by Brian Hodge
I've read them. Which begs the question, what if people actually read your hitherto invisible stories? Boy howdy! The poop hits the prop, bigtime.
Everybody wants to unearth your pseudonyms and expose what you must be hiding. Verify whether you ever did porn. Reveal the real people your fiction must be based on. Prove you were actually a sniper or ate babies. Squeeze out just when you'll dedicate a book to them. When it'll be made into a movie. When they can pick up their free passes. When you'll submit to the inevitable and use them as a character. And, tell the truth, now…weren't you really writing about your old girlfriend? Ex boss? Dysfunctional parents? Fellow mental patients? What's the real name of that sonofabitch who betrayed you, fucked your spouse or went so terminal you finally had to stab them to death in public?
Or they wish to know how such tales got writ. I'll confess I've enjoyed the back matter that has become a popular adjunct to story collections these days, so, trend-monger that I am, I've attempted a bit of editorial illumination where it seems appropriate. (Ed Bryant says he likes it. If you don't, write your own damned book).
Time to round up the usual suspects. Herewith, a yellow sheet of the perpetrators and accomplices that help, in one way or another, to get these invisible fictions out into the big bad world at large. Criminals like these make the Nineties a much cooler place to be.
Editorial perps: Joe Lansdale, Ellen Datlow, Jeff "Mo Hotter Blood" Gelb, Jessie Horsting, Karl Edward Wagner, Darrell Schweitzer, Stephen Jones, Ramsey Campbell, John Betancourt, Randy Bennett & Craig Strong, Jesus Gonzalez & Buddy Martinez, and Mark Budz. They made me do it, Your Honor…
Crime boss: For this volume in particular, guilt lies heavily on the shoulders of Mark Ziesing, aided and abetted by Arnie Fenner, Robert Frazier and Dwight Brown. They can't deny it. I've got Roy Robbins and Deborah Beale as witnesses.
Stealth puppetmaster: John Farris, who took the time to write a very nourishing letter to an undernourished first novelist, then, some years later, was kind enough to write the introduction you’ll find at the front of this very book.
Foreign connections: The Unholy Three, formerly the Bad Boys of MEC/Sydney–superdirector Alex Proyas, supernegotiator Andrew Mason, and supermusician Peter Miller, as well as Lizzie Bryant, Uwe Luserke, Abner Stein, Victoria Perry, Dick Jude, Deborah B. (that's twice), Jo Fletcher, Gavin Baddeley, and the able staffs of Forbidden Planet, London, and the Fantasy Inn, which I got to right before it burned down.
For providing hangouts and safe houses of the mind: Bob & Elly Bloch, Matthew and Allison Jorgensen, Kaz Prapuolenis & Linda Marotta, Nathan Long, Scott Spiegel, Doug Winter, Steve Bissette, Michael Jonascu, Jeff Rovin, Vincent Di Fate, Bob Stephens, Jerry & Mary Neeley, Bill Warren, Peter & Susan Straub, and the amazing Christa Faust, who was out there all along.
For tour support during the '93 incursion: Scott Wolfman, Kim Spector, and the staffs of Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, and Bridgewater State College (MA). Not to mention the mystery guest who informed me and Craig Spector that our mere presence scared her mute.
For special weapons and tactics: Joe Stefano, Neil Norman of GNP/ Crescendo Records, Pat LoBrutto, Mick Garris, Frank Darabont, Caldecot Chubb, Sgt. Al Crossley of the LAPD, Dondi, Sal and all the guys at the Moose Lodge in Linden, New Jersey, Scott Fresina and the members of Tribal Soul, Tony Timpone and the staff of Fangoria magazine, and backup cameraman and storyboard wiz Peter Pound.
To Richard and Joe: We're still getting away with it, man.
Here's thirteen more stories. And as for haunted stoves, well, I've got this idea about Dachau …
Naah; It's been done.
–DJS
Hallowe'en, 1993
The republication of these collections in digital form has necessitated the use of a corrupt version of Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine, which we shall call the Way-Forward Machine.
Black Leather Required was a good snapshot of my work eighteen years ago. In 1999, it also provided the name for my first eponymous website (which has not been updated since 2005; hilarity, among other things, interceded).
It was a time I predict will be subject to much future nostalgia — that quivering moment before omnipresent "mobile devices" and perpetual connectivity drove much of the planet insane. I was only just beginning to use e-mail. It was all part of that previous century, the one that already seems antique and irrelevant to serial Tweeters.
Me, I'm biding my time, waiting to see what replaces Facebook.
Because the generations marching up behind today's population of iPhone addicts will want something all their own, instead of being obligated to use the devices and practices of their uncool older siblings, or their even more uncool parents.
Many people fail to remember how loudly the publishing industry was screaming and crying about publish-on-demand (POD) books. Those fools. Look at them now.
They ignored the prime directive of evolution: adapt to survive.
1994: The heyday of the Fangoria convention. The year The Crow came out.
In the meantime I was able to lend John Farris some spiritual payback, first in the form of sponsoring his first website, then by editing a collection of his short stories (Elvisland, coming soon from Crossroad Press), and finally by adapting his story "I Scream. You Scream. We All Scream for Ice Cream." into an episode of Masters of Horror, thereby providing the first screen credit John had enjoyed since 1978.
Flash forward, flash back as you please, but remember the lessons.
Just think how silly all this will seem in 2025, if we're still around.
— DJS
31 July 2012
DEFINING MOMENTS
By David Niall Wilson
DEDICATION
This book is has come to be due to the influence, support, and inspiration of so many people that I hesitated to write a dedication for fear of missing someone – forgetting something important – or just rambling pointlessly. These stories span literally decades of my life.
My thanks to the editors who saw some spark in my work that they wanted to present to the world. Mark Rainey of Deathrealm, Rich Chizmar at Cemetery Dance, Martin H. Greenberg, Larry Segriff and John Helfers at Tekno Books, Ken Abner at Terminal Frights, who also saw enough talent in me to publish my first stand-along novel, the great folks at White Wolf publishing and my longtime friend, collaborator, and sometimes editor Brian A. Hopkins. Not least among these, Mr. Robert Morgan of Sarob Press, who has been an enthusiastic, helpful editor and publisher from start to finish and has given me the chance to see these older stories presented to new readers, and some new works made available for the first time. What I live for is telling stories and every writer’s dream is to see his words presented in such a beautiful volume.
I’d also like to thank some people for support on a more personal level. Through those early years, the Pseudocon crowd, Beth Massie, Yvonne Navarro, Mark & Peggy Rainey, Brian Hodge and Doli, Jeff Osier, Barb & Charlie – even The Not Quite Right Reverend Lee. They formed the odd patches in my psyche that help bring the words into focus, and you can’t buy that in a store.
Thanks to Trish for loving me, supporting me, and putting up with me through all the ups and downs of life and this odd thing I call a career. Thanks to my kids for giving me inspiration, love, and some of the finest memories a father could ever hope for. This is for you guys, Zach, the dreamer, Zane, the artist, Steph the photographer, author and official “responsible adult” at our house, Billy the hurricane expert and inheritor of my bad sense of humor, and Katie, the curly blonde prodigy who already has her dad wrapped around her finger at age 2 ½.
Special and final thanks to Manly Wade Wellman, Karl Edward Wagner, Stephen King, Richard Matheson, and Ray Bradbury for worlds without end.
From Hertford, NC,
David Niall Wilson
CONTENTS
Author's Preface
Defining Moments
For These Things I am Truly Thankful
The Lost Wisdom of
Instinct
More Than Words
The Call of Distant Shores
To Dream of Scheherazade
The Milk of Paradise
The Gentle Brush of Wings
The Death-Sweet Scent of Lilies
Cockroach Suckers
'Scuse Me, While I Kiss the Sky
Bloody Knife & Morning Star
Author’s Preface
I’m happy to have the opportunity to write an introduction to this collection, because it gives me a chance to talk about the stories that were chosen, why they were chosen, and where they fit in the great puzzle that is my life’s work. The process of creating this book was interesting, and I think the selections were very nearly perfect. Having over a hundred and thirty stories in print it isn’t easy to whittle that number down to thirteen, but we attacked them a pile at a time, and with Robert’s help, I think the representative pieces will do very well indeed.
I want to comment briefly on each of the thirteen tales, in no particular order, so that I can lend perspective to each piece and hopefully show how and why I came to write them. I don’t know if this is helpful to the reading experience, but I know that I’m usually fascinated when another author reveals their process. Here’s a bit of mine.
One of the oldest stories in this volume is “Bloody Knife and Morning Star,” a tale I wrote long ago for a themed anthology – Vision Quests. This story came about because, at the same time this anthology opened for submissions and I was asked to contribute, I happened to pick up and read a biography of George Armstrong Custer. I found the situation at Little Bighorn intriguing, and I found some references to a subordinate—the man who should have come to Custer’s aide – that suggested an alternate reason for Custer’s defeat. This piece is probably the roughest and greenest prose in the book. It was written at a time in my life that I can barely recall, creatively, but despite this, I still like the premise, and Robert picked it from a host of others, so it made the cut.
“The Milk of Paradise,” on the other hand, is newer work, and is one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever written. Long ago I read a novel (the title of which I can’t recall) about a poet who was drawn into another dimension to finish Coleridge’s poem, Kublai Kahn in order to save the universe. I’ve long been fascinated with the idea that the poem was unfinished, and when the absinthe anthology (sadly never published) Verte Brum came along, I found a way to tie it all together and bring it to print. Eventually the story was published in City Slab Magazine #7. It is reprinted for the first time here.
The title piece, “Defining Moments,” is a tribute to another long-dead writer, Ambrose Bierce, and his classic tale “Incident at Owl’s Creek Bridge,” which has stuck with me since the first time I read it back in grade school. I wanted something that would walk across the line into a more surreal world – it was written specifically for the web site Gothic.Net – I wanted to impress the editors there. Apparently, I succeeded, but when I sat down to write, even I had no idea of the twists and turns that would lead me through to the conclusion. I’ve always considered it among my best short fiction.
The Death-Sweet Scent of Lilies is the one time I have included Vlad Tepes as a fictional character. It was written for Dark Destinies III, the Children of Dracula, which gave authors a chance to write about Dracula, or someone close to him, and expand on the original myth. What I wanted to do was to make use of some of my own research on the historical Vlad Tepes and give a different possible view of how he came to be undead, and of why he impaled his enemies with such cold, calculating fury. I think I succeeded in this. It’s another older story – written nearly a decade ago. I’d write it differently now, but then it would be a different story, wouldn’t it?
When Deathrealm Magazine was in its glory, I wrote two or three stories that were meant specifically for that market. One of these was “The Lost Wisdom of Instinct.” When I write tales of the Lovecraftian sort, I like to concentrate on that great fear he evoked that there is a protective veil between mankind and some greater, powerful evil that waits patiently to devour the world. I was fascinated at the time of writing this story with the notion that the Tarot cards could be seen as windows. This story has the distinction of being the only one I’ve ever read aloud at a convention and been told afterward that a listener had to go smoke a cigarette after hearing it.
I often use the anthology “Werewolves” as an example of the weakness of the themed anthology. If you already know every story in the book will have a werewolf in it, the challenge to write something unique and surprising is much more difficult. For that book I wrote “The Taste of Blood and Roses.” I wanted to give the world a story of lycanthropy and romance, and I wanted a unique protagonist. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if I succeeded. This story is so old that I can claim it as the first one that I ever transmitted to an editor electronically. That editor was Larry Segriff, who works with Martin H. Greenberg. We connected our “state-of-the-art” machines using software called Q-Modem, across a blistering 2400 baud data path. I was paid the next week. That experience changed everything.
When I was contacted about an anthology of stories taking place on holidays, I was just making notes for a story based on a co-workers journal. He’d kept the journal while working as a stock-boy at a grocery store, and the tales he told were very nearly enough to put me off my feed. I chose Thanksgiving, and from the combination of that holiday, and the aforementioned journal, I created “For These Things I Am Truly Thankful,” which may be one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever written. It was published in the anthology “Haunted Holidays,” and even now, if I think about it too much, it can send my heart and mind racing in directions not conducive to good digestion.
History plays a great part in my fiction. I have always had a love of Egyptology. Cleopatra fascinates me – Caesar’s Cleopatra, there were many queens by that name—and after reading a long biography on her life, I found myself remembering an incident from my own past. When in the US Navy, stationed in San Diego, California, I attended a “fair” held by a local spiritualist church. One lady there claimed to be able to read your past lives by dropping molten wax into liquid. When she read mine – she said I’d been a scribe in ancient Egypt, responsible for one of the great libraries near Alexandria. She saw fire, and pain. Since that day, ghost images of a fire I never saw, and a land I’ve never visited, have haunted me. I wrote the story “More than Words” with that past life “reading” in mind, and so much of the story seemed to write itself that I have to wonder where it came from – and if there is more.
“The Call of Farther Shores” is one of many tribute pieces I’ve written in my life – inspired in part by William Hope Hodgson. It was written for an anthology that never happened, but eventually published by the same editor who originally loved it in the anthology “Lost on the Darkside.” It was later reprinted in “Horror: Best of 2005” – an accomplishment I’m proud of. This story is filled with rich visions of my childhood. My step-father was a barber, and he cut hair in an ancient barber shop filled with mysterious secrets I wasn’t privy to. The bedroom in the story resembles my parent’s bedroom – the first one I remember, anyway. There is a lot of myself written in between the lines – and the sea. I always end up back at the sea.
The last of the reprints in the collection is a vampire story – something I’ve been known for throughout my career, though less recently than early on. This story, “To Dream of Scheherazade,” is one of my all-time favorites. It involves tattoos, and vampires, and to go any further than that would be to give away too much. It was first published in the anthology Terminal Frights – by an editor whose guidelines specifically stated no vampires. That same editor went on to publish my vampire novel “This is My Blood,” but that is another story.
The first of the stories that have not been previously published is titled “The Gentle Brush of Wings.” I honestly have no idea how this slipped through the cracks. When I went to put together the copyright a
nd publication history for each story, I searched and searched and could find no indication it had ever been published. It’s an odd, melancholy story. When Robert first read it he said it “started out slow…but then it got so good…” I feel the same about it, after reading and revising it. It’s another old story – from an author I remember, but no longer really connect with fully. That’s what makes a collection like this special, I think, the links from one period of an author’s life to the next.
The two new pieces have a similar history and a similar locale. Both are located in my fictional town of Old Mill, North Carolina, which is loosely based on the town I live in, Hertford, North Carolina, mixed with some legend, some fantasy, and a lot of imagination.
“Cockroach Suckers” was going to be my contribution to an anthology by that same name. I was the editor, and I wanted to show the rest of the authors what I meant when I said you could take a theme – any theme – even a really BAD theme – and do something unique with it. The theme was vampires and cockroaches. There are no vampires in my story, but there ARE Cockroach Suckers. If you like rednecks and roadside attractions you’re going to love this one.
“’Scuse Me, While I Kiss the Sky,” involves old abandoned US Government experiments, crop-dusting, drugs, sex, and a young man’s desire to escape the dead end life he’s living and break out into the world. It has characters based on some folks I’ve known, and is one of the oddest pieces of fiction I’ve ever penned. This is a novella, nearly fifteen thousand words, and I’m happy to see it printed here, alongside “Cockroach Suckers,” because it began as my original inspiration for that anthology, and grew too large, long, and off-center to fit. Without this novella, the novelette “Cockroach Suckers” might never have been written.
