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Here we have an unusual choice from Pelan. It should be a given that Leiber makes an appearance in this anthology, but a story this late in his timeline? He was producing his finest work in the ‘Fifties and ‘Sixties. Could he really offer something truly horrifying so late in life?
As it turns out, yes. Leiber’s work tended to be cutting-edge and even sexy in its day, but with this one, he seems to have gone all-out in regards to fucking. This is the first story in this anthology to use sex as a tool in a writer’s toolbox. (And also, incidentally, it is the first story to use the word “cunt.”)
Ramsey Ryker is an old man with a lot of sexual issues. His wife has been dead for a long time, and he refuses to jerk off because he feels an orgasm is something to be worked out between two people. It doesn’t help matters that he goes to sex shows and watches naked women finger and lick the shit out of each other. Still, he denies his raging hard-on any pleasure or relief.
As you can imagine, this attitude has warped his mind, and he starts having these weird dreams about miniature people (like, Lilliputians, not midgets) poke and prod his paralyzed form. These nightmares usually turn out to be of the wet variety.
Before long, he starts noticing a strange woman hanging out in his apartment complex (or apartment tree, as he likes to call it). He can never catch up to her, and she has a habit of disappearing. He talks to the landlord about it, and the fellow has a strange story about one day, a long time ago, there was actually a hooker infestation in the building. It turned out that they were really stealing things from their pimp’s rooms. The pimp had disappeared, and no one seemed to know what became of him. But that very day, the strange woman started showing up. Others who have mentioned seeing her have also disappeared. Ryker starts suspecting this woman might be a ghost.
After getting this across to the readers, Leiber takes a strange shift and starts telling the story from the Vanishing Lady’s point of view, and this is where the story really shines. She doesn’t seem to be aware of being a ghost. She blacks out for long periods of time, and whenever she comes to, she’s usually wandering the halls of this building. She knows nothing about herself, not even what color she is, because she’s wearing gloves, and whenever she takes them off, she blacks out. She can’t look at a mirror without blacking out, either.
She has started building up a series of fantasies in her head as to what happens when she blacks out (and one of them is that she might be a ghost), but she doesn’t really believe any of it. She also has these terrible dreams of miniature people prodding her. (Sound familiar?) No one can see her, except every once in a while . . . someone does. Now, she has noticed Ryker noticing her, and she wants more of his attention.
SPOILER ALERT: This is where the stories merge. They meet in the building’s wonky elevator, and they start making out, hot and heavy. He opens her coat and marvels at her nudity shortly before tasting her nudity. You know how most buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor? They go straight from 12 to 14. This elevator gets stuck between 12 and 14, and that’s when the miniature people come out of nowhere and start putting their hooks into Ryker’s body. Dazed, she watches as they drag him away to who knows where, and she is paid for her ghostly services with an odd coke-like drug. She snorts it, and her atoms come apart. She flies through the ceiling and up to the stars.
Leiber’s always been kind of a strange guy, but it would seem he’s still at the top of his game in the ‘Eighties. Does that sound like someone who’s merely calling it in? END OF SPOILERS.
Sex? Violence? Mystery? All from the pen of a master? How could you go wrong? Seek this one out right away.
[This story first appeared in DEATH and cannot be read online at this time.]
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