Nightmare Magazine Issue 4

by Matt Williamson

  Zombies in fiction tend to populate the future, the near-future of nuclear holocausts, and suburban Americana. I wanted to write the historical zombie instead. I’m fascinated with post-war reconstruction—or lack thereof!—and with Stuttgart, which has been the center of post-war atrocity legends for a long time. This also hearkens back to wanting to write a zombie story in the first place. It’s the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired.

  It’s accepted as “common knowledge”—though as with all common-knowledge and post-war propaganda, it’s got to be taken with a grain of salt—that Allied soldiers in Stuttgart after the war committed mass rape. Exactly who did what is pretty amorphous and subject to argument; the difficulty being that rape in that context at that time wasn’t taken with particular seriousness.

  But I’ve been drawn to that story and that setting for a while. It’s easy to write a WWII story, especially one set in Germany, and have it be an easy-out in terms of insta-setting. It evokes an immediate response of pain and despair. But that doesn’t mean WWII is not what it is, a giant psychic scar, and thus an opening for horror and the numinous. Just because the war’s over doesn’t mean the scar is gone.

  What is the significance of Elke’s revenge taking such a visceral form?

  Well: she’s a zombie. Zombies eat people.

  Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. Zombies tend to be viral, they’re infectors, they partially consume for body horror. Elke consumes the American soldier, and it’s meant to be bestial, to be an unbirthing. I love cannibalism. Elke eating the American is incredibly physical and visceral, but it’s innately spiritual too: as she says, she is taking him with her. Any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too. Before she died, he imprinted himself on her in a way that she took as permanent and she’s clawed back that permanency to extend to even after the grave.

  I don’t believe in rape as a permanent narrative disfigurement that someone else is able to inflict, and I don’t like rape as a narrative shadow touching someone’s life forever. But Elke sees it more in that vein. So she doesn’t just disfigure in return, she diminishes her attacker and absorbs him both physically and spiritually. The emphasis is on the physical because that’s what is immediately more horrifying to Anton.

  Why Juicy Fruit gum?

  Gum is an American talisman to me; Juicy Fruit particularly so. I workshopped this story with George R.R. Martin at Clarion, and he noted that the story’s got a very American aggressor, that the antagonist isn’t—as some Stuttgart stories tell—Tunisian or Moroccan or comfortably “other.” He’s American in a setting where the usual dish du jour is American martial heroism. This isn’t to say he represents America; just that he is reactively American.

  Also, Juicy Fruit was my favorite chew growing up. Juicy Fruit is terrifyingly chemical. To me it tastes indescribable.

  Can you still chew it without thinking about this story’s ending?

  Yes, because by the time I get to swallowing it, I’m just thinking about my grandmother again, who told me that would kill me.

  What work can readers expect to see from you next?

  I’m still stuck on the historical dead: I’m working on an undead detective story sequence. It’s vaguely Heathen-Army-Of-865-meets-Miss-Marple. So expect some Norse shambling horrors, plus a touch of Agatha Christie.

  Seamus Bayne got his start writing during the ‘90s working in the roleplaying game industry. In 2010, he attended the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop. Seamus is the co-founder and host of the Paradise Lost writing retreat held annually in Texas. You can learn more about him, and his writing at www.seamusbayne.net.

  Author Spotlight: Lucius Shepard

  E.C. Myers

  “The Ease with Which We Freed the Beast” was originally published in Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Ellen Datlow. Was this a story you’d already written or been planning to write, or did the anthology guidelines inspire it?

  Ellen told me she wanted something dark—I don’t believe I ever saw the anthology guidelines.

  What is your typical writing process like, and how did this story in particular come about?

  Get up. Drink coffee, go to work. Work as long as I feel it. Stories just come to me, sometimes over a period of years, sometimes over a few days. I’m not into self-analysis, so I don’t explore their origins, but in this case it was obvious. I was an abused child, and a very angry teenager and young man. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over being angry—so in this case I was more or less blending some autobiographical stuff with fantasy. When I was a kid, I believed anger was magic of a kind, power, and I wanted to convey that feeling in the main character. I got angry when I was writing it.

  There’s some ambiguity as to whether there is really a monster or if the monster is a psychological manifestation of the POV character’s dark impulses. Was it difficult to maintain that balance? How much did you want to leave open to the readers’ interpretation?

  No, it wasn’t hard—ambiguity is a feature of most of my work and I’m used to writing in that mode. As far as the reader’s interpretation goes, I wanted to keep them guessing for a while, but I think that by story’s end it’s pretty clear what’s going on.

  What sort of lesson do you hope readers will take away from this story?

  I don’t know if this is a lesson story. I was just trying to write honestly about how I felt as a teenager; always on the verge of losing it, scared of people—myself most of all—and murderously angry at times. Perhaps it’s a sort of cautionary tale. If you feel like you’re out of control, seek help. I did not, and it made for some very rough sledding.

  What work can readers expect to see from you next?

  A short story collection entitled Five Autobiographies and a Fiction, a short novel called The Wild North King, and a novel, The End of Life As We Know It. And stories. The next one, I believe, is “American Police Haiku,” a novella for Pete Crowther at PS Publishing.

  E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. He has published short fiction in a variety of print and online magazines and anthologies, and his young adult novels, Fair Coin and Quantum Coin, are available now from Pyr Books. He currently lives with his wife, a doofy cat, and an affectionate dog in Philadelphia and shares way too much information about his personal life at ecmyers.net and on Twitter @ecmyers.

  Coming Attractions

  Coming up in February, in Nightmare . . .

  We’ll have original fiction from Ted Kosmatka (“Cry Room”) and Sarah Langan (“In India They Worship Cows”), along with reprints by Margo Lanagan (“The Goosle”) and Norman Partridge (“Blackbirds”). We’ll also have the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” plus author spotlights with all of our authors, a showcase on our cover artist, and a feature interview.

  It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Nightmare. Thanks for reading!