After dinner, Dad invites the father to accompany him on a walk around the property, which the man is happy to do. Mom and the man’s wife clean the table, wash and dry the dishes, prepare the children for bed. All the while, they continue to talk about how desperate everything has become, a conversation that goes on at the table over a couple of cigarettes. The toll all of this is taking on their husbands, they agree, is worrying, but the way Mom discusses Dad, you know she’s thinking about more than the state of the farm. The door swings open, and the women jump. The visiting father is standing there, backlit by the full moon, which has risen and is impossibly large. He stumbles into the house, tells his wife to fetch the kids, he has something he wants all of them to see. He isn’t really coherent. What, Mom says, what’s so important the children have to be wakened? Over Mom’s protests, the wife wakes their children and then herds them toward the door in their nightgowns and pajamas. All the hubbub has roused Mom’s kids, who want to go outside with the others, but she orders them back to bed. By the time she’s managed this, the visitors have all left the house. Mom follows them a couple of steps into the yard, only to stop at the sight of Dad, waiting between two rows of withered corn. As she watches, he turns and starts off into the field, the visiting family proceeding single-file behind him.
For a moment, it looks as if Mom might race after them. She doesn’t. She flees back inside and slams and locks the door. She considers looking out a window, but opts not to. Sometime later in the night, while she’s lying in her bed, the lock opens, the door swings in, and Dad enters the house, cleaning his hands with a cloth.
At daybreak, there’s no sign of either the visitors or their truck. Dad’s bustling around the kitchen, cooking flapjacks and bacon. This does nothing to quell his family’s suspicions. (I almost wrote “your family’s suspicions.”) Mom asks him what became of their guests. Dad hesitates, and it’s obvious he’s inventing an answer. He settles for telling her they departed early, had intentions of reaching Albuquerque by nightfall. In that truck? Mom says. I know, Dad says, but they were determined to try. Mom isn’t happy—she lets Dad and the kids see her displeasure—but doesn’t say anything else. Dad says he’s going outside to work and requests both kids accompany him. By the looks of things, there’s bad weather on the way, and he needs their assistance in preparing for it.
(Lugosi and Fulci obviously had little interest in portraying a real, working farm. Given its size, there should be at least a few farmhands to help with the running of the place, even in the family’s straitened circumstances.)
Later in the afternoon, a dust storm rolls over everything. The sunlight dims, a strong wind kicks up, and soon the air is full of dust. Mom shutters the windows, pushes a throw rug against the bottom of the front door. The whistle of the wind and the hiss of the dust against the house are deafening. She paces anxiously, glancing at the door every few seconds. Finally, someone pounds to be let in, and she rushes to admit them.
It isn’t Dad, or either of the kids. Instead, a man wearing a duster and a cowboy hat, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, asks if he can speak with Mom. She steps back to allow him in from the storm, then pushes the door shut behind him. He lowers the handkerchief and removes his hat, apologizing for the mess he’s making all over her nice clean house. He’s not a young man, but his hair and mustache are still dark. He tells Mom he’s a Texas Ranger, in pursuit of a very bad character. He’s a long way from Texas, Mom says. Yes he is, the man says. It’s just one of the many peculiarities associated with this case, which is of sufficient desperation to necessitate his bypassing the usual pleasantries of conversation with such a fine woman as herself to speak more directly and ask her if she’s seen a particular automobile pass by her property, a big black car of the type he for one could work his entire life and not be able to afford. Mom’s reaction gives the Ranger the answer to his question, but before she can speak, he goes on, telling her the fellow behind this car’s wheel is about as dastardly a villain as he’s encountered in twelve years dealing with such types. The last time he and the Ranger crossed paths, a few days ago, they exchanged gunfire, and the Ranger is reasonably sure he winged the man, using a kind of ammunition the man would find of especial hurt. Mom doesn’t understand what the Ranger means. It doesn’t matter, he says, what does is, with this bullet stuck in him, the man will be more desperate than usual, the way a wounded animal is extra dangerous. Though the Ranger hasn’t seen the rest of her family, if the man he’s pursuing is about, every last one of them is in mortal peril.
Mom leads the guy outside, into the chaos of the dust storm. Together they struggle across the yard to the barn, her holding a shawl over her head, him with one hand on his hat, the other holding a long-barreled revolver. At the barn, they shoulder open the door just enough to allow them to squeeze inside. Once on the other side of it, they push the door closed. Both cough, but the Ranger’s gun is already up, sweeping the barn’s darkened interior. Sure enough, there’s the car, parked at the other end of the space, where the shadows are thickest. Mom calls out for Dad and the kids. The Ranger hushes her and proceeds across the barn. This part happens very quickly. When he reaches the car, he stalks past the blank windshield (which the camera lingers on), past the driver’s door to the rear passenger door. He grabs the handle and hauls the door open, leaping back as a wave of earth pours out of the car. He keeps his gun aimed at the interior of the vehicle as dirt continues to stream onto the barn floor, revealing first a hand, then the sleeve of a black tuxedo jacket, then the breast of a dress shirt into which has been plunged a short length of wood, the broken handle of an axe or scythe, by the look of it. The final thing the dirt slides away from is the face of The Visitor, himself, his eyes open and flecked with soil, his lips drawn back in a snarl, his fangs visible, his mouth stopped up with dirt.
Confused, the Ranger steps away, into the waiting embrace of Dad, who catches him around the throat with his left arm, and seizes the wrist of his gun hand with his right hand. The Ranger struggles, emptying his pistol into the air as Dad brings his mouth to the man’s neck. The Ranger shakes, goes limp, and drops the revolver. Dad lowers him to the ground almost tenderly. He stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and he looks more like you than ever. Mom—who is Leslie, I don’t know how this is possible, but she is—asks him what’s happening. A sound above her startles her, makes her look up to the loft, where she sees her son (who is Porter) crouched over her daughter (Rosemary, and this is horrible, it’s too much), his mouth dark with her blood. Mom screams as Dad advances toward her. The camera zeroes in on her terrified eyes, then on Dad’s blood-smeared teeth, then alternates between eyes and teeth, eyes and teeth, until you grab Leslie by the shoulders and hiss and bring her to you, her neck to your waiting mouth. As she screams again, the screen goes dark.
The movie’s final scene begins with the growl of the Duesenberg’s engine and a close-up of its hood ornament (who is Erzsébet?). From the way the figure is vibrating, it’s obvious the car is on the road. The camera slides along the hood to the darkened windshield, passing through the glass to show us you in the driver’s seat, your right hand resting at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel, the Dracula Ring visible on your middle finger. Over your shoulder, we see the back seat heaped with stalks of corn and dirt. If we freeze the movie so we can study the image, we see part of Porter’s face, his eye closed, where the earth has shifted from it. It’s difficult to say for sure, but you might be smiling.
There’s something else, but I don’t want to write about it right now.
From the outset, the movie was a flop. De Laurentiis wanted Fulci to shoot additional footage, re-edit the thing into a comedy, but the director refused. So old Dino brought in a TV guy to film a dozen new scenes, including a new climax and ending. What resulted went by the new title Qualcosa di Clandestino sta Accadendo nel Grano! Which translates literally as Someth
ing Clandestine Is Happening in the Corn! You could describe it as a sex-farce with vampires, albeit, one whose tone veers wildly. If I’m not mistaken, Karen Russell mentions it in “Vampires in the Lemon Grove.” Poor Lugosi. At least before all of this happened, he was safely dead.
from: Gaetan Cornichon
to: Michael Harket
date: February 3, 2019 11:13 PM
subject: Re: Blood in the Corn
Is this the part where I say, Perhaps it was me?
from: Michael Harket
to: Gaetan Cornichon
date: February 4, 2019 5:18 AM
subject: Re: Blood in the Corn
No, it’s the part where I say it was me. I was sitting in my office chair, hunched over in front of my computer screen, and then I was beside you in the front seat of that car, its interior full of the smells of earth and blood, of leather seats and green ears of corn. The tires hummed on the blacktop as you drove roads winding between dark stands of trees and beside low stone walls. Something tickled my skin, and I saw white letters, words, names and titles and locations rolling over me, you, the car, the closing credits playing on us while you sped along. You didn’t look at me, but I knew you were aware of me there. “Soon,” you said. “Very soon.”
from: Mail Delivery Subsystem
to: Michael Harket
date: February 4, 2019 5:19 AM
subject: Message Not Delivered
There was a problem delivering your message to Gaetan Cornichon ([email protected]). Error Message 417: Invalid Address. Please check the address and try again later.
From BostonGlobe.com | Metro Section
Police Investigating Disappearance of Stoughton Author and Family
By Natsuo O’Brien, Globe Correspondent | February 4, 2019, 4:58 p.m.
STOUGHTON—Police are investigating the disappearance of a writer and his family under what law enforcement officials are calling troubling circumstances. At approximately 8:00 a.m. this morning, one of Gaetan and Leslie Cornichon’s neighbors approached their house in response to what she described as an hour’s worth of unceasing howling by the Cornichons’ dog, Tulip. Finding the front door open, the neighbor (who does not wish to be identified), discovered the dog tied to one of the dining room table’s legs. She also found what she described as a “horrifying” amount of a liquid she suspected was blood at the base of one of the house’s walls. She fled the house, taking the dog with her, and called 911. The police confirmed that the substance at the foot of the wall (which was apparently painted black) was blood; though whether it is human blood, much less, that of the Cornichons and their two children, Porter and Rosemary (ages eighteen and fourteen respectively), has not been disclosed. As of this writing, police have not been able to locate any of the Cornichon family. Since all of their vehicles have been accounted for in their garage and driveway, police are concerned for the family’s safety. Anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts is urged to contact the Town of Stoughton police.
A local celebrity, Gaetan Cornichon is the author of several popular suspense-thriller novels, including Pitchfork Days, Split Rock, and The Book of Bad Decisions. Recently, Pitchfork Days, which Time magazine called the decade’s most frightening novel, was optioned for a movie to which actor Chris Evans is rumored to be attached.
from: Michael Harket
to: Gaetan Cornichon
date: February 5, 2019 7:01 PM
subject: What the Fuck is Going On?
I don’t know what’s happened to your email—to you. It isn’t anything good, is it? I’ve misunderstood what’s been happening, haven’t I? Taken for tropes and narrative conventions what’s been screaming and blood, evaded what’s been staring me in the face from the blank and pitiless screen of my computer. I guess the final question for me is, what is the ring? What exactly is its role in all of this (whatever all of this is)? I don’t think I can stop my research (which I envision as me wandering lost through endless rows of bookcases, navigating a maze of information that refuses to cohere into significance, into an exit), but I suspect it’s not going to bring me the answer to this particular question. So if you have any insight, I would consider it a kindness to a friend. If such a thing means anything to you, anymore.
from: Mail Delivery Subsystem
to: Michael Harket
date: February 5, 2019 7:02 PM
subject: Message Not Delivered
There was a problem delivering your message to Gaetan Cornichon ([email protected]). Error Message 417: Invalid Address. Please check the address and try again later.
from: D
to: R
date: The Advancing Night
subject: The Kindness of Blood
The ring? The ring is the closed circle. It’s Erzsébet. It’s blood and blood and blood. It’s the moon full and the moon dark. It’s the Patriarch with his iron crown. It’s rising and feeding and rising and feeding. It’s the reel of film unwinding. It’s death and death and death, death rolling out ahead in an endless highway. It’s me and you, me on my way to you.
* * *
For Fiona, and for Paul Tremblay
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Rockton thriller series and stand-alone thrillers. Past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Cainsville gothic mystery series, the Nadia Stafford thriller trilogy, the Darkest Powers & Darkness Rising teen paranormal series and the Age of Legends teen fantasy series. Armstrong lives in Ontario, Canada, with her family.
DALE BAILEY is the author of eight books, including In the Night Wood, The End of the End of Everything, and The Subterranean Season. His short fiction has won the Shirley Jackson Award and the International Horror Guild Award and has been nominated for the Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards. He lives in North Carolina with his family.
NATHAN BALLINGRUD is the author of North American Lake Monsters, The Visible Filth, and the forthcoming The Atlas of Hell. Several of his stories are in development for film and TV. He has twice won the Shirley Jackson Award. He lives somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina.
LAIRD BARRON spent his early years in Alaska. He is the author of several books, including The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, Swift to Chase, and Black Mountain. His work has also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. Barron currently resides in the Rondout Valley, writing stories about the evil that men do.
PAUL CORNELL is the writer of the Lychford novellas from Tor.com Publishing, and the creator-owned comics Saucer Country and This Damned Band. He’s also written widely for television and is the cohost of Hammer House of Podcast.
GEMMA FILES was born in England and raised in Toronto, Canada, and has been a journalist, a teacher, a film critic, and an award-winning horror author for almost thirty years. She has published four novels, a story cycle, three collections of short fiction, and three collections of speculative poetry; her most recent novel, Experimental Film, won both the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel and the 2016 Sunburst Award for Best Novel (Adult Category). She has two new story collections from Trepidatio (Spectral Evidence and Drawn Up From Deep Places), one upcoming from Cemetery Dance (Dark Is Better), and a new poetry collection from Aqueduct Press (Invocabulary).
JEFFREY FORD is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, The Shadow Year, and Ahab’s Return. His short story collections are The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, Crackpot Palace, and A Natural History of Hell.
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of such novels as Ararat, The Pandora Room, and Snowblind. With Mike Mignola, he is the cocreator of two cult favorite comic
book series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, and screenplays. Golden cohosts the podcasts Three Guys with Beards and Defenders Dialogue. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family.
BRIAN HODGE is one of those people who always has to be making something. So far, he’s made thirteen novels, more than 130 shorter works, five full-length collections, and one soundtrack album. His most recent books are the novel The Immaculate Void and the collection Skidding Into Oblivion, companion volumes of cosmic horror. His Lovecraftian novella The Same Deep Waters as You is in the early stages of development as a TV series. He lives in Colorado, where more of everything is in the works. Connect through his website (www.brianhodge.net) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/brianhodgewriter).
STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES is the author of seventeen novels and six story collections. His novella Mapping the Interior published by Tor.com won the Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction. Coming next is the novel The Only Good Indians from Saga Press and Night of the Mannequins from Tor.com. Stephen lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.
RICHARD KADREY is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir series. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime,” and is in production as a feature film. Some of Kadrey’s other books include The Grand Dark, The Everything Box, Hollywood Dead, and Butcher Bird. He’s also written for Heavy Metal magazine, and the comics Lucifer and Hellblazer.
CASSANDRA KHAW is a scriptwriter at Ubisoft Montreal. Her work can be found in places like the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. She has also contributed writing to games like Sunless Skies, Falcon Age, and Wasteland 3.
Final Cuts Page 42
