BENEATH
THE SURFACE
SIMON STRANTZAS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD by Matt Cardin
A SHADOW IN GOD’S EYE
IT RUNS BENEATH THE SURFACE
THE CONSTANT ENCROACHING OF A TUMULTUOUS SEA
A THING OF LOVE
OFF THE HOOK
MORE TO LEARN
BEHIND GLASS
IN THE AIR
YOU ARE HERE
THE AUTUMNAL CITY
THE WOUND SO DEEP
THOUGHTLESS
LEATHER, DARK AND COLD
DROWNED DEEP INSIDE OF ME
AFTERWORD: EXCERPTS FROM A WRITER’S JOURNAL
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
— The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
The author would like to thank the following for help deciphering and translating these eldritch manuscripts: Richard Gavin, Stephen Jones, Matt Cardin, Mark Samuels, and most importantly his loving wife, Frances O'Connell.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
A Thing of Love (original version appeared in Nocturne 4)
Off the Hook (original version appeared in Supernatural Tales 10)
Behind Glass (original version appeared in Bare Bone 8)
You Are Here (original version appeared in Supernatural Tales 12)
The Autumnal City (original version appeared in Wicked Hollow 9)
Leather, Dark and Cold (original version appeared in Bound For Evil)
First published by Humdrumming 2008
Reprinted by Dark Regions Press 2010
an oozing brain production © 2015
FOREWORD
BY MATT CARDIN
IN HIS SEMINAL horror fiction anthology The Dark Descent, speculative fiction editor extraordinaire David Hartwell identifies three separate streams or categories into which all horror stories can be classified: moral allegorical, psychological metaphor, and fantastic. He describes stories in the third stream as representing or pursuing “a fabulous, formless darkness.” Such stories, he says, “have at their center ambiguity as to the nature of reality, and it is this very ambiguity that generates the horrific effects... Third stream stories maintain the pretense of everyday reality only to annihilate it, leaving us with another world entirely, one in which we are disturbingly imprisoned. It is in perceiving the changed reality and its nature that the pleasure and illumination of third stream stories lies, that raises this part of horror fiction above the literary level of most of its generic relations.” (David G. Hartwell, The Dark Descent [New York: Tor, 1987], 10.) I quote this passage from Hartwell’s now-classic taxonomy simply to say this: that in Beneath the Surface Simon Strantzas sets out to achieve the very effect Hartwell describes. And he succeeds. For the right kind of reader, meaning one who possesses the peculiar mental-emotional pattern that responds deeply and helplessly to fantastic or weird horror fiction, this book will expand and alter his or her perception of reality in multiple ways, sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic, for the duration of each story. And just as Hartwell indicates, this alteration produces pleasure and illumination—and horror.
I have spent some time considering how and why Simon’s stories should succeed so admirably in this way when so many other stories by other writers fail. After much thought, I think I have arrived at an answer. I’ll say first what I think it is not.
It's not just that Simon writes intelligently, although he certainly does, and this certainly is a major virtue. When he tells a tale that strips away the layers of reality and leaves you staring into a new darkness, he does it deliberately. He knows what he’s about. He’s smart about the effects he creates, and his deployment of the standard elements of fiction—plotting, characterization, tone, style, and so on—in the service of the delicate stylistic, cognitive, emotional, and philosophical effects sought by fantastic horror fiction is both shrewd and sensitive.
Nor is it just that he knows his chosen genre's history quite well and is therefore able to draw upon it for inspiration while achieving a strikingly original result, although this, too, is definitely present and definitely an asset.
No, beyond these admirable qualities, Simon’s success is due to the presence of a unified vision that infuses and underwrites his stories. Simon Strantzas writes in pursuit of a Central Idea. He is gripped by an epic Dark Suspicion about the elemental underpinnings of human existence and reality itself, and his stories are metaphorical explorations and expressions of this Idea, this Suspicion, this Intuition of another order of being that sometimes emerges into view in profoundly troubling, even appalling, ways.
This, at least, is what I gather from reading the contents of Beneath the Surface, and I expect that if you pay attention, you will gather much the same. In several of these stories, most notably "A Shadow in God's Eye," Simon lays out his central vision, or at least a part of it, in explicit detail. In others, including "It Runs Beneath the Surface," "The Constant Encroaching of a Tumultuous Sea," "Off the Hook," and my personal favorite, "Behind Glass"—about an office worker who finds himself drawn into a nightmare of dissolving identity—he does not so much explain the vision as illustrate it. In all cases, his authorial choices are informed by that aforementioned intelligence and deep knowledge of the genre in which he is writing and to which he is contributing a valuable body of original work.
The vision behind the stories appears to center on the idea of a dark force that influences and, sometimes, enters into people. And it changes them, or manipulates them, or enlightens them, or destroys them, or sometimes does all of these things simultaneously. One story, "A Thing of Love," depicts a weirdly warped relationship between a writer and his muse. The ancient concept of the muse, the personal genius, the daimon or daemon—the external force, entity, and/or intelligence that impinges directly on human consciousness with meanings from a metaphysical and ontological beyond, and that inspires writers and artists to produce works that embody these meanings—has become deeply and increasingly significant to me personally as a writer and a human being over the past couple of decades, and I have noticed that it also evokes a powerful sense of fascination and identification in many others who find themselves drawn to supernatural horror fiction. Based on “A Thing of Love” and the other contents of the present book, I don’t think I’m letting my readerly intuition carry me too far astray when I allow myself to speculate that the supervening vision of Beneath the Surface may be a dark version of this very concept. I think I detect the shadow of a vast Dark Muse presiding over the goings-on in Simon's fictional universe. I also think this is just as it should be. Tales of “a formless, fabulous darkness” have always tended to emerge as transmissions from beyond the pale. Sometimes this is part of their subject matter itself. Other times it is merely visible in their overall themes and literary effects. Both approaches are on display throughout Simon’s book.
And so, in sum, I’m quite pleased to introduce this new ebook edition of Beneath the Surface, because the effects, the emotions, the insights, the illuminations, the dark dread and transcendent horror that we’re talking about—this entire subgenre of weird, fantastic horror stories—represent a singularly valuable form of fiction, and this book, with its skillful achievement of such things, represents a valuable addition to the genre. I leave you now in Simon’s care, with a confident prediction that, if you read these tales with the care and sensitivity they deserve, you will find yourself becoming acquainted with many murky truths that always lurk just beneath the surface of life, but that always require a sensitive and skilled guide—someone like Simon Strantzas—to bring them briefly into the light, or perhaps to lead us all briefly into the darkness, so that we can collectively contemplate their grim re
ality and absorb the ineffable lessons they have to teach us.
Matt Cardin
Stephenville, Texas
August 2015
A SHADOW IN GOD’S EYE
THE BURNING SUN stared down yet did nothing to dismiss the grey pallor that had settled over the world.
Herbert checked the address on the tattered flyer again, then looked up at the drab, broken building in front of him. How could it be a church, he wondered, when it looked no different than its boarded-over neighbors? He had walked the short block at the foot of Bathurst Street at least four times, from the CN Rail overpass to Lakeshore Boulevard, but there was no mistake. Within the row of empty buildings, he had found the Church of the Inner Sight.
CAN GOD SAVE US FROM THIS DETERIORATING WORLD? the flyer asked in bold black letters, and beneath the words was a crudely drawn butterfly, its long antennae stretching off the page. In smudged lettering at the bottom of the flyer was written the church’s address and a date and time for the sermon. Something about the flyer spoke to Herbert — perhaps it was the implied message, that there was a God, and that He might finally intervene on humanity’s behalf, or perhaps it was the butterfly, the product of a child’s innocent hand, which gave the illusion of a world where none of the vibrancy had been worn away.
Herbert folded the flyer and placed it in his coat pocket, then put his face to the dirty glass of the building. The only light inside was at the end of a dim corridor, a small rectangle within which Herbert saw shadows move. He pushed the aluminum door in front of him, and it opened without a sound, yet none of the day’s harsh sunlight dared follow him into the darkness.
The corridor was no more than fifty feet long, but it seemed to take forever to walk its length. Inside, the air was cold and damp, and Herbert recognized the smell of rodent-infested abandon at once. When he reached the corridor’s end he found a tiny window set within a heavy door, and Herbert looked through the wire mesh at what lay beyond.
There was a room whose size was impossible to judge in the darkness. A single bulb hung from somewhere above and it cast an unforgiving circle of light. Within that light lay a crescent of folding chairs, and beyond it merely shadows. A handful of grey people were scattered across the seats, all looking as lost as Herbert felt, all waiting for some answer that explained the world or some proof that there was hope left for anyone. Herbert could almost see their tired souls hovering around them, forming a miasma of despair that was thickened by the shadows in the room, and it was only then that he was finally convinced he had found the church.
When Herbert stepped through the door, all the drained faces turned to look at him. He waited, but no one spoke. He cleared his throat and took a seat at the edge of the encroaching shadows. Every dull eye followed him until he sat and then they looked away. Only one pair remained on him, those of an elderly man in a grey stained jacket who sat a few feet away.
“You’re here for the service?”
Herbert nodded.
“Good, good,” he said. “How did you hear about it?”
Herbert removed the folded flyer from his pocket. “This was stuck to the bulletin board at my office.”
The man leaned over and looked at the flyer, squinting his puffy eyes, but he made no effort to touch it. When he was satisfied he had seen enough, he nodded and sat back.
Herbert folded the flyer once more. “How about you? How did you hear about it?
“I had an e-mail forwarded to me. I thought it was junk.”
“But you came anyway?”
“I did.”
A sound distracted Herbert. Within the semi-circle of chairs was a raised platform, and behind it two men worked in the shadows, rearranging large dark objects for some obscure purpose. So much was like that, Herbert mused, so much work done for naught, people rushing like ants to build their tiny doomed houses when there seemed to be nothing but impermanence. Those seated were spared that trap at least, so lost in their own disappointments and immobilized by their failures that they fell away to the fringes of society. Yet those misplaced men were the only ones who recognized that the world was decaying.
They sat around Herbert in drab unwashed clothes, waiting wide-eyed for the service to start. They all wanted an answer as much as he, some prayer for salvation, and the hope in their faces looked strange and off-putting. They all wanted God to provide them the answer, show them a sign that things were not so hopeless, but there was a truth they were all too blind to see. The air felt thick with anticipation, and without warning all the noise stopped and from the shadows at the front of the room the priest stepped into the light.
He was tall, dressed in ill-fitting black clothes that hung like loose skin from his narrow frame. The light above cut sharp lines into his sallow face, further accentuating his dark unkempt beard. Small, ornate glasses rode high on his nose; the lenses tinted just enough to hide the eyes behind them. Yet, the priest had no trouble seeing. He stared with intensity at each member of his sparse congregation.
“Welcome,” he said. “You have all come here because the fire of knowledge burns uncontrolled within you. You see the world is changing, you see the unending religious wars that have taken countless lives, you see the melting of our poles. You see the floods and the hurricanes. You see these things every day and they get worse and worse. And, try as you might, you cannot stop seeing them. They burn within you, these sights. They burn.”
The priest paused, and looked again at each seated man. When his gaze fell upon Herbert he stopped.
“There is something within each of you that you fear losing. Yet, as you lie awake at night worrying about its safety, this world is already busy stealing it away. You each want to find some answer, some solution. You want to be able to put your faith in something and know that things will work out fine. You all need something in which to believe. But there is nothing.”
The priest paused, and raised his face to the light above. The sound of the men working in the shadows was all Herbert could hear. He looked to the mesmerized crowd for reaction, but their grey faces remained inscrutable. The priest stared at them from the raised platform with barely concealed anger.
“We are a weakening race. The fire that drives us is burning out. With it goes our ability to feel, to sense others, to be a part of this world. Given enough time, we will become nothing but puppets of meat dancing across the planet from strings. Then, soon after, we won’t even be that. The fire that drove you here will burn itself out. What’s worse is that none of you see that, otherwise you would not be here looking for hope. God has blinded you all.”
The priest looked once more at Herbert. Then he smiled.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. The Church lives by the will of the Almighty, but cannot subsist solely upon it. There is a plate being passed among you. Please, spare what you can.”
He then cocked his head to the noise of the men working in the shadows and stepped back into the darkness.
Herbert turned to see the collection plate moving too quickly from hand to hand, and when it finally reached him he found nothing there. He looked up at the others leaving, and at the old man straightening his soiled jacket with one hand and rubbing his eye with the other.
“Can you believe it's over already?” the man said.
Herbert made an attempt to shrug. The old man stood aside to let people pass.
“Aren’t you coming?”
Herbert looked down at the collection plate. Its bottom was mirrored to give the illusion of riches, yet empty it reflected only the circular light hanging above.
“In a minute.”
The old man shrugged. “I guess I’ll see you later,” he said, and then left.
Herbert waited until the door was closed before removing some folded bills from his pocket. He placed two in the collection plate and left it on the empty chair beside him. No doubt the workers would retrieve the platter, or perhaps the priest would when he returned. Herbert followed the path of the other men to the door, and was
almost through it when he heard a voice behind him.
“Wait.”
The priest stood at the front of the room, beckoning.
“Please, come sit down.”
Herbert returned warily. The two workers had emerged from the shadows, and he saw only their hunched backs as they folded the vacated chairs. When Herbert reached the raised platform, the priest motioned for him to take a seat, then he followed suit. Even at such a close distance, Herbert saw nothing behind those tinted glasses.
“Why are you here?” the priest asked.
“I saw the ad, and —”
“No, you misunderstand. What is your purpose for being here? What are you looking to find?”
“I — I don’t know.”
“You have no idea?”
Herbert shook his head. The priest smiled again. Behind them, the two men moved closer.
“Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you want to catch a glimpse of what it is you cannot see. You want to look through the veil to understand what only God knows. You want that fire within you to burn brighter, because perhaps then it will light your way through the darkness.”
The priest stood, and then looked down at Herbert for far too long.
“Do you want to see the truth?”
Herbert nodded.
“Good. Then I need you to stand.”
Herbert got to his feet and faced the priest. Under the light, he saw the man’s dark frock was frayed, and the tiny black threads that stood out were fluttering as though a mass of air were rushing towards them. Herbert did not hear his assailants until it was too late. He was thrown to the floor, too stunned to resist, and his eyeglasses flew from his face and skittered into the shadows. The world suddenly became a haze of shapes moving too quickly to discern. He struggled against the strong hands of the two men, but they pinned him easily to the floor. The priest stood above him, haloed by the bright blur that was the overhead bulb, and waited for Herbert to be immobilized before bending close enough to whisper.
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