Yet, Jackson is routinely omitted from lists of the great horror writers…lists that often include far less important male writers.
I’m not sure how to remedy a situation this completely ridiculous, other than to urge my sisters in dark fiction to keep working, regardless of the seemingly impossible task set before us. Deep Cuts proves that our work is affecting some of our readers, that they are remembering our tales long after they’ve read them and admitting to the influence we’ve wielded. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before the lists can no longer deny the importance of women to the genre, when we’re accorded our proper place in this dark history.
In the meantime—fuck the haters, and sing loud and proud, bitches. Oh, I’m so sorry—that wasn’t very gentle, was it?
MAYHEM
E.S. Magill on Nancy Holder’s
“Crash Cart”
In the world of literature, the short story is guerilla warfare. A novel is a full-on campaign with multiple battles, and the troops its cast of characters. The short story, on the other hand, is a quick, direct hit that retreats to the shadows once the job is done. The best are those read in one sitting, the strongest effect produced that way, said Poe.
I’m a connoisseur of the short form—especially when it comes to horror. That’s where the genre rocks. Don’t get me wrong. Great horror novels abound, and I have an affinity for old-school ‘70s horror novels.
So, my bookshelves are loaded with anthologies of horror stories—in part because I was fortunate to work in a bookstore during those heady days of horror in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. As I unpacked boxes of books in the stockroom, a lot of those anthologies never even made it to the bookstore shelves. They went home with me, and a lot of my paycheck was left behind in that store. Kirby McCauley, Martin Greenberg, Jeff Gelb, and John Skipp Craig Spector edited the likes of Roberta Lannes, Douglas E. Winter, Richard Laymon, and Lisa Tuttle. Forget movie and rock stars, I grow giddy over writers.
The tour de force of those anthologies was Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. The covers were beautiful, conjuring up fantastic worlds from the start. Inside, treasure—summations of that year’s fantasy and horror in all its shapes and forms and always the obituaries to remember those fallen comrades of the dark pen.
And the stories!
Twenty-one years of this anthology series grace my bookshelves. Lots of stories read but many still waiting. One Saturday morning, sitting at my desk in my home library with a steaming mug of coffee, I randomly plucked from the shelf nearest me the “Seventh Annual Collection.” Mind you, by this time, the anthology was no longer being published, its editors on to other projects—something I mourn to this day. There was nothing like it, and while today there are various incarnations on the theme, I still long for the original. So that morning, I opened that volume to the table of contents and scanned titles and authors.
“Crash Cart” Nancy Holder.
A story I’d never read, sitting on my shelves for over a decade. I know Nancy Holder. We both live in San Diego. I’ve taken her writing class; she’s come to my house for a party; we move in the same circles. But I hadn’t always known her personally. Long ago, Nancy Holder was a byline in the anthologies I loved. A storyteller I respected—especially because she was a woman horror writer. She had no qualms about dabbling in the Splatterpunk phenomenon—a maligned sub-genre of horror whose criticism I vehemently protest.
I cracked the book to page 302 and started reading.
What I want to write here are the expletives I blurted as I read the story. That’s the type of critique to do it justice. Instead, to be polite and professional, I’ll yield to literary jargon: well-drawn protagonist; a disturbing thematic concept; well-paced storyline; a plot with deftly executed twists.
Well, that just told you jack about a story that blew me away. So, screw it, I’m going back to my original comments:
Holy fuck! One twisted mother of a story. A sick premise that shocked me to the core. A conclusion that left me stunned. Goddamn.
I hope there weren’t any spoilers in my description.
Here was a guerilla of a story, lurking on my shelves only to jump me when I wasn’t expecting it, leaving me reeling for the rest of the day and to this day. I read “Crash Cart” to my husband. I told others about it. “Do you know this story?” I asked. Not even my fellow horror writers knew the tale, and it was in a respected anthology.
Which got me thinking about all the short stories out there—lost to time. I contemplated the fate of short stories published and passed from memory, and I came to the realization that horror stories written by women were probably even more lost than those by men writers.
And I knew then that something had to be done because stories likes Nancy Holder’s “Crash Cart” deserve to be remembered and reread.
Crash Cart
Nancy Holder
Alan sat for a long moment with his eyes closed, allowing his fatigue and disappointment to wash through him like a gray haze. Felt himself drifting and sinking; if he didn’t move, he would fall asleep. He opened his eyes and picked up his soup spoon, and was shocked at the amount of fresh blood on the sleeve of his scrubs. Perhaps he should have changed into fresh ones.
Then he looked down at his bowl of cream of spinach soup and winced: it looked just like the stuff that had backed up through the feeding tube in Elle Magnuson’s stomach two hours ago as she lay dying. That crap seeping out, then the minor geyser when her son tried to fix it.
Christ, why the hell had her family done that to her in the first place? All the Enfamil had done was feed the tumor, for weeks and days and hours, and the last, awful few seconds. Code Blue, and they had yelled and screamed for him to do something, even though everyone had spoken so rationally about no extraordinary measures when she had been admitted. Her daughter shrieking at him, shouting, crying. Her son, threatening to sue. Par for the course, Anita Guzman had assured him. She’d been a nurse for twenty years, and hombre, she had seen it all.
Dispiritedly, he slouched in his chair. He had really liked that old lady. Her death touched him profoundly; his sorrow must show, for no one came to sit with him in the cafeteria. He looked around at the chatting groups of two’s and three’s. How long before he became the type of doctor for whom nobody’s death moved him? Par for the long haul, years and years of feeding tubes and blood. Why had he ever thought he wanted to be a doctor?
Maybe she had been special, and they wouldn’t all be this way. Maybe that’s why the feeding tube and the shrieking and the threats. It was so hard to let go, of certain people especially.
He pushed the soup away, marveling that he had been stupid enough to order it in the first place. He really had no appetite for anything. Which was bad; he had hours to go until his shift was over. He didn’t understand why they worked first-year residents to death like this. He never had a chance to catch up; he always felt he was doing a half-assed job because he was so tired. What if he made a mistake that cost someone their life?
What if he could have done something to save Elle Magnuson? She’d been terminal; he knew that. But still.
Alan unwrapped a packet of crackers and nibbled on one. They would settle his stomach. Maybe. If anything could. Last Tuesday, when he had asked Mrs. Magnuson how she was feeling, she had opened her bone-dry mouth and said, “I sure would love a lobster dinner.” And they looked at each other—no more lobster dinners for Elle Magnuson, ever, unless they served them in the afterlife. Jesus, how had she stood it? Spiraling downward so damn fast—her other daughter hadn’t made it from Sacramento in time. It had been a blessing, that last, brutal slide, but it didn’t seem that way now.
He dropped the cracker onto his food tray and wiped his face with his hands.
“Oh, God, Jonesy! God!” It was Anita. She was bug-eyed. She flopped into the chair across from his and picked up his soup spoon. “You’re not gonna believe this!”
Before he could say anyth
ing, she threw down the spoon and grabbed his forearm. “Bell’s wife was brought into the E.R.”
“What?”
“Yeah. And he comes flying in after the ambulance, just screaming. ‘I want my wife! Right now!’ ” She imitated him perfectly except for her accent. “ ‘I want her out of here!’ ”
Shocked, Alan opened his mouth to speak, but Anita went on. “Then they strip her down, and she’s covered with welts, Alan. Cigarette burns. Bell’s absolutely ballistic. And the paramedics drag MacDonald—that new ER guy?—over to a corner and tell him there are whips and chains on their bed and manacles on the wall, and in the corner, there’s a fucking crash cart.” She gripped his arm and leaned forward, her features animated, her eyes flashing. “Do you know what I’m saying?”
He sat there, speechless. Eagerly, she bobbed her head. “A crash cart,” she said with emphasis. A crash cart with the paddles that restarted your heart. A crash cart that brought you back from the dead. In the Chief of Surgery’s house.
For his wife.
He reeled. “Holy shit.”
Her nails dug into him. “He would torture her so badly, she’d go into cardiac arrest. Then he’d bring her back.”
“With the crash cart?” His voice rose, cracked. He couldn’t believe it. Bell was his mentor; Alan looked up to him like a father. Occasionally they talked about getting together to play chess. This had to be an April Fool’s joke. In January.
“Believe it, mi amor.” Anita bounced in her chair. “He’s in custody.” Alan stared at her. “I’m telling you the truth!”
“Bullshit,” he said savagely.
“Is not! Go see for yourself. His wife’s been admitted.”
Numb. Scalp to sole. He ran his hand through his hair. A joke, a really stupid joke. Sure. Anita was Guatemalan, and she had this very strange sense of humor. Like the time she had stuck that stuffed animal in the microwave. Now, that was just sick.
“C’mon,” she said, grabbing his wrist as she leaped to her feet. “Let’s go check her out.”
“Anita.”
“C’mon. Everyone’s going up there.”
He’d often wondered what Dr. Bell’s wife was like; there were no photos of her in Bell’s office. He had imagined her beautiful, talented, supremely happy despite the fact that she and Dr. Bell had no children.
He jerked his hand away. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to see her. And I think it’s gross that you—”
“Oh, lighten up. She’s unconscious, you know.”
“I’m surprised at you.” Although in truth, he had peeked in on other patients whom doctors and nurses had talked about—the crazies, the unusual diseases, even the pretty women.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Anita laughed at him and let go of his arm. “Well, I’m going. I have twenty minutes of dinner left. It’s room 512, if you’re interested. Private. Of course.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Suit yourself.” She grabbed his cracker packet and took the uneaten one, popped it in her mouth. “Eat your soup. You’re too skinny.”
She flounced away. At the doorway of the cafeteria, she saw more people she knew and greeted them with a cry. “Guess what!” and they followed her out of the cafeteria.
Alan sat, unable to focus, to think. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it. Not Bell. Not this. It was a vicious rumor; he knew how fast gossip traveled in the hospital, and how much of it was a load of crap.
His stomach growled. During the long minutes he sat there, the soup developed a film over the surface. A membrane. He stared at it, thought about puncturing it. Making an incision. Making it the way it had been.
With a sigh, he covered it with his napkin. Rest in peace, cream of spinach soup.
He jumped out of his chair when St. Pierre, a fellow resident, clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Jesus, Al, you hear about the old man?”
“Yeah.” He wiped his face. “Yeah, I did.”
Then he went to the men’s room, thinking he would vomit. Instead, he cried.
◙
At one in the morning, he went to the fifth floor. The nurses were busy at the station; he wore a doctor’s coat and had a doctor’s “I belong here” gait, and no one challenged or even noticed him.
The door to 512 was ajar. There was no chart.
A dim light was on, probably from the headboard.
He stood for a moment. Gawking like the other sickos, like someone slowing at an accident. Shit. He turned to go.
Couldn’t.
Pushed open the door.
He walked quietly in.
She lay behind an ivory curtain; he saw the outline of her in her bed. The lights were from the headboard, and they reflected oddly against the blank white wall, a movie about to begin, a snuff show. He walked past the curtain and looked sharply, quickly to the right, to see her all at once.
Oh, God. Black hair heaped in tangles on the pillow. IV’s dangling on either side. An oxygen cannula in her nose. He drew closer. Her small face was mottled with bruises and cuts, but it could have been pretty, with large eyes and long lashes, and a narrow, turned-up nose. He couldn’t tell what her mouth was like; it was too swollen.
She stirred. He didn’t move. He was a doctor. He had a right to be there. He flushed, embarrassed with himself. All right, call it professional curiosity.
Gawking.
There were stitches along the scalp line. Jesus. He reached toward her but didn’t touch her. Stared at her bruises, the long lashes, the poor lips. He saw in his mind Dr. Bell manacling her to the wall, doing…doing things…
…making her heart stop, my God, my God, what a fucking monster…
But what about her?
He wouldn’t let that thought go farther, wouldn’t blame the victim. He’d been commended last month for his handling of the evidence collection for a rape case. Dr. Bell had written a glowing letter: “Dr. Jones has shown a remarkable sensitivity toward his patients.”
Dr. Bell. God. Dr. Bell.
How could she? How could she let him? Until her heart stopped. Until she was clinically dead.
Mrs. Magnuson had clung to life with a ferocity that had proven to be her detriment—cream of spinach—making her linger and suffer, almost literally killing the fabric of her family as they began to unravel under the strain.
He stared at her. And suddenly, he felt a rush of…
…anger…
…so fierce he balled his fists. The blood rushed to his face; he clenched his teeth, God, he was so pissed off. He was—
“Jesus.” Shocked, he took a step backward.
She stirred again. He thought she might be trying to speak, coming up from whatever she was doped up on.
In the corridor, footfalls squeaked on the waxed linoleum. He felt an automatic flash of anxiety, a little boy sneaking around in places he shouldn’t be. Mrs. Magnuson had called him “son” and “honey,” and he had liked her very much for it.
The footfalls squeaked on, and he shook his head at his reaction. There were few places in the hospital he was actually barred from entering. His mind flashed on Dr. Bell shuffling through the morgue like some demented ghoul; sickened, he shut his eyes and decided to leave.
Instead, he found himself standing closer to her. His hand dangled near all those black curls; and for an instant, he thought hard about picking up some of those curls and pulling—
—hard.
“Jesus.” He spoke the word aloud again and wiped his face with his hand. What the hell was wrong with him?
He had a hard-on. He couldn’t believe it; he stepped backward and hurried from the room.
◙
Down the corridor, where the physicians’ showers were, he washed his face with cold water and dried it with a paper towel. His hands shook. He staggered backward and fell onto a beechwood bench that lined the wall. Across from him, gray lockers with names loomed over him: Jones, Barnette, Zuckerman. Dr. Bell had no locker here; of course, he
had his own office, his own facilities.
Hurting her.
Jesus. He buried his face in his hands, still shaking. Mrs. Magnuson would be absolutely incapable of believing what he had been thinking while he was in 512.
And what had that been?
He stood and walked out of the room. It was time to go home; he was overtired, over-stimulated. Too much coffee, too much work. Losing the old lady. Mrs. Magnuson. She had a name. They all had names. But what was her name?
Mrs. Bell. Ms. Bell. What was the difference?
He hurried back down the corridor and back into 512.
She lay behind the curtain; the play of shadow and white somehow frightened him, but her silhouette drew him on. He almost ran to her; he was panting. He had another erection, or perhaps he had never lost the first one. He was propelled toward her, telling himself he didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to, didn’t. She was unconscious: Sleeping Beauty.
He touched her forearm. There were bruises, cigarette burns. Scars. Didn’t her friends wonder? Did she have no friends? Bell was so friendly and outgoing, kind. He would have had lots of parties. He talked about barbecuing. His special sauce for ribs.
His chess proficiency, teasing Alan in a gentle way, telling him how he’d beat him if they ever played.
Beat him.
Alan found a place that had not been harmed and pressed gently. He moved his hand and pressed again.
On top of the bruise.
Pressed a little harder.
His erection throbbed against his scrubs. His balls felt rock-hard; God, he wanted…
…he wanted…
He pressed again, this time on a cigarette burn. Touched his cock. It was so hard. He was short of breath, and he wanted her so badly. He wanted…
He pinched the burn with the tips of his fingers, his short nails. He felt so dizzy, he thought he might fall into her bed; he hoped he would. Swimming through something hot and active and moving, with volition and something so powerful, he stretched out his hand and cupped her breast. Squeezed her nipple. Squeezed harder.
Deep Cuts Page 2
