Dread in the Beast
by Charlee Jacob
Necro Publications
— 2010 —
KINLDE EDITION
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Dread in the Beast © 2005 by Charlee Jacob
Cover art © 2005 Gak
This digital edition January 2010 © Necro Publications
Assistant editors:
Amanda Baird, John Everson, Jeff Funk, C. Dennis Moore
Also available in a trade paperback
ISBN-10: 1-889186-40-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-889186-40-5
Cover, Book Design & Typesetting:
David G. Barnett
Fat Cat Graphic Design
http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com
a Necro Publication
5139 Maxon Terrace • Sanford, FL 32771
http://www.necropublications.com
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This book is dedicated to my husband, Jim,
who showed me there could be light in the unlikeliest places.
And to Dave Barnett,
who showed me the dark wasn't necessarily all bad.
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Introduction
Let me begin this introduction with a review. It’s a review I wrote for a long-dead horror magazine called Midnight Hour, and I’m reviewing Dread in the Beast by Charlee Jacob. Here’s the review:
“I’ve been writing horror and reading horror for almost twenty years. I’ve had almost two million words of my own work published, and with all the stuff I’ve read in between, I thought I’d seen it all.
I was wrong.
I’d heard of Charlee Jacob over the past few years, had read a story of hers here, a story of hers there. Always good stuff, but in the every-growing avalanche of small-press and limited-edition horror fiction cropping up, I never paid this name much mind.
I was wrong.
The word “horror,” of course, is a bad word now amongst most New York editors. The genre bottomed out in the early-to-mid ’90s—a glut, they called it—and broke the field’s back. Some of this sensibility is legitimate, some is not. All that aside, the horror genre did not die at all, it merely picked up where it left off in the independent press. Things seem to be turning up lately, though: New York houses such as Tor and Harper, to name a few, are suddenly increasing the number of horror titles they release per year. And after a marketing revamp, Leisure is supporting horror fiction to the absolute mass-market max, releasing two horror paperbacks per month.
To make my point, horror fiction seems to be crawling back from its own grave, and this is good news for the typical horror reader. A mass-market resurgence in the genre is inevitable—in fact, it’s already started.
But before horror can get fully back on its feet in the average bookstore, we still have a considerable inventory of excellent material being actively released by the independent press, and one such book that deserves serious attention is Dread In The Beast by Charlee Jacob. To slap some tagline on her like “A feminist Clive Barker” or “A startling new voice” would simply be insufficient. Charlee Jacob, instead, is clearly one of the best new writers working in the horror field today. Her work blows away so much of the competition it’s almost scary, and now a collection of her very best short stories is available in an inexpensive, autographed trade-sized paperback.
A woman with a burning-flesh fetish? A story in which a growing tumor proves as an apt allegory for modern society? Spiritual transcendence via surgical addiction? A deity revered by human waste? This ain’t the Headless horseman, folks. This ain’t the Wizard of Oz. This is, instead, serious, primo, important new horror fiction more daring than anything you’ve likely read. The only thing missing is a warning sign on the cover. With crystalline prose and images as concise as a piano-wire garrotte, Charlee Jacob takes you on an excursion through hell that might even cause the devil to reconsider the trip. Each of the 16 stories in this collection is unique, shocking, and brilliant, and the title piece is probably the very best horror novella I’ve ever read in my life.
You got thirteen bucks for some of the best horror fiction you could ever imagine? Then pick up a copy of Dread In The Beast before it sells out.”
That’s the review. Keep in mind the book I was reviewing back then is different from the novel you’re holding in your hands, despite identical titles. The former, as mentioned, is an outstanding small-press horror collection released by Necro Publications, and has been sold out for quite a while. The reason for the sell-out can be found simply by reading the above review. Jacob’s fiction, in general, exists several rungs higher on the excellence ladder than most of what I’m reading today. But remember, I’m generalizing.
And, back to the review, I was right in my thesis about the ups and downs of mass-market horror. Since those shaky days, things have gotten much better for the field and, conversely, the field has gotten better within itself. Charlee Jacob is proof. She remains not only one of the small-press’ most distinctive short-story writers, she is now an actively published mass-market horror novelist.
But remember, I’m generalizing.
I’m also rambling a bit (I’m prone to that; I’m no spring chicken anymore) but I only ramble when I’m excited. You can tell by the above review that I was very excited about the release of Jabob’s short-story collection. I’m even more excited now about the novel by the same name.
Look back at the review. I referred to the collection’s title piece, “Dread in Beast,” as “…probably the very best horror novella I’ve ever read in my life.”
That’s no bullshit. And my mind hasn’t changed in the four years since I wrote that. Hence, the keystone of my excitement.
I’d love to tell you some of the devastating things that happen in this novel…but then I’d blow it for you. I’d love to describe my most favorite and impacting scenes…but I won’t go to the trouble because Jacob does it better in the text. A recant by me would be useless and inferior. But at least let me say this: the book kicks off with what has to be among the most atrocious crimes ever depicted in fiction. It’s a brick in the fuckin’ face come Chapter One, and that’s just the beginning. This novel doesn’t let up. Ever. What’s the book about, in a nutshell?
Folks, there ain’t no nutshell that this could be placed in. It’s a slot-buster. It’s a category-defy-er. It’s unlike any horror novel you’ve read, yet it’s not obscure at all, it’s not avant-garde or experimental. It’s not pseudo-literary drivel or over-intellectualized pap. Jacob wisely harnesses comfortable formulae and then transfigures these elements into a total individuality. We don’t feel hoodwinked by a writer whose ego needs to bury readers in self-pretension. This book is wonderfully different while not treading into perimeters of abstraction or experiment. With all the book’s oddity, with all its intricate myth, philosophy, and sophistication, Jacob never once lets indulgence seduce her muse and run away with her. Her focus remains resolute on the “job” of any horror novelist: to entertain the readership. How is this accomplished? By delivering a solid story peopled with characters whom we can—however positively or negatively—relate to. I won’t lay some clichés on you like “Dread In The Beast is a joyride through hell!” Oh, lord, it’s no joyride. It is an exercise in the absolute darkness of the human heart. No “joy” here—instead, you’re dragged kicking and screaming through hell. Wear a raincoat. Bring an umbrella.
In other words, there’s no nifty tagline for this book. More antithesis: it’s completely different while being exactly what any great horror novel must be. Its merit exists on many levels but chiefly in the manner through which it succeeds as a great read.
But remember, I’m generalizing.
Let’s
speak with more specificity. What’s most unique of all here (and jealously fascinating) are the creative guts of the author. If there’s an ultimate dichotomy in the horror genre, it’s got to be Jacob. Call her an antipode. Call her an aesthetic contradiction. Imagine Raphael or Claude Monet painting a picture of a demonic rape. Imagine a sleek and flawless supermodel prancing down the runway in designer garb fashioned from human skin. Imagine a poet who writes with the finery of a T.S. Eliot or an Emily Dickinson crafting stanzas about trans-vaginal evisceration. This is Jacob, armed with a talent to write the most beautiful prose yet using that talent to examine the most unspeakable and detestable horror.
Here’s an example:
“This was her own poignant torture and then frenetic release. It filled her with delicious grief, then emptied her out again. Made her buck with her sturdy pelvis until she lifted him right off the mattress. Slung herself upward and across the ceiling like some metaphor for orgasmic levitation, then made all her flesh turn into frosted peach jelly.”
Is this not beautiful? It’s a young woman losing her virginity, for God’s sake. Yet a moment later, here’s her next observation:
“She went blind for an instant, next saw the city’s stygian shit straining at the window, matting itself in brown sworl against the panes, trying to desecrate this single pure moment of hers by passing through the glass by means of a feculent osmosis. It did enter the room, overtaking Dorien and Gavin, covering them in suffocating purgation until they froze in mid-thrust, fossilizing as ash-covered victims in Pompeii. It was evil coming in, determined not to let her escape through love, determined to drag them into the underworld which existed on a tide of worldly sewage.”
Some “first time,” huh?
Dread In The Beast is swollen to the gills with such fine, fine writing—hence, the lucid, gorgeously etched prose unveiling the most primal atrocities ever depicted in fiction. I won’t reveal any of those atrocities here. I’d love to but I won’t…
You’ll know ’em when you come to ’em.
In all, to me, Jacob is what we sometimes call a “Throw in the Towel” writer. I’ll read a passage by her and think: “Fuck it. Why do I even bother? In a million years, I could never write this well.” She makes me jealous. I could never think of this:
“In the great house, she could see a hole in one stone wall of a bay which surely contained a privy. Refuse was falling from it into a stream which ran below, sluggishly carrying the muck to the heavily polluted river, itself clogged with corpses as if with logs.”
Or this:
“What was touching this substance if not touching the proxy of oblivion, coming back to life with its stench in your sinuses and its secret madness yours to flaunt?”
Or this:
“Before tonight Dorien thought she understood what evil consisted of. It was graphic, intentional of blunt force and explicit with gore. It grinned as it turned cities into abattoirs, dancing without subtlety with blood splashed to further inflame already burning loins. Evil was extreme, unspeakable, relentless violence. Its aim was to dismantle you unto your most sacred atoms, rape your soul into uncreation, rip your sanity from asshole to lips, and snort the names of your most sacred beliefs until you were damned forever in the five-second high it enjoyed immediately after.”
Nope. Not in a million fuckin’ years. I could never come up with that if my life depended on it.
So instead, I’ll toss my jealousy aside (all writers, deep-down, are egomanic) and tell you that it was an honor to be able to read this book essentially before anyone else. After all, it’s a novelization of my favorite horror novella, and the result of that process is a monumental achievement in the field. It, too, was an honor to write this introduction—I hope it does you some good by at least conveying my admiration and my utter awe. I hope you find the same distress, provocation, and wonder that I found in this work. Dread In The Beast is maximum horror via maximum talent. It’s one of my all-time favorite novels in the field.
Edward Lee
St. Pete Beach, Florida
August 23, 2003
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“One does not…find dread in the beast, precisely for the reason that by nature the beast is not qualified by spirit.” —Kierkegaard
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Chapter 1
The night was brown when Dorien Warmer lost her virginity. Big city, blanketed with pollution lit to the hilt. Nobody her age had an inkling of what true darkness was. What it had been before smog and neon became permament factors of alteration.
She’d been depressed lately. It wasn’t unusual for teenagers to develop antagonistic views of the world. Dorien had decided it was a sewer. It stank the moment she stepped outside her door, air no longer sanitized through filters and temperature controls. She choked, heard corruption clattering in her lungs, wanted to spit—but was too much of a lady to do so. It clung to her skin, clothes, hair. The first thing she did upon getting home every day was to strip and shower, soaping up in fragrant foam, shampooing and repeating until the strands of her beige blond hair squeaked. She’d want to burn whatever she’d worn as contaminated, but that would be too expensive. She even cleaned her shoes nightly, spraying them with disinfectant. She wiped down her purse and used an antibacterial spritz on her jacket.
She wasn’t really that fastidious, not obsessed with toxic and germinal contagions. It was the blasphemy she had to wash away, the filth of degradation…a logical expression of almost two decades of experiences here. She’d just seen too much of people and cruelty, of the rampant crime at large in any metropolis.
Why, just that morning, after she’d stepped down from the bus, and walked down the street toward the college, there was a gathering around a baby carriage which had been found in the alley behind a submarine sandwich place that catered to the university crowd. Several had turned away to throw up or gag. This ought to have spurred Dorien into hurrying past without trying to see…but it didn’t. This was a reflex in city dwellers that made it necessary for them to see. Perhaps it was a shared gene to be witness to calamity, believing deep down that souls couldn’t rest until outrages done to them had been solemnly viewed and accorded even the flimsiest or even most apathetic of prayers.
She’d pushed through the little collection of audience. Wished she hadn’t—there must be that, right? To tell herself she didn’t want to see such a thing, not her idea. She wasn’t jaded or voyeuristic.
Her nostrils caught the scent before her eyes registered the image. Of the sight being just the dome of the baby’s head and one doll-like fist emerging from under the congealed toilet the interior of the carriage had become during the night.
There was a gang in the city these days calling themselves (or had the media dubbed them this?) The Shit Detail. All their victims had been killed in a variety of ways which employed the excreta of the gang’s members. And something was always written on the victim or nearby in shit.
An enterprising reporter had interviewed a professor at a college across town. This man, an archaeologist, had given an interesting background on television the night before.
“Outhouse graffiti,” explained Dr. James Singer, “goes back to the Romans. They used public latrines in which a wiping stick was employed by all, unsanitary by modern standards surely, to say the very least. As the next person would wipe the stick clean before they used it themselves, he or she might—out of inspiration or boredom—be moved to use the matter clinging to it, deposited by the last person, to write some comment on the wall with.”
Bile washed up Dorien’s throat but she swallowed it back down. She felt an almost religious need to get to where she could read what the gang had left this time. Where would it be? Somewhere on the baby carriage? Yes, on its fold-out roof. The print for these messages was usually rather small, seldom easily read, especially depending on where it had been written. The sleek plastic of the carriage top must have been too slippery. So a page from a notebook (with a crinkled edge and three-punch
holes, indicating a spiral) had been the canvas used. Then the paper had been fastened to the top with a couple shards from a broken bottle. As they usually did for their epitaphs, they used a bit of poetry or a quoted piece from some philosopher, leading the authorities to theorize that the gang might be made up of students from one of the local colleges.
The coprographic note left with the baby carriage was this:
Why have all our fruits become rotten and brown?
What was it fell last night from the evil moon?
—Nietzsche
Dorien heard a man reading it aloud, then cursing. A young couple squeezed each other’s hands and prayed fervently. Someone else was punching 911 on a cell phone, babbling frantically into it to call for help that was long past possible. Another woman sobbed.
Dorien realized this last was her. Then, surprised because she’d have thought herself too hardened by now to react so negatively, she fainted.
Someone caught her and eased her to the sidewalk. When she opened her eyes again, she found Gavin Parrish bending over her. She knew him from her English Lit class. A handsome kid, almost inevitably surrounded by admiring females. Where was his gaggle today?
“Are you okay? Dory, isn’t it?” he asked, face a mask of concern. “Police are on their way. We could get an ambulance for you if you think you need one.”
“Dorien, actually. Thanks. It won’t be necessary,” she told him as she struggled to sit up. It was spring but early enough in the day that the concrete felt cold under her back. “My god, that poor child.”
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