by Wallace, Amy
3. Wanting a longer vacation than the normal two weeks that fly by before you’ve blinked? Perhaps you and a group of friends want a home away from home for a month or so? Somewhere to relax? Maybe a summer rental is just for you . . .
Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, from The Haunting of Hill House, may well appeal to you and your friends, but as you walk through its ordinary rooms, someone—or something—may take your hand and lead you places you’re not sure you want to go. If you do find yourself a resident there, you might do well to consider parking your car far away from its boundaries to avoid any temptation to do yourself harm. Hill House may not want you to leave. It seeks out lost and lonely souls to keep it company, and that constant companionship will not be good for you. For as Ms. Jackson states in the novel’s first paragraph: “Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.” Don’t say you weren’t warned . . .
4. Been feeling a little under the weather of late? Needing a vacation full of brisk air and cliff-top walks? Are your lungs crying out for the salty tang of fresh sea air? Beware . . . some seaside towns aren’t so good for your health. . . .
A. Two towns spring to mind in this category. The first is Innsmouth, Massachusetts (from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” by H. P. Lovecraft). Should you wander too far into this town and find yourself tempted to stay, be warned that interbreeding is the norm in this quaint town, and we’re not talking about mixing genes with the neighboring village. The Deep Ones want to interbreed, and if you’re not willing to go that far, you may well find that the locals sacrifice you for endless gold and fish. And getting there can be difficult. As one traveller was told: “You could take the old bus, I suppose . . . but it ain’t much thought of hereabouts. It goes through Innsmouth—you may have heard about that—and so the people don’t like it.”
B. Second comes Whitby, in Yorkshire, one of the easier places to find on this list because it actually exists on a map. If you look across the harbor toward East Cliff, you will be able to see the view that inspired Bram Stoker while writing Dracula during his stay in the Royal Hotel. I can think of nowhere spookier than an old-fashioned English seaside town, and it was in this sleepy town that Count Dracula first landed on British soil and disappeared in dog-form into the graveyard. Cold, English sea mists and vampires . . . what more could you want in a town? It’s top of my list for a romantic weekend away, but so far no man seems keen. Funny that . . .
5. To the Brit abroad, small-town America holds a massive holiday appeal. We imagine loading up our Winnebago and touring the States for months on end, stopping in at roadside diners that really do sell homemade apple pie and capturing some real American life away from the bigger cosmopolitan cities. However, should you find yourself cruising through Maine and see a casual sign for either of the next two towns, just keep your eyes on the road and the wheels straight ahead . . .
Castle Rock is a name that needs no introduction and should already be a place most horror fans have visited and revisited on occasion. On the surface, this is a typical small New England town, but as its founder is Stephen King, it comes as no surprise to discover that it’s the home to several dark secrets. It first appeared in The Dead Zone and ended in the deliciously dark Needful Things.
Derry is another town which brings a nervous smile of familiarity to the faces of any ardent horror aficionado and is a place I just can’t stop myself popping in on from time to time, but it isn’t one for the faint-hearted. Bad things happen in Derry. It is the defining Derry novel, although Insomnia and Bag of Bones are also both (in some part) set there. If you do by accident turn off the interstate and find yourself there, avoid the following locations:
29 Neibolt Street (Bad things can be found under the porch.)
Kitchener Ironworks (It hangs out here a lot: When not killing kids, It hibernates here.)
The Standpipe (Apparently destroyed, but I still don’t trust it—too spooky to even talk about. I’ve got shivers . . .)
6. Don’t be fooled after reading this into thinking that big cities are safe. You would be wrong.
Paris? Out of the question for the nervous traveller. There were murders in the rue Morgue, there are phantoms in the opera, and a hunchback in Notre Dame. And that’s without even thinking about Anne Rice’s elegant vampire population.
London? Equally out. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde battle for control in the night. Count Dracula pops out for quick pint or two when the sun goes down, but it isn’t the local beer he’s got a taste for. James Herbert’s giant rats sneak in the sewers seeking out the weak and fleshy, and in Crouch End a gateway to another dimension threatens to suck you in.
Eastern Europe? Well that’s a total no-go area for far too many reasons to go into in this list. Aside from the superstitions, the vampires, and the werewolves, the back-packing hostels leave a lot to be desired—like a route of escape from butchering psychopaths! And that aside, the plumbing is never good in the old Eastern bloc.
So, weary travellers, here’s my advice to you when planning your next vacation: If you want to stay safe and warm, why not just lock the door, unplug the phone, and curl up on your sofa for a fortnight . . .
Perhaps with a pile of good books.
JOEL LANE’S TOP TEN WEIRD LANDSCAPES
IN HORROR FICTION
Joel Lane is the author of two collections of horror stories, The Earth Wire (1994) and The Lost District (2006), as well as two novels and two collections of poetry. His articles and essays on weird fiction have appeared in Wormwood, All Hallows, Foundation, and many other journals.
1. “The Willows,” by Algernon Blackwood. First published in The Listener and Other Stories, in 1907). The opening tells us that the river Danube passes through “a region of singular loneliness and desolation.” This is a masterpiece: fatalistic, disorientating, and precisely observed.
2. “The Bad Lands,” by John Metcalfe. First published in The Smoking Leg, in 1925. A stressed-out visitor to the Norfolk flatlands wanders into a decaying region that is not on the map. A quiet but unrelenting sense of despair pervades this story.
3. “The Colour Out of Space,” by H. P. Lovecraft. First published in Amazing Stories in 1927. A farmer refuses to leave his land after a meteorite poisons the soil. This elegiac portrait of a ruined landscape leaves the reader shaken and worried.
4. “And No Bird Sings,” by E. F. Benson. First published in Spook Stories, in 1928. A quiet English wood conceals a realm of darkness and corruption. Benson has no inhibitions about bringing you face to non-face with the underlying cause.
5. “Mive,” by Carl Jacobi. First published in Weird Tales, in 1932. A stretch of marshland is devoid of animal life, apart from a black flapping thing that may be a giant butterfly. This brief mood piece creates a powerful sense of unease.
6. “Genius Loci,” by Clark Ashton Smith. First published in Weird Tales, in 1933. An artist becomes obsessed with a meadow that has “the air of a vampire” and exerts a malign hold over people’s minds. This vividly imagined rural horror story makes one wish that Smith had written more in this vein.
7. “The Hill and the Hole,” by Fritz Leiber. First published in Unknown Worlds, in 1942. A surveyor finds a place that is either a hill or a pit, depending on how you approach it—though you might do better not to. An early example of Leiber’s ability to mess with the reader’s mind.
8. “The Lonesome Place,” by August Derleth. First published in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, in 1948. Two small-town boys are afraid of a particular spot they sometimes walk through at night. In one of his best stories, Derleth evokes the loneliness of childhood.
9. “Canavan’s Back Yard,” by Joseph Payne Brennan. First published in Nine Horrors and a Dream, in 1958. An aging bookseller discovers that his back yard is truly a wilderness: a place where the call of the wild can be heard. This story is understated and terrifying—an authentic weird classic.
10. “Came
ra Obscura,” by Basil Copper. First published in Not After Nightfall, in 1967. A ruthless businessman visits a debtor who owns an antique scale model of the town where they live. Never mind the dubious characterization, just read this for its surreal and nightmarish ending.
FIVE MEMORABLE HORROR WORKS SET IN VENICE
Venice, Italy, is often referred to as the most romantic and magical city in the world, yet its maze of canals and sinking buildings also provide a sinister backdrop that has inspired authors time and again to terrify us. A few Venetian shudders take place in the following tales.
1. “Don’t Look Now,” by Daphne du Maurier: In du Maurier’s famous novella, a young couple goes to Venice to assuage their grief after the death of their young daughter. The pair attempt to repair their shattered hearts, and soon meet up with two strange, elderly British sisters, one blind and psychic. Subtle and terrifying evil is set in motion. As in other tales on this list, Venice itself becomes menacing, increasing the plight of the couple. The author strips away the Venice of tourism to show the dark heart of a decaying, sinking city steeped in tragedy. Nicolas Roeg directed the outstanding film version, which preserves the tale’s legendary shocker of an ending.
2. “Ganymede,” by Daphne du Maurier: A tale of purely psychological terror, this is an unsung tingler by the author of Rebecca. A bachelor travels alone to Venice, and becomes infatuated with a winsome waiter at a café in the Piazza San Marco. As he works his way further into the boy’s life, true horror unfolds, leading to a harrowing ending. While it’s not supernatural, “Ganymede” is as disturbing as the most ghostly piece of horror fiction. There is just a touch of grue, but, typically, du Maurier lets the reader’s imagination do the awful work.
As described in Daphne du Maurier’s short story “Ganymede”: The Piazza san Marco in Venice, Italy. (Photograph by Sylvia Wallace, used by permission.)
3. “Never Visit Venice,” by Robert Aickman: A lonely bachelor named Henry Fern visits Venice. Before he departs England, he is haunted by a dream of finding the magnificent woman he has always sought. During the first weeks of Fern’s holiday, Aickman writes, “Much as the folk had pillaged the Roman villas, so Venice was being pillaged now; and Fern sensed that the very fact of the pillage being often called preservation, implied that total dissolution was in sight. Venice was rotted with the world’s new littleness.” Fern finally takes a supernatural gondola ride with— the woman of his dreams, or a bag of bones? Before they set out, she tells him, “Everyone is Venice is dead. It is a dead city. Do you need to be told?” And not long after she says, too late, “Never visit Venice.” Aickman takes us far out to sea, away from the cozy shell that is the surface Venice, and the appealing niches of gondola paths and waterways, into the open sea of terror.
4. Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann: This great classic tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an aging homosexual author who holidays in Venice and falls in love with a comely boy named Tadzio. When cholera sweeps the city, the besotted protagonist refuses to leave, setting in motion his ultimate doom. One of Mann’s most famous novels, Death in Venice isn’t a horror story in any conventional genre sense, yet its macabre and melancholy take on the question of whether it is more dangerous to visit Venice alone or with a partner earns it a place on this list. The novel was filmed to great effect by Luchino Visconti, starring Dirk Bogarde as von Aschenbach. The film changed his profession from writer to composer, allowing Gustav Mahler’s Third and Fifth Symphonies to “play” the role of von Aschenbach’s compositions.
5. The Comfort of Strangers, by Ian McEwan: Like “Don’t Look Now,” this is a shocker about a young English couple adrift in Venice. When they meet an older couple who offers to show them “the real Venezia,” the stage is set for an appalling climax, as sinister motives slowly become apparent. Paul Schrader directed an acclaimed film version from a screenplay adaptation by playwright Harold Pinter, which features pitch-perfect acting by Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren as the spooky older couple. Like all the tales on this list, The Comfort of Strangers rips apart the “Venice as cute holiday locale” cliché, displaying in its place a decadent swamp of perversity and evil.
—A.W.
“YOU CAN’T GET THERE FROM HERE”:
THIRTY MEMORABLE BUT NON-EXISTENT TOWNS AND
CITIES IN HORROR AND HORRIFIC FICTION
1. Castle Rock, Maine—numerous works by Stephen King, including Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Dark Half, Needful Things, and others.
2. Millhaven, Illinois—Peter Straub’s Blue Rose trilogy (Koko, Mystery, and The Throat) and several affiliated works.
3. Derry, Maine—several novels and short stories by Stephen King, including It and Insomnia.
4. McGuane, Arizona—The Town, by Bentley Little.
5. Point Pitt, California—several short stories by David J. Schow, including “Not from Around Here” and “Red Light.”
6. Arkham, Massachusetts—numerous works by H. P. Lovecraft.
7. Dunwich, Massachusetts—“The Dunwich Horror,” by H. P. Lovecraft.
8. Moonlight Cove, California—Midnight, by Dean Koontz.
9. Potter’s Field, Wyoming—The Totem, by David Morrell.
10. Oxrun Station, Connecticut—numerous works by Charles L. Grant, including The Hour of the Oxrun Dead and Black Carousel.
11. Malcasa Point, California—Richard Laymon’s Beast House trilogy (The Cellar, The Beast House, and The Midnight Tour).
12. Stovington, Vermont—The Shining, The Stand, and Christine, by Stephen King.
13. Hampden, Vermont—The Secret History, by Donna Tartt.
14. Gatlin, Nebraska—“Children of the Corn,” by Stephen King.
15. Innsmouth, Massachusetts—“The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” by H. P. Lovecraft.
16. El Rey, Mexico—The Getaway, by Jim Thompson.
17. Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine—“Jerusalem’s Lot,” “One for the Road,” and ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.
18. Piecliff, New York—Heart-Shaped Box and “Best New Horror” by Joe Hill.
19. Big Tuna, Texas—Wild at Heart by Barry Gifford.
20. Roundtree, Massachusetts—Black Creek Crossing by John Saul.
21. Pico Mundo, California—the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz.
22. Dead River, Maine—Off Season and Offspring by Jack Ketchum.
23. Snowfield, Colorado—Phantoms by Dean Koontz.
24. Stepford, Connecticut—The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.
25. Gilead, New Jersey—The Ceremonies by T. E. D. Klein.
26. Corban, Utah—The Association by Bentley Little.
27. Fairvale, California—Psycho by Robert Bloch.
28. Greentown, Illinois—Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.
29. Cedar Hill, Ohio—numerous works by Gary A. Braunbeck.
30. Pequot Landing, Connecticut—The Other by Thomas Tryon.
— Compiled by S.B.
STEVE RASNIC TEM’S THIRTY MOST MEMORABLE
HORROR SHORT-STORY READS
Steve Rasnic Tem’s 300-plus stories have garnered him the World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and International Horror Guild awards. Some recent work has appeared (or will appear) in Cemetery Dance, Dark Discoveries, Albedo One, Blurred Vision, Matter, Exotic Gothic, Ellen Datlow’s Poe: Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, and in That Mysterious Door, an anthology of stories set in Maine. His latest novel, written in collaboration with his wife, Melanie Tem, is The Man on the Ceiling (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries), based on their award-winning novella of the same name.
1. “A Country Doctor” by Franz Kafka
2. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
3. “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions
4. “Evening Primrose” by John Collier
5. “The Jar” by Ray Bradbury
6. “The Hospice” by Robert Aickman
7. “The Howling Man” by Charles Beaumont
8. “Sticks” by Karl Edwar
d Wagner
9. “The Dark Country” by Dennis Etchison
10. “Mackintosh Willy” by Ramsey Campbell
11. “The Autopsy” by Michael Shea
12. “The Body” by Stephen King
13. “Stephen” by Elizabeth Massie
14. “Mr. Dark’s Carnival” by Glen Hirshberg
15. “The Last Feast of Harlequin” by Thomas Ligotti
16. “William Wilson” by Edgar Allan Poe
17. “Pork Pie Hat” by Peter Straub
18. “The Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale
19. “In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker
20. “The White People” by Arthur Machen
21. “Child’s Play” by Villy Sørensen
22. “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” by M. R. James
23. “The New Mother” by Lucy Clifford
24. “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood
25. “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” by Harlan Ellison
26. “Feesters in the Lake” by Bob Leman
27. “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Can Be” by Gahan Wilson
28. “Confess the Seasons” by Charles L. Grant
29. “The Girl With the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Leiber
