by AHWA
“Rich Chizmar at Cemetery Dance and I talked about how neither of us had seen many of SK’s stories done in graphic format. Of course there was Cycle of the Werewolf and Creepshow, but not a lot of illustrated stuff straight from short stories. Both Rich and I are huge fans of Steve’s work, so we came up with the idea of asking him if he’d consider letting us try our hat at some stories—me to draw them and Rich to publish via Cemetery Dance. SK gave us a green light and we were both bowled over. And so I set to work and the rest’s history.”
Glenn also explains, “I didn’t do anything new, nothing I hadn’t done in the past. But it was truly a daunting challenge. In all, both volumes took me close to two years to create. It was the chance of a lifetime and something to chisel on my stone, ha!”
In Chadbourne’s career thus far, with a succession of notable publications, I wondered if he still felt inspiration flowing and evolving. Glenn explains, “Well, as I said, practice makes perfect, hopefully anyway! I’m constantly trying to better myself and trying new techniques and so on. I actually love to paint stuff, and I’m being asked to more along those lines these days. I really enjoy that.”
Chadbourne’s portfolio goes to show many vistas in composition, use of space, mood, and intensity. Following here are three powerful and moving examples of Glenn’s talents. We have Nona, Monkey, and finally, appearing exclusively for this issue, is Jar Baby, drawn from the story of the same title by Michelle Jager.
Let us take a closer look into these creations and hear what Glenn has to say about them, shall we?
Nona
There are many intense elements to this piece. Your eye can be easily drawn first to the moon, then cascade down to the three facades. Now, the growth in intensity builds. First you have the blank stare of the woman, the cringing face of the centre figure, then, finally, the climatic scream of horror in the victim.
“Quite honestly I just let my fingers do the walking on all these pieces. I read the story and a switch gets flipped in my head and I start drawing. I lay something out and say, ‘Well hell, that looks pretty cool, maybe I’ll add this’.
“That’s a quick off-the-cuff explanation, of course. The deeper part of dealing with different stories is the ‘mood’ of the piece. Nona, for example, is a pretty bleak tale. It’s depressing and desperate. It takes place in wintertime in Maine, a season that I know all too well, so it’s cold and raw. It’s a desolate time of year where everything is stark and frozen, ‘dead’ would describe it best. So I take that in mind when laying everything out. You’ll notice a more serious style in Nona than say in Grey Matter for instance. This is on purpose; because I wanted a more tragic feel for the characters in key scenes. It’s a true gothic piece of work in many instances.”
The Monkey
Composition is most interesting here. Everything is falling! Not only the subject character, but everything directs your eyes downward. The natural bark texture of the tree, intensely rendered to capture those downward grooves. The cascading of the tree house ladder, leading you to the large fallen plank on the ground. The large drooping branch to the right and the falling plank above it along with the hat. Also, the roots of the tree that map the base of the composition, symbolizing the destination of the subject. Then finally, creeping up from the very bottom are the branches. Foreboding, reaching up to snatch its quarry.
“There’s something about falling that terrifies us all. It’s really beyond horror it’s animal panic, and I tried to convey that. When I was a kid I nearly fell off a cliff around here while ‘monkeying’ get it, yuck yuck! around with some local kids, and I remember absolute sheer unbridled horror at the aspect of ending up in a puddle of smashed Glennie some sixty feet below on jagged rocks. So that’s what I channeled when painting that particular piece.”
Jar Baby
It is rare that one can be gifted with an original piece of art to critique. Here, we are able to see Glenn in action. We have had the honour to receive this next illustration from the story Jar Baby by Michelle Jager.
Glenn has not only put his technical abilities on fine display, but what is also evident is the drawing of the expressive elements within the literature. Here we see the story’s tension and its ugliness.
The art has a real flavor of the macabre, with a ‘don’t dare look but you can’t look away’ edge to it. Especially with those eyes. Not only on the main façade, which dominates most of the composition, but the black sockets of the baby to the bottom right. Glenn now explains:
“Not being a woman myself it’s hard for me to imagine the feelings involved in childbirth, etc. But I’ve known many a friend who’ve aborted babies; most when we were younger around here. I’ve often thought about this topic. ‘What would I do if I were some young girl and found myself in a similar situation?’ It has to be one of the toughest questions one ever has to deal with; to abort or not.
“In the end, I’m a pro choice guy. I’m probably wandering far-afield, but with art it’s just really, really hard for me to describe what prompts these images to come from my head to the page. The drawings are really just feelings I have about given stories … and I thought this one was over-the-top in disturbing. So disturbed was what I went for.”
Let’s move toward the future now. What lies on the horizon for Chadbourne’s artistry?
“Quite a slew of new projects actually. Most things on the near horizon are being published from Cemetery Dance (www.cemeterydance.com),” reveals Glenn.
Also, The Horror Writers Association is proud to announce Glenn as the Artist Guest of Honour for the World Horror Convention in 2013, as part of the Bram Stoker Awards in New Orleans.
As well as a notable talent in the world of macabre art, Glenn is also a swell chap to talk to and I thank him for his time. You can find out all you need to know regarding Chadbourne’s art and upcoming projects at glennchadbourne.com.
The Boy with the Hole in his Heart
Caysey Sloan
There once was a cottage on the bank of a lake. In the cottage was a boy, and in the boy was a hole where his heart should have been.
The boy sat alone, in a grey room on a steel bed frame with no mattress. The only light shone from the hallway through a small window on the barred door. The door was strong, the walls were cold, the toilet bowl had no seat.
A rectangular flap below the window poked open. A roll of paper flew through the gap to land on the concrete floor. With a squeaky click the deadbolt slid back into place. The boy lay on his back staring at the ceiling, hands clasped on his chest, and tilted his head to see his gift. He twisted to plant his bare feet on the ground and knelt beside the paper. Unfurled, it showed a school photograph of a slender boy, with thick black tape stuck sporadically around the edges. The boy flattened the picture. Slender had a long nose and freckles around his mouth. One of his shoulders sat lower than the other, and his hair had grown too long and touched his chin. The picture cut just below the collarbone—the boy did not need it to see the space where Slender’s heart would have been. Instead, the boy stared into his classmate’s eyes—the dull grey would suit his new room. He hung the picture on the brick wall above the head of his bed.
Slender looked down on the boy lying on the bed frame with his gaze on the ceiling. The poster laughed and jeered as the boy’s peers always had—they called him abandoned, orphaned—Unwanted. Unwanted by his parents. Unwanted by the boys he wished to call his friends. Unwanted to the school that never knew his name. Unwanted Boy.
* * *
He was six, with shaggy blonde curls, a backpack and no shoes, standing by the lake outside of Mister’s cabin. The principal discussed him, but he was not to listen. He saw the memory of his father driving away from the lake. His mother leaned out of the passenger window to wave back to him, as if she might have regretted leaving.
Mister came to him and spoke in soft tones of
remorse and consolation, reciting phrases like abandoned and over-enrolled but take care of you. He led Unwanted to the student bunk and announced him to the other boys, who snickered and turned away.
* * *
Unwanted lay staring at the grey ceiling until evening. His dinner was pushed through the delivery slot on his door—a lunch container made of steel. A plastic fork, knife and spoon followed and scattered across the floor.
He knelt before the box. He shuffled his cutlery to lie parallel on his left. Two un-clicked tabs and the lid slid off onto his knees.
His dinner was red and seeping, its juices staining the bottom of the container. He speared the food with his fork and cut a clean chunk. He chewed and swallowed and started again. The meal stuck cold and tender between his teeth and he wiped the drips off the bottom of his chin.
He knelt on the concrete in the centre of the barren room as he digested each bite. The last swallow, then the boy tipped the container of juice to his lips and drank. He moved the dishes to the door, by the wall furthest from his bed.
He had no napkin, no bedclothes to wipe his mouth, so he pulled up the hem of his shirt and transferred the red smear onto white cotton.
* * *
For eight long years the other boys were mean.
At first they hit him, pushed him down into the dirt. He cried and looked away, but still they jeered.
“Keep crying, Mummy’s not coming back.”
Then they put poisonous leaves in his pillowcase and honey in his sheets and he cleaned up in the washroom and cried to himself while his classmates slept.
At lunch they would hit him with a football, and pretend it was an accident, then laugh at him when he could never throw it back properly. They taunted and teased and Unwanted just sat at his bench and ate his lunch.
One night, after Mister bid them all to bed and switched off the light, Unwanted lay awake on top of his covers, on the bottom bunk by the window overlooking the lake. The moonlight shone through, illuminating only him. There was an ache in his heart, an itch he could not figure how to scratch.
Flurrying hands intruded on his moonlight and swept him from his bunk. The boys did not giggle, nor chatter, nor yet revel in his torment. The hands pulled him out the door and slammed his back against the flagpole. They stripped him of his nightclothes and threw them into the lake. The biggest hands held a length of rope and a roll of black tape. The rope wound from his ankles to his privates, then fastened at his wrists behind the pole. The tape covered his eyes, and the hands disappeared. A sticky wetness struck his chest and was taped in place over his ribs.
Still the boys did not speak, and he could not tell if they remained. He tried to listen, but all he could know was the thick syrup, too warm, dripping down past his hip and the tape pulling at his skin. He wanted to shout but his voice had gone, it could not help him, so he waited.
He waited until Mister found him in the dewy cool of the next morning and ripped the lump off before unbinding him. Unwanted saw the irritated skin where the tape had been, the stains from red rivulets and the animal’s heart glistening where Mister had thrown it in the bushes. The ache in Unwanted’s chest grew, and he stood straighter and felt colder. He let himself forget the last piece of his heart and discard its memory in the dirt.
Nobody spoke to him, or let him out of lessons that day. Instead he was given a bucket of cold, soapy water and a sponge and told to wash for breakfast.
* * *
Each evening the meal was pushed into his cell. Each evening he knelt before the box and consumed every bite. The pile of kitchenware in the corner expanded, and each night he had a new stripe to keep tally on his shirt.
His tally was six and another half through when there was a pang, a short, sharp burn in the hole in his chest, then nothing, again.
The next day he slipped off the lid to his eighth dinner and felt, for the first time, disgust. He looked down at his food and the back of his throat grew tight as he remembered all he had eaten the past week, and what he was to eat again. He swallowed, and the feeling passed. Confused but hungry, he finished his meal.
The nights passed in blurs of red and grey and happy, slender eyes. More often his chest would hurt, and each evening he took longer to eat all of the slop given to him. Before each bite, he stared at the dripping morsel speared on his fork and imagined he could feel it being pulled from under his ribs. He swallowed thickly and his stomach grew weaker. Still he wiped his lips on his shirt, where it now lay flat on the floor by the dishes.
He woke one day with heavy legs. He heard thumping hearts and felt beating flesh and looked more frequently to the picture taped above his head. That night he choked through his meal and weakly pushed the crockery to its corner. Instead of reaching for the shirt, he knelt on his bed with his hands either side of the smiling face. He puckered his bloody lips and pressed them to the wall just below the left of Slender’s chest. Unwanted moved to the floor and curled onto his side. It hurt too much on the bed. He left the bloodstain around his mouth. When he licked his lips and tasted blood again, he spat until his stomach revolted and he heaved into the toilet bowl.
He finished bringing up his meal and turned to find Slender sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed, watching him. The dead boy remained silent. His eyes were happy and simple, as they always were. His clothes were pressed and clean and his hair brushed out of his face. No stain on his chest. His heart was beating—thump thump, thump thump—around the walls of the cell. It grew louder and closer and echoed in Unwanted’s ears. But Slender stayed still with a calm smile and unquestioning eyes.
Unwanted tried to sleep that night, lying on his side with his arms around his knees. He stayed on the floor by the toilet, turned away from his victim, who still sat mirroring the picture on the wall. Unwanted would turn when his ear throbbed too loudly to briefly look into the eyes of the ghost. Each time he turned, a new drop of blood appeared over Slender’s heart, until Unwanted refused to look back to see the spreading pool he caused.
* * *
For the weeks that followed his midnight abduction, Unwanted watched. He watched his peers continue as usual and never spare a glance his way. He watched Mister and the other teachers ignore the children, ignore him, ignore the incident. He watched Brute, the largest boy with the largest hands, wrap a string around a sausage and dip it into mash. He watched Brute sleep in the highest bunk the furthest from the door, and each morning stroke the face of the slender boy who slept below, before leaving for the washroom. He watched Slender look over to Brute while the larger boy said grace over breakfast. And he watched as the washroom in the early morning became their meeting place.
Sometimes he waited a minute then followed the boys. He sat in the dark corner where they would not see. As he watched, the ache in his chest faded and the tears stopped pricking behind his eyes.
One morning, before the sun snuck through his window, Unwanted sat in the back corner of the washroom and filled the bath. He hid in the shadows by the door and pictured the final illicit meeting. The two boys snuck into the room and kept their eyes on the other as they disrobed. Behind the drawn curtain the silhouettes joined under the spray.
Unwanted stripped off his clothes and set them in a folded pile by the wall. He rested the steak knife on the soap tray and immersed himself in the cooling water.
Two brown towels were draped over the edge of the tub near Unwanted’s feet. Each morning Slender exited the cubicle first to crunch the ripened towel over his wet skin. Brute liked a few minutes more.
The screech of the shower curtain. Sloppy footsteps rounded the corner and stopped next to the bath. Slender was kinder than the others and smiled at Unwanted sitting alone in the bathtub. Unwanted had appreciated the occasional mercy Slender showed, but the fear that would grow in his eyes as he writhed in Unwanted’s hold would be sweet. It was the same fear
that would rise in Brute’s eyes when he found his lover’s corpse.
Unwanted stood, his ankles submerged and water dripping down his naked skin. He beckoned Slender closer with a smile and leant his head forward, as though to kiss the other boy. Slender moved towards him, and the moment their lips touched Unwanted jerked his hands forward and pulled Slender into the tub. He pushed Slender’s head under the waves and held steady until the tightly curled fingers clawing at his arms fell away. He settled the body at the other end of the tub and reached for his knife.
The shower spray ended, the curtain drew again and Brute stepped out of the cubicle around to the bath. His feet were weighted to the bathmat, his eyes stuck on Slender. The body was hunched, chin resting just above the bloody hole in his chest. Eyes wide and mouth clenched, Brute turned to the boy still holding the knife. Unwanted rose with the heart outstretched to his bully.
“Some wear their heart on the outside,” Unwanted said to the larger boy, “and someone else has to take care of it.”
* * *
The day-light in the hallway flicked on when the sun would have risen, and still Unwanted lay facing the door with his hands clamped over his ears. He drew himself to his knees and crawled, the holes in his pants tearing further, grazes stinging. He pulled himself up, clinging to the ridges of the window on the door. He tried to speak, tried to call to a guard, but his voice was a month unused, and refused. He slid a hand across and rapped his weak knuckles on the thick glass. Heavy footsteps approached. The boy turned once more, seeking out the figure on his bed. The bleeding ghost still smiled, and nodded once.
Unwanted turned back and jerked away from the unfamiliar gruff face. The man’s thick chin and overgrown beard barely fit in the window. He unlocked the glass and slid it open just enough for his voice to feed through.
