The Long Way Home

by Richard Chizmar

  MISCHIEF — I’ve always been fascinated with serial killers. How they’re made and how they often exist for years—sometimes decades—living among the rest of us without detection. For me, there is nothing more terrifying.

  The mysterious clearing that Lester Billings stumbles upon in “Mischief” exists in real life. I was taking a walk one autumn afternoon with my family and in-laws around a lake in Pennsylvania when we decided to take a shortcut back to the car. We ended up getting lost for a short time, and that’s when we wandered into the clearing. There was no well and no crumbling building (as there exists in the story), just a stretch of sun-burnt grass and weeds, devoid of any trees and even the barest hint of nature’s beauty. None of the others said a word, but I felt it right away—there was something wrong with the place. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. Something was just off about it, and I was relieved to leave it behind us.

  I’ve thought a lot about that clearing over the years—even dreamt about it a time or two—and I guess I always knew that I would write about it one day. Hopefully, that dreadful place is out of my system now and I can forget all about it.

  Hopefully, it doesn’t work its way into your dreams now.

  THE MAN IN THE BLACK SWEATER — Believe it or not, I had never heard of a “drabble” until Kevin Kennedy asked me to write one last year for an anthology he was editing.

  “What the hell is a drabble?” I emailed, prepared to turn him down.

  “It’s a one hundred word story,” he answered. “Precisely one hundred words.”

  Well, hell, that sounded like fun.

  “Count me in,” I wrote back, and proceeded to not only contribute my own drabble, but a collaboration with my son as well.

  And I was right—it ended up being a lot of fun, a nifty little exercise in word economy.

  ODD NUMBERS — This is an odd one (no pun intended). As much an in-depth character study as a weird tale, I feel a lot of sympathy for the main character in “Odd Numbers.” How could I not? He’s such a decent man living a nightmare existence. Whether that nightmare primarily exists inside his head or is indeed reality isn’t up to me. In the end, that’s your (the reader’s) decision to make.

  Some people have asked how much of this character is based on me. Fortunately, not that much. I admit I do prefer odd numbers over even, and 33 is my favorite number (my jersey number from back in my lacrosse days) and 24 my least favorite number, but I swear I’ve never counted my steps walking to the store, nor do I believe the trees in my back yard are creeping closer to my house. Although, now that I think about it…

  THE HUNCH — Another Frank and Ben story. I really enjoy writing about these two middle-aged detectives and their unique perspective on the world around them. In fact, once I knock out a handful of other writing deadlines, I plan to sit down and write a longer piece featuring Frank and Ben. It will serve as the anchor for a mini-collection of Frank and Ben tales coming later this year from Borderlands Press.

  Frank and Ben, and their very own book of stories. I think they’d like that idea. Well, at least, I think Ben would. I’m sure Frank would find something to bitch about.

  ROSES AND RAINDROPS — Back in the late 1980’s—yeah, I know, many of you weren’t even alive back then—the horror scene was a happening place. New York publishing was booming and there were horror-specific imprints from TOR and NAL and Zebra and Leisure. Each month brought a wide variety of new horror titles, and themed and un-themed mass-market anthologies overflowed bookstore shelves. You could even still find pro magazines like The Twilight Zone and Omni at your local newsstand.

  But, for me, the small press was where the most vital work was being published in the horror genre. You had a proliferation of quality specialty book publishers (Dark Harvest, Ziesing Books, Underwood-Miller, Donald Grant) and semi-pro mags that were every bit as entertaining—and difficult to sell to—as the big boys. I’m talking about The Horror Show, Midnight Graffiti, New Blood, Grue, Deathrealm, and several others. And then there were the really small—but no less enjoyable and devoted—publications like my own Cemetery Dance and Thin Ice and Portents and Doppelganger and Eldritch Tales and many many more.

  If you’re starting to get the picture that the late 80’s was a great time to be a horror fan and writer, you’re right on target.

  I was there. I lived—and loved—every minute of it.

  I sold my first short story in 1987. I was a twenty-year-old college student at the time. The story was a devil-comes-to-small town, Stephen King imitation, and, after only a handful of rejections, it sold to a California-based publication called Scifant.

  I remember that was a very good day.

  Over the next several years, I racked up dozens and dozens of rejections (from pretty much every pro and semi-pro magazine I mentioned above) and many more sales (to most of the smaller publications I mentioned above and a stack of others, including the elegantly-titled Festering Brain Sores magazine).

  In addition to The Horror Show, the magazine I most wanted to land a story with back in those days was Chris Lacher’s New Blood. The magazine looked spectacular and Lacher paid professional rates and had published good stories by many of my favorite authors at the time; guys like Ray Garton (his first short fiction sale, I believe) and Bill Relling and Dave Silva. They were graphic tales that didn’t flinch from violence or sexuality or even downright deviance. It certainly wasn’t my usual fiction flavor, but I was young and energetic and determined to crack the New Blood vault—something I finally did, after more than a dozen rejections, in 1990 with a nasty little tale called “Roses and Raindrops.”

  I remember several things about that special sale:

  Chris Lacher offered some wonderful suggestions that made the story better (I still have the marked-up manuscript in my files);

  It was my biggest sale to date, and Kara and I celebrated with a steak and shrimp dinner;

  I was devastated a short time later when New Blood closed its doors before the story could appear within its pages.

  For reasons unknown to me then and now, I never submitted “Roses and Raindrops” to anyone else after it was returned to me. For over two decades, it sat in my files. Forgotten.

  Until a year or so ago, when I stumbled upon the old, yellowed manuscript—and several others—tucked away in a dusty file at my home office.

  Finding and rereading those old stories—written at a time when Cemetery Dance Publications and my marriage and the birth of my boys and so many other life-altering moments weren’t even a flicker in my mind—truly felt like taking a ride back in a time machine.

  So many amazing memories came rushing over me, and I sat there and let them, remembering my old Apple computer; my dot-matrix printer; my beat-up desk and the first-floor apartment window I used to stare out of when my imagination was really working; the Post Office box I would rush to every afternoon to retrieve my mail; all the rejections; and the acceptances.

  It really was a wonderful time to be young and full of dreams.

  The first manuscript I pulled out and read that day was “Roses and Raindrops.” It was rough around the edges (boy, was it) and very much in the vein of an EC Comics tale (as were most of my early story sales), but it was also something else—it was clearly a product of those heady horror days of the late 80’s, and more importantly, it was fun. When I finished reading it, I decided I still liked the story quite a bit and immediately considered rewriting it.

  I even sat down one afternoon and started. But then I had a change of heart—and a much better idea. I thought: why don’t I send the story to one of the other writers who grew up during that time period and ask them to rewrite it? Someone who was doing the exact same thing I was doing back in the late 80’s—churning out stories and stuffing them in envelopes with return postage and sending them off on their way with a hope and a prayer.

  The first pers
on I thought of in regards to “Roses and Raindrops” was Brian Keene. Talk about a guy who has worked in the trenches and paid his dues. I wasn’t sure if Brian would be receptive (he’s a pretty busy dude), so I was thrilled when he immediately and eagerly agreed to collaborate on the story. He even told me that he’d also been a big fan and had tried to crack New Blood magazine for many years himself. Once I’d heard that, I knew I’d made the right choice.

  “Roses and Raindrops” (man, I still love that title) was finally published in 2016, paired alongside a second “rescued” short story, as an Apokrupha Press chapbook aptly titled, Unearthed.

  STEPHEN KING AT 70: A TRIBUTE TO THE GUNSLINGER — Not much to add about this one. When Anthony Breznican, an editor at Entertainment Weekly—and a fine author himself; check out his first novel, Brutal Youth; it’s an amazing book—asked if I would write a birthday tribute to Stephen King, I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough.

  I didn’t mean to get quite so personal in the piece, but I couldn’t help it. I love the guy.

  THE ASSOCIATION — Yes, I love Bentley Little’s novels and short stories (I even helped to adapt one of his tales for cable television—the wonderfully twisted “The Washingtonians” for Showtime’s Masters of Horror).

  And, yes, I know Bentley published a book some years ago called The Association, and it involved an evil home association.

  So, what in the heck am I doing writing my own evil home association story and calling it “The Association,” you ask? Well, that’s a fair question. And the only answer I have is: I couldn’t help it.

  I had agreed to write a story for an anthology of anti-authority stories, dark tales that flipped a big, fat middle finger at “the man,” and when I sat down to write, this is where my imagination took me.

  I loathe everything about home owner associations. I’m sure some of them are well meaning and properly run by kind and logical folks, but I’ll be damned if I have found one yet.

  THE SCULPTOR — This is the second of two “rescued from the files” short stories published in this collection. I’ve already written at length about the first one, “Roses and Raindrops,” so I’ll try to keep this brief:

  The second manuscript I slid out of the file that long ago afternoon was a lengthier tale called “The Sculptor.” Right away, I remembered that it was my college roommate’s favorite story of mine back then, and that it had never sold, despite dozens of submissions (so much for my buddy’s good taste). To my surprise and delight, I found myself still liking the story. Much like “Roses and Raindrops” it was a simple, fun, throwback horror tale.

  And I had the perfect writer in mind to rewrite it: Ray Garton.

  Remember when I mentioned earlier that Ray had sold his first-ever short story to New Blood magazine? Even at such a young age, Ray was a big deal back then. Still barely twenty years old, his debut novel, Seductions, had already been published in mass-market and Garton classics such as Live Girls and Crucifix Autumn weren’t far behind. Ray was a master at writing about everyday folks down on their luck and faced with otherworldly obstacles. I knew he would be perfect for “The Sculptor.”

  Ray Garton and Brian Keene. I’m immensely grateful to both these guys…not only for years of entertainment and support and friendship, but for answering my calls and agreeing to come out and play with me (and my two stories from a long-ago time).

  Both Ray and Brian are better writers than I am, and these two stories show it. The three of us had a blast, and we hope you did, too.

  MURDER HOUSE SCRIPT — My family and I recently moved into a restored, two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. The house sits on a nice stretch of land with a pond and lots of towering trees and grassy fields. It’s a great place to live and create, and I love everything about it.

  Before my family and I moved in, we (“we” meaning a contractor; I’m not so handy with a hammer and nail) did a major renovation of the interior of the house. The old stonework, and original moldings and hardwood floors remained, but much of the rest was made nice and new and shiny.

  But before we would allow the contractor to take even a single step inside the house, my son, Billy, and I had the exact same thought: we have to film a horror movie in here. It’s old, it’s empty, it’s creepy as hell at night. It’s perfect!

  So, that’s what we did.

  Billy and I spent a couple days in early January writing a short script that worked for the interior of our new house. We hired a local production company to produce and film the movie. We hired actors. And, over one long weekend just before the start of the new semester (three very long nights and one freezing cold early morning), Billy and I co-directed Murder House.

  Friends have asked if we felt strange or even nervous filming such a dark and twisted movie in the house we were about to move into, as if our actions could possibly have somehow cursed our new home before we spent even a single night under its roof. I mean I get where they were coming from with the question. The title of the movie, after all, was Murder House, and it’s not every day you design a huge pentagram inside your attic and surround it with burning candles. But, regardless of their reasoning, Billy and I always just smiled and shook our heads. No, no, we’re not worried.

  Well, maybe just a little bit.

  THE CUSTER FILES — I’ve always loved movies about the Old West. When I was a kid, I often ditched whatever I was doing with friends on hot summer afternoons to run inside and catch a good western on television (I even used to check the TV Guide that was inserted into our Sunday morning newspaper ahead of time so I could mark the calendar that was magneted to our refrigerator with upcoming dates and show times). If a good “shoot em up” was scheduled on a school night, I would beg my parents to let me stay up late. And if the movie featured the U.S. Cavalry fighting Indians on the warpath, even better.

  In my youthful naiveté (nowadays I root for the Indians in my westerns and in real life, too), my hero was the greatest Indian fighter of all-time, General George Armstrong Custer. I was obsessed with the guy. To me, he was brave and brash and a fearless leader. I watched every film that even mentioned Custer in passing, checked out books about his life from the library, and couldn’t even tell you how many history reports I wrote about him for school. I knew dates and places and every other significant detail from Custer’s life, and wanted nothing more than to grow up to serve in the Seventh Cavalry.

  As the years passed, my obsession—like so many other fascinations from childhood that feel like they will live forever—faded and drifted away to the basement of my brain.

  But it never totally left me, and when I was asked earlier this year to write a horror story featuring a real-life historical event, I immediately thought of “Yellow Hair” and the legendary Battle of the Little Big Horn.

  “The Custer Files” is my version of what really happened on June 25, 1876.

  THE LONG WAY HOME — I know people like Charlie Freeman. Broken, unhappy people who have made mistakes and spent the rest of their lives paying for them. Hopeless people who truly believe that they don’t deserve good things because of past sins and transgressions. And it breaks my heart.

  At times, I’ve stepped in and tried to help some of these folks with varying degrees of success. Other times, I’ve just stood by and watched, unable to find the right words to say or the right things to do. It’s a terrible, helpless feeling.

  I set out in “The Long Way Home” to write a fairly straightforward story about a father and a son and the deep canyon of regret that existed between them, but as is often the case with my fiction, things got a little…complicated.

  I like the character of Charlie quite a bit and take solace in the fact that he’s only twenty-six years old when this story takes place. There’s still plenty of time for that big heart of his to lead him to the “good things.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RICHARD CHIZMAR is a New York Times, USA
Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author.

  He is the co-author (with Stephen King) of the bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box and the founder/publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than 35 anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including multiple editions of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award.

  Chizmar (in collaboration with Johnathon Schaech) has also written screenplays and teleplays for United Artists, Sony Screen Gems, Lions Gate, Showtime, NBC, and many other companies. He has adapted the works of many bestselling authors including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Bentley Little.

  Chizmar is also the creator/writer of Stephen King Revisited, and his third short story collection, A Long December, was published in 2016 by Subterranean Press. With Brian Freeman, Chizmar is co-editor of the acclaimed Dark Screams horror anthology series published by Random House imprint, Hydra.

  His latest book, Widow’s Point, a chilling tale about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, Billy Chizmar, is currently being made into a feature film.

  Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, guest speaker, panelist, and guest of honor.

  Please visit the author’s website at: Richardchizmar.com