http://media.photobucket.com/image/charles%20birkin/panspersons/charlesbirkin-1.jpg
Get a bunch of people together and ask them what they thought was the most horrifying moment of the 20th Century. Nine out of every ten will probably mention the Holocaust. Birkin is the first of this batch of post-war writers to bring up that horrible chapter in humanity’s life.
The commanding officers of a concentration camp gather together five of their prisoners, all of whom are kind of relieved. Usually, when Jews are singled out at the camp, they are sent to their deaths. These five pass up the usual death destinations, but one of them, Cohn, feels that their captors have something nasty in mind for them.
The Nazis have dressed up five coconuts as the leaders of their opposing armies, from Churchill to Roosevelt to Stalin, etc. They have also given these five prisoners projectile weapons. The idea is, one by one, these prisoners will have a few opportunities to hit their coconut targets. The four who have the highest scores will be given posh jobs, and their loved ones in the female section of the camp will be given extra food. The lowest scorer will go back to his old job in shame.
Naturally, they’re all eager to get out of the usual shit labor, so they do their best with this competition. Even so, Cohn suspects something is off about this, that maybe these Nazis are just doing this because they’re bored. But not even he, the youngest and strongest of the Jews chosen for this contest, can guess the depths of depravity involved with this exercise.
SPOILER ALERT: Not surprisingly, Cohn scores the highest, and after a tie-breaker, the lowest scorer is determined. As a reward, the Nazis give them their coconut targets, telling them that prizes reside in the middle of them. Cohn opens up his coconut to discover the head of his beloved wife. The other husbands also find the heads of their wives, and the only one who doesn’t have a wife finds the head of his daughter.
Holy shit. Can this story get any uglier? Well . . . yes, it can. Cohn, angered by this development, throws his wife’s head at the Nazi in charge and gets shot in the guts and dick for his effort. They leave him in the dirt, dying, and ship the others off to their new hell. Meanwhile, Cohn tries his best to crawl his way to the head Nazi to exact his revenge, except . . . well, he doesn’t get it. The Nazi in charge sees him later, and when his underling goes to shoot Cohn, the Nazi stops him, telling him that the Jew will die anyway, so why waste the bullet?
And that’s it. There is no moral, only horror. Deep, dark, stark, relentless horror. END OF SPOILERS.
This is the most nihilistic story ever put to paper. Birkin has no point to prove, aside from the fact that all human beings are scum, and there is no reward for effort. That is probably what makes this one of the most horrifying stories in this volume.
It’s an ugly tale. Most people won’t have the stomach for it. It takes only the truest, purest horror fan to get into this story. Even then, it’s kind of hard. There is too much exposition in the beginning. Birkin doesn’t get to the story until he’s a few pages in. But once you get past that, the reward—or rather, the horror—is exquisite. You will not forget this story, even though you may want to.
[This story first appeared in SHAFTS OF FEAR and cannot be read online at this time.]
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #63: A review of "The Mirror of Cagliostro" by Robert Arthur
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c3/Ratyping.jpg
Here we have an oddity. This story, on the surface, is very much a polite horror story, but when you get beneath the skin a bit, there is something savage, and even a little modern, about it.
This one starts off in London with Charles, the Duke of Burchester, strangling a pretty young girl to death in a private room at a restaurant. He casually goes home to his parents, and shortly thereafter, with Scotland Yard pounding at his door, he jumps out his window to his death below.
Fast forward about fifty years to Paris, where Harry Langham, a Boston student, is working on a thesis on the subject of Alexander Cagliostro, a man who claimed to be a wizard in the late 18th Century. Harry wants to denounce the fool, but something about him seems genuine. He goes to an expert on the subject, and this leads him to the catacombs of the Church of St. Martin, where he is led to the tomb of Yvette Dulaine. The monk opens the coffin to reveal a body free of corruption. In fact, the monk claims that she is not dead at all, but is still alive, a victim of Cagliostro, doomed to live forever without the comfort of death. Harry thinks the monk is full of shit and that the body is actually a wax figure.
He later changes his mind after he buys a mirror once owned by Cagliostro. One night, he sees a vision of Yvette in the mirror, and afterward, an image of a man appears in the looking glass, claiming to be another victim of Cagliostro. After luring Harry into the mirror, it is revealed that the man is actually Cagliostro, and he has now escaped the mirror, where he now hides in Harry’s body, as he did with the Duke of Burchester (remember him?).
Harry, now stuck in the world of the mirror, learns of poor Yvette’s plight and vows to escape this place and exact his revenge against Cagliostro. The problem is, in the meantime, Cagliostro is using Harry’s body to murder and kill, and the fiend is doing his best to get close to Harry’s intended love, but for what nefarious purposes?
Arthur weaves an incredible story here. The scene where Charles murders that girl is really kind of modern, almost Columbine-ish. His parents have no idea as to what he’s been up to, and it’s obvious that they fear him. Yet at the same time, the tone of the story is so genteel, it reeks of British higher society. Meanwhile, Cagliostro, who has also used the Marquis de Sade and Jack the Ripper as stolen vessels, is running around, committing horrible atrocities and getting away with it all. (Apparently, his actual body is still hanging around somewhere, much like Yvette’s, incorruptible.)
SPOILER ALERT: Harry discovers that the mirror world is an exact replica of Cagliostro’s home at the time it was created. This means that it contains the wizard’s library, which also contains many books with many solutions to Harry’s problem. Naturally, he uses this against Cagliostro to earn his freedom and destroy the mirror, thus saving Yvette’s soul. The scene where Cagliostro melts down into a puddle of putrification is incredible. It’s really a masterpiece of trickery, and to go into exactly how Harry makes this happen is kind of cheap. Read it for yourself. END OF SPOILERS.
When you get down to it, very few things are scarier than losing your ability to control your own body. Someone else, living in your skin, committing acts that you will be blamed for. Horrible acts. How can you fight against something like that? Well, give this story a try and find out.
[This story first appeared in FANTASTIC STORIES OF IMAGINATION and cannot be read online at this time.]
Here we have an oddity. This story, on the surface, is very much a polite horror story, but when you get beneath the skin a bit, there is something savage, and even a little modern, about it.
This one starts off in London with Charles, the Duke of Burchester, strangling a pretty young girl to death in a private room at a restaurant. He casually goes home to his parents, and shortly thereafter, with Scotland Yard pounding at his door, he jumps out his window to his death below.
Fast forward about fifty years to Paris, where Harry Langham, a Boston student, is working on a thesis on the subject of Alexander Cagliostro, a man who claimed to be a wizard in the late 18th Century. Harry wants to denounce the fool, but something about him seems genuine. He goes to an expert on the subject, and this leads him to the catacombs of the Church of St. Martin, where he is led to the tomb of Yvette Dulaine. The monk opens the coffin to reveal a body free of corruption. In fact, the monk claims that she is not dead at all, but is still alive, a victim of Cagliostro, doomed to live forever without the comfort of death. Harry thinks the monk is full of shit and that the body is actually a wax figure.
He later changes his mind after he buys a mirror once owned by Cagliostro. One night, he sees a vision of Yvette in the mirror, and afterward, an image of a man appears in the looking glass, claiming to be another victim of Cagliostro. After luring Harry into the mirror, it is revealed that the man is actually Cagliostro, and he has now escaped the mirror, where he now hides in Harry’s body, as he did with the Duke of Burchester (remember him?).
Harry, now stuck in the world of the mirror, learns of poor Yvette’s plight and vows to escape this place and exact his revenge against Cagliostro. The problem is, in the meantime, Cagliostro is using Harry’s body to murder and kill, and the fiend is doing his best to get close to Harry’s intended love, but for what nefarious purposes?
Arthur weaves an incredible story here. The scene where Charles murders that girl is really kind of modern, almost Columbine-ish. His parents have no idea as to what he’s been up to, and it’s obvious that they fear him. Yet at the same time, the tone of the story is so genteel, it reeks of British higher society. Meanwhile, Cagliostro, who has also used the Marquis de Sade and Jack the Ripper as stolen vessels, is running around, committing horrible atrocities and getting away with it all. (Apparently, his actual body is still hanging around somewhere, much like Yvette’s, incorruptible.)
SPOILER ALERT: Harry discovers that the mirror world is an exact replica of Cagliostro’s home at the time it was created. This means that it contains the wizard’s library, which also contains many books with many solutions to Harry’s problem. Naturally, he uses this against Cagliostro to earn his freedom and destroy the mirror, thus saving Yvette’s soul. The scene where Cagliostro melts down into a puddle of putrification is incredible. It’s really a masterpiece of trickery, and to go into exactly how Harry makes this happen is kind of cheap. Read it for yourself. END OF SPOILERS.
When you get down to it, very few things are scarier than losing your ability to control your own body. Someone else, living in your skin, committing acts that you will be blamed for. Horrible acts. How can you fight against something like that? Well, give this story a try and find out.
[This story first appeared in FANTASTIC STORIES OF IMAGINATION and cannot be read online at this time.]
Thursday, June 28, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #62: A review of "The Aquarium" by Carl Jacobi
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQGppu4YXjgXEFQGsU2GLpkW7bj6cmr7HB3PdzH2T96haFgzNGwq41nKHvLC5AItZ1e44xpVwQ-L9b_DVT2V9RvNGDoKlEKGI3MNB951igV82hMi0DGAbzopSjqBkgm29wJebvGYLTlhP/s1600/Thrilling+Wonder+Stories+1939-06-RS+087+c-3.JPG
In his introduction to this piece, Pelan mentions wishing he could find a place for Jacobi in this volume, as he always seemed to be in the running for several years and was never quite good enough. Finally, 1962 opened up for him, but unfortunately, Jacobi’s entry fails to satisfy.
Emily Rhodes (hereafter referred to as Miss Rhodes in the story) is fed up with the smallness of her apartment, so she rents a house that comes with a conservatory (which she converts to a painter’s studio) and an odd aquarium. She invites her friend Edith to join her as a companion in this new house, and before long, they are living a quiet life of . . . well, nothing, really. Both are crept out by the aquarium and the previous owner, but they seem content to just ignore it.
A neighbor tells them that the man who installed the aquarium, which is filled with dank water and shells and supposedly nothing else, was a famous conchologist who had peculiar ideas about reality. For example, he believed there were creatures at the bottom of the ocean that could imitate its prey, and that they were controlled by, you guessed it, Cthulhu.
A kitten goes missing, but aside from that, nothing truly weird happens. In fact, nothing much happens at all in this story, up until the end. SPOILER ALERT: Edith starts sleepwalking, and Miss Rhodes notices that her destination is always the aquarium, which she stares at until woken up. But then, on the very last page, Edith is drawn to the aquarium, where she is partially eaten by a monster we never see. (There are, however, bloody footprints leading from the tank to the body, then back.)
Really? Is that the best you can do? Granted, the imagery at the end is pretty cool, but it makes no sense. This story is essentially a waste of time. There is no suspense, there is no intrigue, and the only horror to be found here is plain old ineffective. END OF SPOILERS.
It seems that Pelan lives at extremes. Either his choice is bad or un-fucking-believably good; there is no in between. Chalk up another for the former.
[This story first appeared in DARK MIND, DARK HEART and cannot be read online at this time.]
In his introduction to this piece, Pelan mentions wishing he could find a place for Jacobi in this volume, as he always seemed to be in the running for several years and was never quite good enough. Finally, 1962 opened up for him, but unfortunately, Jacobi’s entry fails to satisfy.
Emily Rhodes (hereafter referred to as Miss Rhodes in the story) is fed up with the smallness of her apartment, so she rents a house that comes with a conservatory (which she converts to a painter’s studio) and an odd aquarium. She invites her friend Edith to join her as a companion in this new house, and before long, they are living a quiet life of . . . well, nothing, really. Both are crept out by the aquarium and the previous owner, but they seem content to just ignore it.
A neighbor tells them that the man who installed the aquarium, which is filled with dank water and shells and supposedly nothing else, was a famous conchologist who had peculiar ideas about reality. For example, he believed there were creatures at the bottom of the ocean that could imitate its prey, and that they were controlled by, you guessed it, Cthulhu.
A kitten goes missing, but aside from that, nothing truly weird happens. In fact, nothing much happens at all in this story, up until the end. SPOILER ALERT: Edith starts sleepwalking, and Miss Rhodes notices that her destination is always the aquarium, which she stares at until woken up. But then, on the very last page, Edith is drawn to the aquarium, where she is partially eaten by a monster we never see. (There are, however, bloody footprints leading from the tank to the body, then back.)
Really? Is that the best you can do? Granted, the imagery at the end is pretty cool, but it makes no sense. This story is essentially a waste of time. There is no suspense, there is no intrigue, and the only horror to be found here is plain old ineffective. END OF SPOILERS.
It seems that Pelan lives at extremes. Either his choice is bad or un-fucking-believably good; there is no in between. Chalk up another for the former.
[This story first appeared in DARK MIND, DARK HEART and cannot be read online at this time.]
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #61: A review of "Sardonicus" by Ray Russell
Pelan isn’t fucking around with this one. No, this story is not only one of the best horror tales of the century, it should also rank among the top 10 EVER. It’s so wonderfully structured with memorable characters and a tantalizing plot, there isn’t a place where this story falters.
Sir Robert Cargrave is a preeminent surgeon, specializing in curing paralyzed patients. One day, he gets a letter from a former love interest innocuously inviting him out to meet her at her husband’s castle in an unnamed village in Bohemia. (Cargrave is actually willing to name names, but this one is actually censored from the story.)
He agrees, and shortly he is a guest of Mr. Sardonicus, Maude Randall’s husband. Cargrave is put off by the way the man lives, but it isn’t until he meets the man face to face that he is absolutely repulsed. Sardonicus, you see, has a deformity: his face bears a permanent smile, known as a risus sardonicus in the medical industry.
It turns out that Sardonicus used his wife’s friendship with Cargrave to lure the surgeon out to Bohemia in order to get him to cure him of this deformity. The good doctor is willing to help, but as he sticks around longer and longer, he realizes there is something deeply sinister about his host.
It isn’t until he hears how Sardonicus came by his deformity that he knows the depth of his depravity. A long time ago in Poland, there was a young man named Marek Boleslawski, whose father regularly played the lottery whenever he visited Warsaw on business. One day, the old man drops dead in his field, and he is buried. Shortly thereafter, visitors from Warsaw tell his family that the old man had the winning numbers. Only then do they realize that they’ve buried their father with the ticket. Marek decides to dig up his father and take back the ticket . . . but when he comes face to face with his rotting father, he is scared so badly by the deathly grin on the corpse that his face imitates his father’s . . . and so Sardonicus was born.
When Sardonicus met Maude, he went through the trouble of sabotaging her father’s finances, hoping that he could swoop in and offer a dowry big enough to allow her parents to marry him. Well, that led to Mr. Randall’s suicide and his wife’s subsequent death of a broken heart, but Sardonicus got what he wanted, a trophy wife who doesn’t even want to fuck him. That’s okay with him, as long as he owns her.
And now we find ourselves in the present, and Sardonicus is threatening to rape the shit out of Maude every day for the rest of her life if Cargrave doesn’t find a cure for the perpetual rictus.
Holy fuck. It should be noted that the general tone of the story is very much in the vein of polite horror, but when it comes down to a threat of ongoing rape, manners just go out the door. There is nothing polite about this vicious little tale. Russell isn’t here to play with us, he’s here to run us through the wringer. It’s actually kind of funny, considering a conversation Sardonicus and Cargrave have during dinner. Sardonicus believes that villains can’t be considered effective if they don’t have something humanizing about them, some nugget of goodness that makes them sympathetic. Cargrave disagrees, using Iago as an example of pure evil in a villain. Even though we get this story through Cargrave’s eyes, it is very clear that Sardonicus is evidence to the doctor’s way of thinking. There isn’t a more disgusting villain in any of the stories we’ve gone through so far in this volume.
There’s more. SPOILER ALERT: Cargrave is a cunning bastard. He knows that since this affliction is mental, the only way to solve it is by tricking Sardonicus. He pretends to labor away with a deadly poison, trying to distill it to the point where it might cure Sardonicus without killing him. He even goes as far as to kill a few dogs to show how deadly this poison is. Finally, after all is said and done, Cargrave gives Sardonicus an injection which finally slackens the smile. His mouth is numb, and he is warned to not try to talk yet. Gleeful that his grin is finally gone, he sets Cargrave free and lets him take Maude away with him. They get away, and he confesses that he didn’t inject Sardonicus with anything stronger than distilled water. This brings us back to a tiny seed Russell planted earlier in the story, in which he has Cargrave tell us how he thinks someday people will be cured of physical afflictions by doctors who diagnose mental problems. How’s that for fucking foreshadowing?
Cargrave and Maude go back to England, where they are married and have kids. Years later, Cargrave hears a Bohemian fairy tale from a traveling friend who describes a man who had once been wealthy, going through life with a face so slackened that he couldn’t even open his mouth to eat, and so he starved to death. Is this the fate of Sardonicus? Cargrave doubts it, as he wants more proof than gossip, but this sounds pretty certain. END OF SPOILERS.
“The Crawling Horror” has been named the closest horror story to perfection in this anthology so far in these reviews. While it is a fine story, one of the best, “Sardonicus” trumps it, making it still a formidable tale at a close second. Don’t deprive yourself. Read this story as soon as you can.
[This story first appeared in PLAYBOY, and FUUUUUUCK! It can't be read online at this time. However, it was made into an excellent movie, which I reviewed for Forced Viewing. Read it here.]
Sir Robert Cargrave is a preeminent surgeon, specializing in curing paralyzed patients. One day, he gets a letter from a former love interest innocuously inviting him out to meet her at her husband’s castle in an unnamed village in Bohemia. (Cargrave is actually willing to name names, but this one is actually censored from the story.)
He agrees, and shortly he is a guest of Mr. Sardonicus, Maude Randall’s husband. Cargrave is put off by the way the man lives, but it isn’t until he meets the man face to face that he is absolutely repulsed. Sardonicus, you see, has a deformity: his face bears a permanent smile, known as a risus sardonicus in the medical industry.
It turns out that Sardonicus used his wife’s friendship with Cargrave to lure the surgeon out to Bohemia in order to get him to cure him of this deformity. The good doctor is willing to help, but as he sticks around longer and longer, he realizes there is something deeply sinister about his host.
It isn’t until he hears how Sardonicus came by his deformity that he knows the depth of his depravity. A long time ago in Poland, there was a young man named Marek Boleslawski, whose father regularly played the lottery whenever he visited Warsaw on business. One day, the old man drops dead in his field, and he is buried. Shortly thereafter, visitors from Warsaw tell his family that the old man had the winning numbers. Only then do they realize that they’ve buried their father with the ticket. Marek decides to dig up his father and take back the ticket . . . but when he comes face to face with his rotting father, he is scared so badly by the deathly grin on the corpse that his face imitates his father’s . . . and so Sardonicus was born.
When Sardonicus met Maude, he went through the trouble of sabotaging her father’s finances, hoping that he could swoop in and offer a dowry big enough to allow her parents to marry him. Well, that led to Mr. Randall’s suicide and his wife’s subsequent death of a broken heart, but Sardonicus got what he wanted, a trophy wife who doesn’t even want to fuck him. That’s okay with him, as long as he owns her.
And now we find ourselves in the present, and Sardonicus is threatening to rape the shit out of Maude every day for the rest of her life if Cargrave doesn’t find a cure for the perpetual rictus.
Holy fuck. It should be noted that the general tone of the story is very much in the vein of polite horror, but when it comes down to a threat of ongoing rape, manners just go out the door. There is nothing polite about this vicious little tale. Russell isn’t here to play with us, he’s here to run us through the wringer. It’s actually kind of funny, considering a conversation Sardonicus and Cargrave have during dinner. Sardonicus believes that villains can’t be considered effective if they don’t have something humanizing about them, some nugget of goodness that makes them sympathetic. Cargrave disagrees, using Iago as an example of pure evil in a villain. Even though we get this story through Cargrave’s eyes, it is very clear that Sardonicus is evidence to the doctor’s way of thinking. There isn’t a more disgusting villain in any of the stories we’ve gone through so far in this volume.
There’s more. SPOILER ALERT: Cargrave is a cunning bastard. He knows that since this affliction is mental, the only way to solve it is by tricking Sardonicus. He pretends to labor away with a deadly poison, trying to distill it to the point where it might cure Sardonicus without killing him. He even goes as far as to kill a few dogs to show how deadly this poison is. Finally, after all is said and done, Cargrave gives Sardonicus an injection which finally slackens the smile. His mouth is numb, and he is warned to not try to talk yet. Gleeful that his grin is finally gone, he sets Cargrave free and lets him take Maude away with him. They get away, and he confesses that he didn’t inject Sardonicus with anything stronger than distilled water. This brings us back to a tiny seed Russell planted earlier in the story, in which he has Cargrave tell us how he thinks someday people will be cured of physical afflictions by doctors who diagnose mental problems. How’s that for fucking foreshadowing?
Cargrave and Maude go back to England, where they are married and have kids. Years later, Cargrave hears a Bohemian fairy tale from a traveling friend who describes a man who had once been wealthy, going through life with a face so slackened that he couldn’t even open his mouth to eat, and so he starved to death. Is this the fate of Sardonicus? Cargrave doubts it, as he wants more proof than gossip, but this sounds pretty certain. END OF SPOILERS.
“The Crawling Horror” has been named the closest horror story to perfection in this anthology so far in these reviews. While it is a fine story, one of the best, “Sardonicus” trumps it, making it still a formidable tale at a close second. Don’t deprive yourself. Read this story as soon as you can.
[This story first appeared in PLAYBOY, and FUUUUUUCK! It can't be read online at this time. However, it was made into an excellent movie, which I reviewed for Forced Viewing. Read it here.]
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #60: A review of "The House" by Fredric Brown
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e9/Fredricbrown.jpg/200px-Fredricbrown.jpg
This is probably the shortest of the entire anthology, but that’s no surprise, considering the writer. Brown is most popular for his short-shorts and once even wrote the shortest horror story ever. Better known for his SF and mystery work, he is nonetheless pretty effective in this genre, too.
An unnamed protagonist approaches a house, and once he’s inside, he turns to find that the door has vanished, that it is now a solid wall. He wanders around, discovering odd things that make no sense, like an auditorium that faces a blank wall, a Playbill with no material in it except for a couple of ads, and the mysterious word, GARFINKLE. Later, he encounters a chanting sound that somehow involves the word RAGNAROK.
There is no other word to describe this story: it’s phantasmagorical. The reader feels like it’s a dream, and maybe it is. Perhaps this is one of Brown’s dreams that he put to paper. If so, his head must be a claustrophobic place to be. All in all, this is a very strange tale to publish in 1960. Dreamlike sequences would become more common when writers started taking drugs stronger than weed (think LSD, not opium). In 1960, it could only have been a mindfuck of a read.
SPOILER ALERT: The protagonist eventually comes to a room that reminds him of his mother’s room from when he was a child with a magazine and enough candles to last for 20 hours, maybe a little more. The door, of course, locks forever, never to open again, and he finds that he’s going to be stuck in this room for eternity. What’s going to happen when the candles run out? And how long can a magazine last as entertainment? It doesn’t take him long to flip out and start beating at the door with his fists. Of course, that gets him nowhere. END OF SPOILERS.
Brown explains nothing, which is a hell of a strength here. The reader is left to figure everything out . . . or not. Give it a read, and see what you make of it.
[I'll be completely fucked in half if I can figure out where this story first appeared. The internet is full of misleading information on this one. It might have been in an issue of THRILLING, but I won't commit to that. It can't be read online at this time.]
[EDIT: It took me some time, but I finally found the answer: this story first appeared in FANTASTIC SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. I just discovered the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which is going to be a lifesaver for the rest of these posts.]
This is probably the shortest of the entire anthology, but that’s no surprise, considering the writer. Brown is most popular for his short-shorts and once even wrote the shortest horror story ever. Better known for his SF and mystery work, he is nonetheless pretty effective in this genre, too.
An unnamed protagonist approaches a house, and once he’s inside, he turns to find that the door has vanished, that it is now a solid wall. He wanders around, discovering odd things that make no sense, like an auditorium that faces a blank wall, a Playbill with no material in it except for a couple of ads, and the mysterious word, GARFINKLE. Later, he encounters a chanting sound that somehow involves the word RAGNAROK.
There is no other word to describe this story: it’s phantasmagorical. The reader feels like it’s a dream, and maybe it is. Perhaps this is one of Brown’s dreams that he put to paper. If so, his head must be a claustrophobic place to be. All in all, this is a very strange tale to publish in 1960. Dreamlike sequences would become more common when writers started taking drugs stronger than weed (think LSD, not opium). In 1960, it could only have been a mindfuck of a read.
SPOILER ALERT: The protagonist eventually comes to a room that reminds him of his mother’s room from when he was a child with a magazine and enough candles to last for 20 hours, maybe a little more. The door, of course, locks forever, never to open again, and he finds that he’s going to be stuck in this room for eternity. What’s going to happen when the candles run out? And how long can a magazine last as entertainment? It doesn’t take him long to flip out and start beating at the door with his fists. Of course, that gets him nowhere. END OF SPOILERS.
Brown explains nothing, which is a hell of a strength here. The reader is left to figure everything out . . . or not. Give it a read, and see what you make of it.
[I'll be completely fucked in half if I can figure out where this story first appeared. The internet is full of misleading information on this one. It might have been in an issue of THRILLING, but I won't commit to that. It can't be read online at this time.]
[EDIT: It took me some time, but I finally found the answer: this story first appeared in FANTASTIC SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. I just discovered the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which is going to be a lifesaver for the rest of these posts.]
Monday, June 25, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #59: A review of "The Howling Man" by Charles Beaumont
http://miskatonicbooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/charles-beaumont-2.jpg
Take a poll of everyone who has a healthy interest in THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and ask them what their favorite episode was. It’ll probably come down to two: Matheson’s story about the gremlin on the wing of the plane, or Beaumont’s “The Howling Man.” Though it originally appeared under the name of C.B. Lovehill, and the actual name of the writer is Charles Nutt, this is ALL Beaumont.
Fresh out of college, Ellington has decided to do what all young men of the age did before having to deal with the real world: he decides to travel Europe. Paris, in particular. Because, you know, he wants to get laid. A lot. With French chicks.
The constant party wears him out, and soon he finds himself exhausted. He decides it’s time to see the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, he isn’t at the top of his game, and he comes down with a case of pneumonia and passes out. When he comes to, he’s in a monastery, and Brother Christophorus is watching over him. The monk is kind of disappointed, because he was expecting Ellington to die (and the head monk, Jerome, says that all monks should experience the death of a man before they are ready to serve God), but he helps nurse Ellington back to health. There’s just one problem: throughout every night, Ellington hears someone screaming within the monastery walls.
Brother Christophorus denies this, saying it’s just a part of Ellington’s hallucinations due to his fever. Yet, Ellington can’t accept that, and he sneaks out of his room until he finds the source of the screams: a naked, hairy man in a hidden cell. The prisoner tells him that Jerome is a madman who kidnapped him and is holding him for no reason against his will.
At this point, Jerome discovers Ellington and takes him aside, explaining how things used to be in the nearby town. To hear him tell it, it was Sodom and Gomorrah rolled up in one, until one night he encounters a man who begs him to give Extreme Unction to his dying wife. This man leads him to a gorgeous, naked woman who has a different kind of Extreme Unction in mind. At this moment, Jerome decides that the man is the devil, and he traps him with the aid of a cross.
In other words, the man in the cell is none other than Satan himself, and his imprisonment means that there is an end to strife on the planet. All mankind has to deal with is the shit they already have, not the devil’s mischief.
That’s not the twist. SPOILER ALERT: Well, it is. Kind of. The reality is, Ellington completely disbelieves this story, as would any rational man. This is clearly a case of religious cruelty, and he decides to free the howling man. He manages to unlock the cell, and as they escape, Ellington makes a sudden and horrible realization: Jerome was telling the truth. This man really is the devil. The world starts going to shit shortly afterward, and when Ellington tries to tell the authorities about what has happened, the monks discredit him, saying he’s still suffering from his sickness. He can’t help but go about the rest of his life, feeling guilty about having set loose the devil on the world. That’s a pretty soul-wrenching ending as it is, but then, Beaumont has to fuck it up. At the very end, the monks manage to catch the devil again and lock him away. Meaning, this story has all been for nothing. END OF SPOILERS.
If you have the willpower to skip the last two paragraphs of this story, you will be rewarded with one of the greatest horror stories to ever be written. Hell, even with the last two paragraphs, it’s pretty good, but it’s kind of a cop out. You’ll see.
[This story first appeared in ROGUE and can be downloaded for free here.]
Take a poll of everyone who has a healthy interest in THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and ask them what their favorite episode was. It’ll probably come down to two: Matheson’s story about the gremlin on the wing of the plane, or Beaumont’s “The Howling Man.” Though it originally appeared under the name of C.B. Lovehill, and the actual name of the writer is Charles Nutt, this is ALL Beaumont.
Fresh out of college, Ellington has decided to do what all young men of the age did before having to deal with the real world: he decides to travel Europe. Paris, in particular. Because, you know, he wants to get laid. A lot. With French chicks.
The constant party wears him out, and soon he finds himself exhausted. He decides it’s time to see the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, he isn’t at the top of his game, and he comes down with a case of pneumonia and passes out. When he comes to, he’s in a monastery, and Brother Christophorus is watching over him. The monk is kind of disappointed, because he was expecting Ellington to die (and the head monk, Jerome, says that all monks should experience the death of a man before they are ready to serve God), but he helps nurse Ellington back to health. There’s just one problem: throughout every night, Ellington hears someone screaming within the monastery walls.
Brother Christophorus denies this, saying it’s just a part of Ellington’s hallucinations due to his fever. Yet, Ellington can’t accept that, and he sneaks out of his room until he finds the source of the screams: a naked, hairy man in a hidden cell. The prisoner tells him that Jerome is a madman who kidnapped him and is holding him for no reason against his will.
At this point, Jerome discovers Ellington and takes him aside, explaining how things used to be in the nearby town. To hear him tell it, it was Sodom and Gomorrah rolled up in one, until one night he encounters a man who begs him to give Extreme Unction to his dying wife. This man leads him to a gorgeous, naked woman who has a different kind of Extreme Unction in mind. At this moment, Jerome decides that the man is the devil, and he traps him with the aid of a cross.
In other words, the man in the cell is none other than Satan himself, and his imprisonment means that there is an end to strife on the planet. All mankind has to deal with is the shit they already have, not the devil’s mischief.
That’s not the twist. SPOILER ALERT: Well, it is. Kind of. The reality is, Ellington completely disbelieves this story, as would any rational man. This is clearly a case of religious cruelty, and he decides to free the howling man. He manages to unlock the cell, and as they escape, Ellington makes a sudden and horrible realization: Jerome was telling the truth. This man really is the devil. The world starts going to shit shortly afterward, and when Ellington tries to tell the authorities about what has happened, the monks discredit him, saying he’s still suffering from his sickness. He can’t help but go about the rest of his life, feeling guilty about having set loose the devil on the world. That’s a pretty soul-wrenching ending as it is, but then, Beaumont has to fuck it up. At the very end, the monks manage to catch the devil again and lock him away. Meaning, this story has all been for nothing. END OF SPOILERS.
If you have the willpower to skip the last two paragraphs of this story, you will be rewarded with one of the greatest horror stories to ever be written. Hell, even with the last two paragraphs, it’s pretty good, but it’s kind of a cop out. You’ll see.
[This story first appeared in ROGUE and can be downloaded for free here.]
Friday, June 22, 2012
THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #58: A review of "That Hell-Bound Train" by Robert Bloch
http://mgpfeff.home.sprynet.com/bloch-head.jpg
Between H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, no writer changed horror as much as Robert Bloch, so it is only fitting that he’s earned a place in this volume. Not only that, but one of his most powerful horror stories was chosen, “That Hell-Bound Train,” and while he might have found more than a little inspiration in the Chuck Berry song (yeah, here’s another example of a white man borrowing from Chuck Berry), it is still a hell of a riveting read.
Martin is the son of a hard-drinking railroad man, who taught him a song about That Hell-Bound Train. However, when his father dies on the job, and his mother runs away with a new husband, Martin does his absolute best to make it on his own in the world. Still, as he kicks around the country, doing odd jobs, wandering as a hobo, his old man’s song haunts him. He becomes obsessed with the kind of train that caters to “drunks and sinners . . . the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt chasers, and all the jolly crew,” even though he knows their destination isn’t all that fun. Despite this, he finds himself wishing he could have a meet with the devil. His life sucks, and he wants to make a deal with ol’ Beelzebub in order to make things better.
One day, while walking the rails, he hears a train coming up on him, and it stops in the middle of nowhere. The conductor, who wears an ill-fitting hat (perhaps because something on his forehead is pushing it up at an awkward angle), steps down, and they have a conversation. It takes no time before Martin realizes he’s talking with the devil, and here’s a prime opportunity to strike a deal.
But improving his life isn’t good enough. He’s got a plan to stick it to Satan and to thereby save his life from eternal torment in the fires of Hell. In exchange for his soul, he asks for the ability to stop time when he finally finds himself at the perfect moment of happiness. The devil agrees and gives him a pocket watch. When he is at his happiest, he is to turn back the knob, which will stop time. Martin laughs, thinking he’s gotten the best of Old Splitfoot, since the devil can’t collect his soul if he freezes time (and therefore never dies). The devil laughs and essentially says, “You got me.”
All right, maybe deal-with-the-devil stories turns you off. They should, as they are a dime-a-dozen and never very good. But what follows is not business as usual. Bloch gives us a new, original take on such tales. Oddly, it’s also kind of inspiring, which is unusual for a horror story.
Martin travels to Chicago and hustles for a while. Then, he realizes that he’s never going to find that moment of happiness if he hits up strangers for change and spends his evenings in flophouses, drinking bottle after bottle of whiskey. So he gets himself a job, and soon, he gets promoted. He gets raises. Soon, he can afford a decent place and a car, and shortly after, he starts banging easy chicks. The good life? Well, better. We’re almost there. So he starts going out on actual dates, and before long, he’s married to a nice girl. That moment of happiness? Almost. Not quite. He gets her pregnant, and he wants to stick around for his kid. He wants to see his son grow up. And even though he’s getting thick around the waist, and he’s losing his hair, Martin keeps chasing that moment of happiness, which he feels is right around the corner.
Then, he finds new excitement with a little bit of side-action, someone who makes him feel young, and again, he is tempted to turn the watch back and stop time. He doesn’t, because his happiness isn’t perfect yet. So he continues to fuck this other woman until he gets discovered. He loses everything except his job, and he tries to start over. Too bad he’s too old, and the simple pleasures don’t even register for him. Soon, his health is so bad that he knows he’s going to die any day, and he wants to turn the knob, just to rob the devil at the last second . . . but does he really want to spend eternity like this?
Holy shit, right? There is a lot in this story, a lot that people can actually use to change their lives. If you find that everything sucks, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. Did you notice what happened here? Martin improved his life without ANYONE’S HELP. Did the devil ever step in and help him out? No. This was all on Martin. The good, the bad, the ugly, it was all Martin.
And in the end, he realizes his folly. SPOILER ALERT: he’s near his death, so decrepit and weak that he knows he only has a few seconds left. He is tempted a final time to turn the knob, but he doesn’t. And the train stops by. The conductor steps down. And the devil confesses: this deal is pretty much a dime-a-dozen, and of course, no one has EVER turned the knob to stop time. Everyone always chases that moment of happiness that never exists, because it’s mythical. They already have their moment of happiness, they’re just greedy for more.
The devil takes him onboard, and since Martin was so affluent in his life, he gets to sit in the privileged section. And the devil sticks out his hand for the watch, because there’s always another fool to use it on . . . and Martin chooses that moment to turn the knob back.
That’s right, everyone onboard That Hell-Bound Train are stuck riding it for eternity, to never reach their destination. While Martin can’t save himself, he certainly puts one over on the devil, and Bloch manages to orchestrate this without ever compromising his artistic integrity. Think about all of those deal-with-the-devil stories that end with a deus ex machina, and then consider this masterpiece. END OF SPOILERS.
This is one of those stories that everyone who has any interest in the genre has read. There can’t be anyone reading this who hasn’t encountered it. If you are among the very few who haven’t, put it on your reading list, and then make it next on your list.
[This story first appeared in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE-FICTION and cannot be read online at this time. Like "Pigeons From Hell," Lansdale adapted this story for IDW, too. It was a lot more loyal to Bloch than Howard, so it's a fun read.]
Between H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, no writer changed horror as much as Robert Bloch, so it is only fitting that he’s earned a place in this volume. Not only that, but one of his most powerful horror stories was chosen, “That Hell-Bound Train,” and while he might have found more than a little inspiration in the Chuck Berry song (yeah, here’s another example of a white man borrowing from Chuck Berry), it is still a hell of a riveting read.
Martin is the son of a hard-drinking railroad man, who taught him a song about That Hell-Bound Train. However, when his father dies on the job, and his mother runs away with a new husband, Martin does his absolute best to make it on his own in the world. Still, as he kicks around the country, doing odd jobs, wandering as a hobo, his old man’s song haunts him. He becomes obsessed with the kind of train that caters to “drunks and sinners . . . the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt chasers, and all the jolly crew,” even though he knows their destination isn’t all that fun. Despite this, he finds himself wishing he could have a meet with the devil. His life sucks, and he wants to make a deal with ol’ Beelzebub in order to make things better.
One day, while walking the rails, he hears a train coming up on him, and it stops in the middle of nowhere. The conductor, who wears an ill-fitting hat (perhaps because something on his forehead is pushing it up at an awkward angle), steps down, and they have a conversation. It takes no time before Martin realizes he’s talking with the devil, and here’s a prime opportunity to strike a deal.
But improving his life isn’t good enough. He’s got a plan to stick it to Satan and to thereby save his life from eternal torment in the fires of Hell. In exchange for his soul, he asks for the ability to stop time when he finally finds himself at the perfect moment of happiness. The devil agrees and gives him a pocket watch. When he is at his happiest, he is to turn back the knob, which will stop time. Martin laughs, thinking he’s gotten the best of Old Splitfoot, since the devil can’t collect his soul if he freezes time (and therefore never dies). The devil laughs and essentially says, “You got me.”
All right, maybe deal-with-the-devil stories turns you off. They should, as they are a dime-a-dozen and never very good. But what follows is not business as usual. Bloch gives us a new, original take on such tales. Oddly, it’s also kind of inspiring, which is unusual for a horror story.
Martin travels to Chicago and hustles for a while. Then, he realizes that he’s never going to find that moment of happiness if he hits up strangers for change and spends his evenings in flophouses, drinking bottle after bottle of whiskey. So he gets himself a job, and soon, he gets promoted. He gets raises. Soon, he can afford a decent place and a car, and shortly after, he starts banging easy chicks. The good life? Well, better. We’re almost there. So he starts going out on actual dates, and before long, he’s married to a nice girl. That moment of happiness? Almost. Not quite. He gets her pregnant, and he wants to stick around for his kid. He wants to see his son grow up. And even though he’s getting thick around the waist, and he’s losing his hair, Martin keeps chasing that moment of happiness, which he feels is right around the corner.
Then, he finds new excitement with a little bit of side-action, someone who makes him feel young, and again, he is tempted to turn the watch back and stop time. He doesn’t, because his happiness isn’t perfect yet. So he continues to fuck this other woman until he gets discovered. He loses everything except his job, and he tries to start over. Too bad he’s too old, and the simple pleasures don’t even register for him. Soon, his health is so bad that he knows he’s going to die any day, and he wants to turn the knob, just to rob the devil at the last second . . . but does he really want to spend eternity like this?
Holy shit, right? There is a lot in this story, a lot that people can actually use to change their lives. If you find that everything sucks, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. Did you notice what happened here? Martin improved his life without ANYONE’S HELP. Did the devil ever step in and help him out? No. This was all on Martin. The good, the bad, the ugly, it was all Martin.
And in the end, he realizes his folly. SPOILER ALERT: he’s near his death, so decrepit and weak that he knows he only has a few seconds left. He is tempted a final time to turn the knob, but he doesn’t. And the train stops by. The conductor steps down. And the devil confesses: this deal is pretty much a dime-a-dozen, and of course, no one has EVER turned the knob to stop time. Everyone always chases that moment of happiness that never exists, because it’s mythical. They already have their moment of happiness, they’re just greedy for more.
The devil takes him onboard, and since Martin was so affluent in his life, he gets to sit in the privileged section. And the devil sticks out his hand for the watch, because there’s always another fool to use it on . . . and Martin chooses that moment to turn the knob back.
That’s right, everyone onboard That Hell-Bound Train are stuck riding it for eternity, to never reach their destination. While Martin can’t save himself, he certainly puts one over on the devil, and Bloch manages to orchestrate this without ever compromising his artistic integrity. Think about all of those deal-with-the-devil stories that end with a deus ex machina, and then consider this masterpiece. END OF SPOILERS.
This is one of those stories that everyone who has any interest in the genre has read. There can’t be anyone reading this who hasn’t encountered it. If you are among the very few who haven’t, put it on your reading list, and then make it next on your list.
[This story first appeared in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE-FICTION and cannot be read online at this time. Like "Pigeons From Hell," Lansdale adapted this story for IDW, too. It was a lot more loyal to Bloch than Howard, so it's a fun read.]
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