  Copyright ® 1993 by DAW Books, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Les Edwards

  DAW Book Collectors No. 928.

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  First Printing, October 1993

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  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  Wickerman eBooks

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Limits of Fantasy by Ramsey Campbell. Copyright © 1992 by Ramsey Campbell for Gauntlet 3. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  China Rose by Ron Weighell. Copyright © 1992 by Ron Weighell for Vampire Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Outsider by Rick Kennett. Copyright © 1992 by Rosemary Pardoe for Ghosts & Scholars 14. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Briar Rose by Kim Antieau. Copyright © 1992 by Kim Antieau for Metahorror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Mom School by Rand Soellner. Copyright © 1992 by Rand Soellner for Gathering Darkness, November 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Hyacinth Girl by Mary Ann Mitchell. Copyright © 1992 by Pine Grove Press for Just a Moment, Summer 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Mind Games by Adam Meyer. Copyright © 1992 by Doppelganger for Doppelganger, February 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Mama’s Boy by C.S. Fuqua. Copyright © 1992 by Richard T. Chizmar for Cemetery Dance Magazine, Spring 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Shabbie People by Jeffrey Osier. Copyright © 1992 by Jeffrey Osier for Souls in Pawn. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Ugly File by Ed Gorman. Copyright © 1992 by Ed Gorman for Prisoners and Other Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Eyes Like a Ghost’s by Simon Clark. Copyright © 1992 by Simon Clark for Darklands 2. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Fallen Idol by Lillian Csernica. Copyright © 1992 by William G. Raley for After Hours, Winter 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  And Some Are Missing by Joel Lane. Copyright © 1992 by Joel Lane for The Sun Rises Red. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Welsh Pepper by D.F. Lewis. Copyright © 1992 by D.F. Lewis for Vandeloecht’s Fiction Magazine, Spring 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Tracks by Nicholas Royle. Copyright © 1991 by Nicholas Royle for Interzone, January 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Largesse by Mark McLaughlin. Copyright © 1992 by Mark McLaughlin for The Bone Marrow Review #3. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  City in the Torrid Waste by t. Winter-Damon. Copyright © 1992 by t. Winter-Damon for Bizarre Sex & Other Crimes of Passion. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Haunting Me Softly by H. Andrew Lynch. Copyright © 1992 by Hell’s Kitchen Productions, Inc. for Grue, Summer 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Spring Ahead, Fall Back by Michael A. Arnzen. Copyright © 1992 by Merrimack Books for Palace Corbie, Autumn 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Apotheosis by Carrie Richerson. Copyright © 1992 by Carrie Richerson for Souls in Pawn. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Defining the Commonplace Sliver by Wayne Allen Sallee. Copyright © 1992 by Wayne Allen Sallee for Expressions of Dread #2. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Feeding the Masses by Yvonne Navarro. Copyright © 1992 by Yith Press for Eldritch Tales No. 27. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Sanctuary by Jeffrey Osier. Copyright © 1991 by Buzz City Press for The Silver Web, Spring/Summer 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  The Devil’s Advocate by Andrew C. Ferguson. Copyright © 1991 by Dementia 13 for Dementia 13 #7. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Week Woman by Kim Newman. Copyright © 1992 by Kim Newman for Dark Voices 4. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  A Father’s Gift by W.M. Shockley. Copyright © 1992 by Davis Publications, Inc. for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1992. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  To C. Bruce Hunter

  World’s foremost seeker of the perfect barbecue

  INTRODUCTION: COMING OF AGE

  Watch out! The Year’s Best Horror Stories has turned 21.

  As they say, we have come of age. The series now embarks upon its third decade of collecting the very best of horrors, selected from the many hundreds of nasty creepy depraved terrifying unsettling grim horrifying strange gruesome weird mind-blowing tales published during the past year.

  And, if this past year is any indication, we’re all in for a wild ride by the time The Year’s Best Horror Stories turns 30. The past two decades have witnessed powerful changes within the horror genre. If you’re lucky enough to have them, delve through a file of all twenty-one volumes, and you can follow the rise of such then relatively unknown writers as Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Dennis Etchison, Charles L. Grant, David Drake, and many others. You can also follow the perseverance of an older generation of horror writers (sadly, some of them no longer with us): Manly Wade Wellman, Hugh B. Cave, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Robert Bloch, to name a few. In recent volumes, you can watch the emergence of a new field of horror writers: Wayne Allen Sallee, Joel Lane, D.F. Lewis, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Kim Antieau, Joe R. Lansdale, and many more. You read and decide which of the new talents will become the Grand Masters of the next century.

  Other aspects of change are readily apparent—stylistic as well as thematic. When The Year’s Best Horror Stories first appeared in 1971, markets for short horror fiction were few and far between. Much of what did find print was a bad imitation of the adjective-laden prose of H.P. Lovecraft, who was himself on the cutting edge of horror some four decades earlier. (“Even as I pen this, the polymorphous nacreous mass of putrid blasphemy is macerating my right leg!!”)

  As Lovecraft passed from vogue, the trend shifted toward plotless violence and explicit sex, presumably inspired by the outpouring of countless and interchangeable splatter films. Basic premise: A group of teenagers have sex and show some T&A, then get horribly murdered by some unkillable fiend, who will hang about for another dozen sequels of more of the same. The result was a similar outpouring of small press horror magazines. Good news for beginning writers. Bad news for readers who wanted something more than a few pages in which the expendables have sex and meet gory deaths. (“The typewriter keys began to chew off her youthful breasts, even as the carriage ripped its way down her screaming throat.”)

  Well, I like a good laugh as much as the next person, and I need a sense of humor to wade through the thousands of stories I’ve read over the years for The Year’s Best Horror Stories. However, through it all, I’ve had the very genuine pleasure of finding excellent stories i
n unlikely places, of discovering new and brilliant writers as they emerge from the pack. It makes my job exciting, and my job is to plunge recklessly headlong until I find the best, and then to present the best to you.

  So. Here’s the most excellent news.

  In a field of proliferating small press and Big Press markets, the new horror writers are getting good. They, too, are coming of age. They now write about genuine characters rather than cardboard expendables. Violence, whether graphic or restrained, has become inherent to the story rather than gratuitous. Sexual themes are now being used intelligently and are crucial to the story, as opposed to the teenage wish-fulfillment jerk-off exercises too often seen before.

  I have often wondered how many of the exuberant sex-and-gore writers are actually virgins and are incapable of cutting up a chicken or cleaning a fish. Or peeling a potato.

  Much of this new sophistication in treating violence and sexual themes in horror fiction is due to the fact that the new writers are coming of age. However, the relaxing of taboos has made it possible for writers to explore themes and material that were forbidden not too many years ago. Personally, I have had three stories rejected (then placed elsewhere) because of their sexual themes. Ramsey Campbell in his introduction to “The Limits of Fantasy” (which you are about to read within these pages) explores the area of society-imposed and self-imposed censorship far better than I can, so I’ll leave you to him. I just hope you’re over 21—and have no dependents.

  So, then. Here are 26 stories: the best horror stories of 1992. As usual, about half of the writers presented here have never before appeared in The Year’s Best Horror Stories—proving that the horror genre is a dynamic and changing genre. All types of horror are offered to you here: traditional, experimental, gore, surreal, psychological and psychotic. Screams and shivers. We don’t play favorites here—writers or themes. Horror fiction has no boundaries, defies all categories, sneers at those who would try to tame it.

  Boundaries? We don’t need no stinking boundaries.

  Political correctness? We spit in the milk of political correctness.

  After all, The Year’s Best Horror Stories is 21.

  —Karl Edward Wagner

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina

  THE LIMITS OF FANTASY by Ramsey Campbell

  In the summer of 1974 Michel Parry, an old friend, complained to me that nobody was sending him tales on sexual themes for his black magic anthologies. Aroused by the suggestion, I wrote “Dolls,” which enabled me both to explore what happened to the supernatural story when the underlying sexual theme (not always present, of course) became overt and to write a long short story that was stronger on narrative than atmosphere, a useful preparation for writing my first novel. Michel hadn’t expected anything quite so sexually explicit, and I was amused when his publishers, Mayflower, felt compelled to show “Dolls” to their lawyers for advice. They were advised to publish, and over the next two years Michel commissioned several more such tales from me, including two for a short-lived series of anthologies of erotic horror which he edited as Linda Lovecraft, who was, in fact, the owner of a chain of sex shops and who is one more reason why asking for Lovecraft in a British bookshop may earn you a dubious look. Perhaps the anthologies were ahead of their time because More Devil’s Kisses, the second in the series, was pulped shortly after publication, apparently in response to objections from Scotland Yard. Rumor had it that the problem was a tale reprinted from National Lampoon, involving a seven-year-old girl and a horse. I confess to being more amused than irritated by the ban, much as I felt upon learning that my first novel had been seen (in a television documentary) on top of a pile of books for burning by Christian fundamentalists—something of a compliment as far as I’m concerned. On reflection, though, I think I wasn’t entitled to feel quite so superior about censorship. Though my sexual tales had been, on the whole, progressively darker and more unpleasant, I’d suppressed the third of them, “In the Picture.” It was the initial draft of the story published here.

  At the time (May 1975) I believed I had decided not to revise and submit the story because it wasn’t up to publishable standard, and that was certainly the case. However, the reasons were more personal than I admitted to myself. All fiction is to some extent the product of censorship, whether by the culture within which it is produced or by the writer’s own selection of material, both of which processes tend to be to some extent unconscious. Perhaps the most insidious form of censorship, insofar as it may be the most seductive for the writer, is by his own dishonesty. For me the most immediate proof is that it wasn’t until Barry Hoffman asked me if I had any suppressed fiction that I realized, on rereading “In the Picture,” that my dishonesty was its central flaw.

  One mode of fiction I dislike—one especially common in my field—is the kind where the act of writing about a character seems designed to announce that the character has nothing to do with the author. On the most basic level, it’s nonsense, since by writing about a character the writer must draw that personality to some extent from within himself. More to the present point, it smells of protesting too much, and while that may be clear to the reader, for the writer it’s a kind of censorship of self. I rather hope that “In the Picture” is the only tale in which I succumb to that temptation.

  “In the Picture” follows the broad outline of “The Limits of Fantasy,” though much more humorlessly, up to the scene with Enid Stone, and then Sid Pym begins to indulge in fantasies of rape and degradation which I believe are foreign to his sexual makeup and which are contrived simply to demonstrate what a swine he is—in other words, that he is quite unlike myself. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. In response to Barry Hoffman I treated “In the Picture” as the first version of the story and rewrote it exactly as I would any other first draft, and I had the most fun writing Pym’s boarding-school fantasy, which is at least as much my fantasy as his. For me his presentation of it is both comic and erotic.

  It seems to me that even the most liberal of us employ two definitions of pornography: the kind that turns ourselves on, which we’re more prone to regard as erotic, and the kind which appeals to people with sexual tastes unlike our own and which we’re more likely to condemn as pornographic. In my case the absurdity is that the group of scenarios which I sum up as the boarding-school fantasy (which is obviously as much fetishistic as sadistic) is the only species of pornography I find appealing, and it was therefore especially dishonest of me to include no more than a hint of it when I collected my sexual tales in Scared Stiff. I suppose, then and in my original suppression of “In the Picture,” I was afraid of losing friends, but that really isn’t something writers should take into account when writing. I suspect I was assuming that my readers and people in general are squarer when it comes to erotic fantasy than is in fact the case. Since the publication of Scared Stiff I’ve heard from readers of various sexes that they found parts of the book erotic, and a female reader gave me a copy of Caught Looking, a polemic published by the Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, in which one of the illustrations (all chosen by the FACT designers on the basis that they themselves found the images erotically appealing) is a still from a spanking video made in Britain before such videos were banned outright under a censorship that is fast overtaking the equivalent glossy magazines. (The Spankarama Cinema in Soho, rather unfairly chastised in the Winter 1982/83 Sight and Sound and touched on by association in Incarnate, is long gone; perhaps I should have had a publicity photograph taken under the sign while it was there.) Incidentally, perhaps one minor reason for my reticence was the notion that this sexual taste is peculiarly British, but a day in Amsterdam proved me wrong.

  So I trust this hasn’t been too embarrassing. I haven’t found it so, but then I may sometimes lack tact in these areas: I once greeted a friend I met in a sex shop, who immediately fled. Still, I’m committed to telling as much of the truth as I can, as every writer should be. If we can’t tell the truth about ourselves, how can we presume
to do so about anyone or anything? Secretiveness is a weakness, whereas honesty is strength.

  As Sid Pym passed his door and walked two blocks to look in the shop window, a duck jeered harshly in the park. March frost had begun to bloom on the window, but the streetlamp made the magazine covers shine: the schoolgirl in her twenties awaiting a spanking, the two bronzed men displaying samples of their muscles to each other, the topless woman tonguing a lollipop. Sid was looking away in disgust from two large masked women flourishing whips over a trussed victim when the girl marched past behind him.

  Her reflection glided from cover to cover, her feet trod on the back of the trussed man’s head. Despite the jumbling of images, Sid knew her. He recognized her long blonde hair, her slim graceful legs, firm breasts, plump jutting bottom outlined by her ankle-length coat, and as she glanced in his direction, he saw that she recognized him. He had time to glimpse how she wrinkled her nose as her reflection left the shop window.