Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks Read online

  SCARS AND OTHER DISTINGUISHING MARKS

  By Richard Christian Matheson

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2012 / Richard Christian Matheson

  Background cover image courtesy of Harry Morris

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Photo courtesy of David Slade

  RC Matheson is an acclaimed author and screenwriter/producer for television and films. He has worked with Steven Spielberg, Bryan Singer, Mel Brooks, Stephen J. Cannell, Roger Corman and many others and written and produced over 30 network series and seven feature films including the cult favorites “Three O’Clock High.” He is the president of MATHESON ENTERTAINMENT, a feature and television production company he formed with his father, Richard Matheson. Currently, Matheson is writing and producing several films and adapting and Executive Producing H.G. Wells’ “THE TIME MACHINE” as a four-hour miniseries.

  Matheson is considered a cutting-edge voice in psychological horror fiction and master of the short story. His 75 critically-lauded stories have been published in over 100 major, award-winning anthologies, including multiple times in YEARS BEST HORROR, YEARS BEST FANTASY, YEARS BEST NEW HORROR, THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR and YEARS BEST HORROR STORIES. His highly-praised suspense novel, “CREATED BY,” has been translated into several languages.

  Matheson has investigated multiple paranormal cases with the UCLA Parapsychology Lab, including the infamous house upon which the film, “THE ENTITY” was based. He has been a professional drummer for over thirty years and studied privately with the legendary CREAM drummer Ginger Baker. He has also played with Stephen King’s band THE ROCK BOTTOM REMAINDERS.

  His critically-hailed collection “DYSTOPIA” is available as an eBook from CROSSROAD PRESS. “Stephen King’s BATTLEGROUND,” a collector’s edition that commemorates the EMMY-Winning Stephen King adaptation, starring William Hurt, was compiled and edited by Matheson who also did the script adaptation. It is available from GAUNTLET. Matheson’s surreal Hollywood novella, “THE RITUAL OF ILLUSION” will be published by PS Publishing in 2013.

  Book List

  Created By

  Dystopia

  Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks

  Stephen King's BATTLEGROUND A Commemorative Edition of the Emmy Winning Television Adaptation

  Ritual of Illusion (coming in 2013)

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

  Visit our online store

  Subscribe to our Newsletter

  Visit our DIGITAL and AUDIO book blogs for updates and news.

  Connect with us on Facebook.

  For Mom and Dad.

  Beloved friends,

  gentle guides.

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD by Stephen King

  INTRODUCTION by Dennis Etchison

  THIRD WIND

  THE GOOD ALWAYS COMES BACK

  SENTENCES

  UNKNOWN DRIVES

  TIMED EXPOSURE

  OBSOLETE

  RED

  BEHOLDER

  DEAD END

  COMMUTERS

  GRADUATION

  CONVERSATION PIECE

  ECHOES

  INCORPORATION

  HELL

  BREAK-UP

  MR. RIGHT

  CANCELLED

  MUGGER

  THE DARK ONES

  HOLIDAY

  VAMPIRE

  INTRUDER

  DUST

  GOOSEBUMPS

  MOBIUS with Richard Matheson

  WHERE THERE'S A WILL

  Screenplay from Amazing Stories

  "Magic Saturday"

  FOREWORD

  by Stephen King

  I think there are two kinds of short stories: those of style and those of narration. The short fiction of Anne Beattie serves as a good example of the former, those of Robert Bloch of the latter. Beattie writes about a way of feeling and perceiving; Bloch simply tells stories.

  I prefer stories that are no more than that to stories of style, but that is no more than a matter of taste—I also eat at McDonald's and prefer bowling to tennis. And there are, occasionally, writers who are able to combine both style and story. They are, of course, the best. You get a spectacular view, and you also get to look at it from the back seat of a chauffeur-driven Cadillac.

  Flannery O'Connor comes immediately to mind as the best of these; Faulkner did it sometimes, as in "A Rose for Emily" and "Spotted Horses," but more often used the short story as a stylistic vehicle. Fitzgerald combined style and narration later in his career, but only after he started to need the money. He was not fond of tales like "The Baby Party," published in The Saturday Evening Post. I think it one of his best short stories (and am not alone), but Fitzgerald himself dismissed it as a "rent-payer."

  In the field of fantasy, those writers able to combine story-as-narration with story-as-style are even rarer. First, there are few writers of purely stylistic fiction to start with, because in genre fiction they rarely get published. There are, of course, a few: David Bunch (who has, I think, now ceased to publish), Robert Silverberg, Barry Malzberg, Thomas Disch (whose greatest triumph, at least in my opinion, was a weird piece of short fiction called "Fun with Your New Head"). Most sf/fantasy writers, however, tell straight stories. They may play with cosmic ideas or describe aliens as weird as Lovecraft's storied non-Euclidian angles, but they're stories without much style, for the most part, because that's what the fans want. And, I repeat, there is nothing wrong with fans wanting stories, or with writers being willing to give them.

  But there are a few successful combiners of style and story in this field, as well, many of them women: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, "James Tiptree, Jr.," Ursula LeGuin, Zenna Henderson come to mind . . . and men like the late Theodore Sturgeon, the early Ray Bradbury, Gregory Benford . . . and Richard Christian Matheson.

  Matheson is remarkable because his stories are not novellas like many of Sturgeon's best, or short stories of traditional length like such Bradbury classics as "Small Assassin" and "The Emissary." They are, instead, short, tightly wrapped, and abrupt. The typical Matheson story is like something shot out of a staple gun.

  It's not unusual for younger writers to gravitate toward stories of the vignette or almost-vignette length, but it is very unusual to find that rare combination of style and narrative substance in such stories. They are much more apt to either be stylistic vehicles (usually sophomoric and boring) or Frederic Brown-style shaggy dog stories (also sophomoric and boring . . . unless the author just happens to be Frederic Brown . . . anyone who's read such classic Brown vignettes as "Bugs" knows what I'm talking about) or poorly-jointed things that look like discarded script ideas for the old Twilight Zone show.

  I could discuss the stories that follow, but that would turn what's supposed to be an introduction into either a blurb or a critical review—and this is not the place for either of those things. It would also spoil the finely tuned balance that the best of them achieve, not in spite of their brevity but because of it.

  The stories vary somewhat in execution and effect—a rather too-elegant way of saying that some are better than others. This is to be expecte
d; Richard Christian Matheson is still a young man and still maturing as a writer. But these stories do more than mark him as a writer to watch: they mark him as a writer to enjoy now.

  Stephen King

  Wilmington, North Carolina

  INTRODUCTION

  by Dennis Etchison

  1.

  Once I dreamed a short story. Or rather I saw acted out before me—as I slept—what was already a perfectly-formed story that needed only to be written.

  Actually this has happened to me a number of times. In a couple of cases I have "seen" the typewritten pages of an apparently finished manuscript turning before my eyes; in one instance I managed to wake myself in time to jot down words and lines and paragraphs before they faded in the light, and later my notes proved sufficient for me to reconstruct the story, more as an act of memory than of conscious composition. But it does not usually happen that way. Most of these dreamed stories seem to be happening around me, and the part of my mind that is trained to recognize good source material records their practical value as a matter of course.

  In this particular instance, I dreamed not only the events but a title. Unfortunately I allowed my rational mind to get in the way of a smooth transition to the typewriter. I did not understand what "The Cakework Jesus" meant then, and I have yet to entirely plumb its depth. It had to do with a baker who kills his wife, cooks her body inside a life-sized pastry replica of Jesus Christ, and then distributes this huge cake piece by piece to his customers on Easter Sunday.

  As you might well imagine, I found this dream disturbing. Such is my peculiar turn of mind that I also found it fascinating. After two or three years of thinking about it, I gave up and in a weak moment cheapened it considerably by writing a minor story in the style of EC Comics entitled "Today's Special," about a butcher who has his partner murdered and displays the body parts for sale in his cold case. But because that superficial treatment failed to convey the mystery and power of the dream, I returned to "The Cakework Jesus" again and again. I finally came up with a version entitled "The Dead Line," after encountering an article about medical experiments involving the farming and harvesting of human bodies as a source for organ transplants. A passage from that story begins with these words:

  There is a machine outside my door. It eats people, chews them up and spits out only what it can't use. It wants to get me, I know it does, but I'm not going to let it.

  The call I have been waiting for will never come. . .

  I tell you these things as a way of approaching the subject of imagery, the mysterious and potent heart of the artistic experience.

  2.

  Richard Christian Matheson is a young man, but in less than a decade he may already have published more short stories than I have written in a career that spans an embarrassing number of years.

  I was introduced to his work in Stuart David Schiff's first Whispers anthology. The story was "Graduation," and I admired its grace, originality and accomplished style. Needless to say, I was amazed to learn that it marked his debut. In my life I have been inordinately impressed by a handful of other "first stories"—by Brian Aldiss, Ray Nelson, Vance Aandahl and the senior Richard Matheson, to name a few—and sometimes this has signaled that a major career was in the offing. In the case of Richard Christian Matheson, I was not disappointed.

  His story "Red," for example, seems to me to be an instant classic and a kind of minor masterwork that belongs in a special category of absolutely unforgettable vignettes that includes John Coyne's "The Crazy Chinaman," George Clayton Johnson's "Lullabye and Goodnight," Ramsey Campbell's "Heading Home" and a half-dozen remarkable vignettes by Ray Bradbury. I am tempted to describe "Red" further as part of the present discussion but will restrain myself so as not to lessen its immense impact for those who have yet to read it. Suffice it to say that it deals unflinchingly with an all-but-unbearable moment, and that it does so with an economy of language and an avoidance of emotional excess that only serve to heighten the story's final heartbreaking revelation. Whether it was drawn from an event witnessed in reality or from the shadows of nightmare is something that the author may or may not wish to share. But even if he chooses never to reveal the source, the fact remains that it will almost surely haunt my dreams for the rest of my days.

  Likewise the central images of "Conversation Piece," "Dead End," "Goosebumps," "Where There's A Will" and "Vampire" are so powerful and resonant that they linger after structure and specific language have been forgotten. The last is a tour de force of such breathtaking virtuosity that it became the first story to be selected for inclusion in my anthology Cutting Edge—as how could it not be? When you have struggled with material that is only partially conscious for as long as I have, the appeal of another reckless explorer of the inscape is irresistible; it takes one to know one, so to speak, though his demons are not mine and his methods distinctly his own. Indeed, he achieves time and again in a few deft strokes what I have attempted to much less pointed effect in thousands and thousands of words. And, were the roles reversed, I have no doubt that he could have accomplished such an introduction as this in half the space, with a terseness that would leave us all reeling with admiration for his precision and control.

  In short, this book contains some of the most exceptional demonstrations of the art of the short-short story that I have come upon in recent years. And though the collection as a whole is an incredibly fast and entertaining read, the images that last are as intense as the key metaphors of dreamed poems, as vivid as the most life-altering sequences from films seen in childhood whose titles are now lost to us but which will live in our memories long after their fragile reels have turned to dust.

  3.

  There is a machine outside my door.

  One more point deserves to be made here.

  Richard Christian Matheson is a child of the movie and TV generation, as am I. We probably fell in love with pictures that move at about the same age—for me it happened at ten, when I sat through two showings of Shane and decided before the summer's day was over that I wanted nothing so much as to be a motion picture director.

  It eats people. .

  Richard, however, has done more than wish to be a part of that magical and treacherous industry. Still only in his thirties, he has worked for years, primarily as a television writer, authoring hundreds of prime-time hours and laboring as head writer, story editor or producer on more than a dozen weekly series. More recently, he has moved onto writing and producing for the theatrical market, with two "go" scripts at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Productions, a two-picture commitment with United Artists and another multi-picture deal with Walt Disney Productions. This means that for him the monies to be derived from publishing short fiction are hardly a critical part of his income. And yet, in a town where writers are regarded at worst as slave laborers and at best as necessary evils, he has not only survived but prevailed, at the same time excelling as a literary writer of perfect integrity.

  It wants to get me, I know it does, but I'm not going to let it.

  It should go without saying that I am deeply moved and heartened by his example It gives me reason to hope that I will not be eaten alive by the machine that is Hollywood, which is where I live and work from time to time as part of my perversely unshakable dream of contributing to an art form I love with all my heart.

  The call I have been waiting for will never come, the protagonist of "The Dead Line" thinks to himself shortly before the end, before he makes his escape into morally-defensible territory, knowing that he may very well be destroyed—if not by the machine then by the rigors of his ethical position . . .

  Richard Christian Matheson is living evidence that neither fate is inevitable, that the word itself may indeed be made flesh. Which is and always should have been encouragement, inspiration and nourishment enough, after all.

  Dennis Etchison

  Los Angeles, California

  THIRD WIND

  Andy chugged up the incline, sweatsuit shadowed with perspirat
ion. His Nikes compressed on the asphalt and the sound of his inhalation was the only noise on the country road.

  He glanced at his waist-clipped odometer: Twenty-five point seven. Not bad. But he could do better. Had to.

  He'd worked hard doing his twenty miles a day for the last two years and knew he was ready to break fifty.

  His body was up to it, the muscles taut and strong. They'd be going through a lot of changes over the next twenty-five miles. His breathing was loose, comfortable. Just the way he liked it.

  Easy. But the strength was there.

  There was something quietly spiritual about all this, he told himself. Maybe it was the sublime monotony of stretching every muscle and feeling it constrict. Or it could be feeling his legs telescope out and draw his body forward. Perhaps even the humid expansion of his chest as his lungs bloated with air.

  But none of that was really the answer.

  It was the competing against himself.

  Beating his own distance, his own limits. Running was the time he felt most alive. He knew that as surely as he'd ever known anything.

  He loved the ache that shrouded his torso and even waited for the moment, a few minutes into the run, when a dull voltage would climb his body to his brain like a vine, reviving him. It transported him, taking his mind to another place, very deep within. Like prayer.

  He was almost to the crest of the hill.

  So far, everything was feeling good. He shagged off some tightness in his shoulders, clenching his fists and punching at the air. The October chill turned to pink steam in his chest making his body tingle as if a microscopic cloud of needles were passing through, from front to back, leaving pin-prick holes.