The Year's Best Horror Stories 16

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THE YEAR"S BEST HORROR STORIES: XVI.

Karl Edward Wagner.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

To John Rieber.

Life is coincidence, ruined by sanity.

-Ancient Chinese Proverb.

INTRODUCTION: THEY"RE HERE-AND THEY WON"T GO AWAY.

Welcome to The Year"s Best Horror Stories: Series XVI.

But first, a word to our sponsors: all of you readers out there who are currently writing horror stories and those of you who are planning to do so tomorrow or the next day.

You lot aren"t making my job any easier, you know.

This is the ninth volume in this series that I have edited for DAW Books, and each year I mutter about the increasing amount of reading I have to do and the difficulty in making final selections from so many outstanding stories ... But, hey-in 1987 you writers pushed me too far. I"d thought 1986 was a b.u.mper year, but 1987 broke all records for the number of horror stories published. If you don"t believe me, ask my optometrist.

The increase has come from two directions. While the usual markets-genre magazines and general periodicals-remain strong, there has been an exciting proliferation both of small press publications and of major horror anthologies.

The hyperactivity in the small press field is particularly impressive. Amateur magazines-call them fanzines or semiprozines, as you will-have been a fixture in the field for as long as there have been fantasy/horror fans. Fifteen years ago there were relatively few small press publications devoted primarily to horror fiction. Weirdbook and Whispers were in the fore and in the minority. More often, fan publications centered upon one particular author-usually Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, or Robert E. Howard-and such fiction as they published was devotedly derivative. Heroic fantasy was quiet in vogue, and the major thrust of fan publishing-and fan writing-was directed toward imaginary realms of sorcery, swords and derring-do. Horror fiction, unless derivative, was decidedly not where the action was.

Not so in 1987, if the four-foot shelf crammed with the year"s small press publications-as many as I could lay hands on-is any indication. Surging strongly in recent years, horror fiction now rules the small press world. Most of the older magazines stand firm, the young ones from a few years back have settled in, and new t.i.tles are lurking in every dark alley. People are interested in horror fiction; they want to read it, and many want to write it. This is where the future of horror fiction really can be seen, and I wonder what awaits us in The Year"s Best Horror Stories fifteen years from now.

The growing popularity of the horror story is also evidenced by the increase in anthologies of original horror fiction. For reasons never clear to me, publishers traditionally have avoided short story collections in preference to novels. One editor once told me that this was because almost all books ever sold are bought by New Yorkers who read them on trains, and that this consumer group only reads novels. I sit up nights pondering over this.

Whatever the logic, it seems to be changing. The last few years have seen an upsurge in short story collections all throughout the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres-original and reprint, single author and anthology. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that many of these are theme collections or "shared universe" anthologies. Theme anthologies have begun to predominate the horror field-books wherein all the stories take place on Halloween, or are set in the South, or deal with haunted houses, or have some other unifying theme. Shared universe anthologies, still more common in science fiction and fantasy, are even more inbred: various authors write stories within a previously structured setting, perhaps utilizing a few recurring characters, and abiding by certain rules and regulations. I think it"s this unified approach that eases publishers" qualms about short story collections. They can tell themselves that these are, after all, almost novels.

This is not to denigrate either trend. I"ve been asked to contribute to many of these myself; in fact, I have done so, and any editor who asks me for a story about motorcycles in Texas on Saint Patrick"s Day is more than welcome to inquire. Meanwhile, general horror anthologies have shared in the boom, with stalwarts such as Shadows and Whispers still going strong, while we also see ambitious new small press entries such as Masques, in addition to the outstanding collections published each year by William Kimber in England.

The Year"s Best Horror Stories is a general horror anthology. These stories are chosen without regard to theme or method, style or approach. Here you will find stories by famous writers alongside those by unknowns, stories from familiar sources as well as from those obscure. As you read through Series XVI, you will encounter traditional ghostly tales as well as those of surreal terror, find experimental creative ventures alongside new interpretations of the Cthulhu Mythos, experience quiet horrors sharing s.p.a.ce with the raw scream.

This eclecticism is one reason why The Year"s Best Horror Stories is the unique annual anthology of horror stories. There are no rules, no prescribed themes. There are no taboos, no free rides. I"m only looking for the best. And so are you.

It"s interesting that over the near-decade during which I"ve edited The Year"s Best Horror Stories reviews and letters of comment have often singled out the same given story as the best or the worst in that particular volume. As they say, different strokes. While I make it a policy never to mention awards in The Year"s Best Horror Stories, I"ll break my own rule this one time to congratulate Dennis Etchison for winning the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction for "The Olympic Runner" and David J. Schow for winning the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for "Red Light." Both stories had previously been selected for last year"s The Year"s Best Horror Stones: Series XV. Nice to know that your eye-strained editor is not alone in his judgments. And that"s the last I"ll say about awards.

In short, the horror genre is as active right now as it has ever been. With the help of new gla.s.ses and a brain transplant, I"ll be ready to sift through whatever horrid delights the future has in store for us over the next fifteen years.

The only criterion for the The Year"s Best Horror Stories is excellence.

Hey, maybe that makes this a theme anthology after all?

Too late now. Dive into The Year"s Best Horror Stories: Series XVI. And pray that you make it back next year.

-Karl Edward Wagner.

POPSY.

by Stephen King.

The fact that you are reading this book probably means that it won"t really be necessary for me to tell you who Stephen King is. Beginning with Carrie, King has written a seemingly endless string of bestselling horror novels, many of which have been made into films. His most recent bestsellers include It, Misery, The Tommyknockers, and The Eyes of the Dragon, while Stand By Me and The Running Man are the most recent successful movies based on his work.

It wasn"t always like this. Born September 21, 1946 in Portland, Maine, Stephen King is one of the generation of horror writers who were born during or immediately after World War II-and perhaps there"s a story (or a thesis) in this phenomenon. Like most of us, King struggled along for years, selling stories where he could, eking out a living teaching school, working in a laundromat, whatever. But that was then and this is now, and King"s hard-earned success has opened doors for countless other horror writers, both as an inspiration to them and as proof of the genre"s. .h.i.therto unsuspected popularity with the general public. Success generates imitation, and many writers have fumbled about trying to discover King"s secret formula. There is, however, no secret. Stephen King is happily writing just what he has always wanted to write, doing just what he has wanted to do with his life: Stephen King enjoys scaring the bejabbers out of his readers. Witness the following: Sheridan was cruising slowly down the long blank length of the shopping mall when he saw the little kid push out through the main doors under the lighted sign which read COUSINTOWN. It was a boy-child, perhaps a big three and surely no more than five. On his face was an expression to which Sheridan had become exquisitely attuned. He was trying not to cry but soon would.

Sheridan paused for a moment, feeling the familiar soft wave of self-disgust ... but every time he took a child, that feeling grew a little less urgent. The first time he hadn"t slept for a week. He kept thinking about that big greasy Turk who called himself Mr. Wizard, kept wondering what he did with the children.

"They go on a boat-ride, Mr. Sheridan," the Turk told him, only it came out Dey goo on a bot-rahd, Meestair Shurdone. The Turk smiled. And if you know what"s good for you, you won"t ask anymore about it, that smile said, and it said it loud and clear, without an accent.

Sheridan hadn"t asked anymore, but that didn"t mean he hadn"t kept wondering. Tossing and turning, wishing he had the whole thing to do over again so he could turn it around, walk away from the temptation. The second time had been almost as bad ... the third time not quite ... and by the fourth time he had stopped wondering so much about the bot-rahd, and what might be at the end of it for the little kids.

Sheridan pulled his van into one of the parking s.p.a.ces right in front of the mall, s.p.a.ces that were almost always empty because they were for crips. Sheridan had one of the special license plates on the back of his van the state gave to crips; that kept any mall security cop from getting suspicious, and those s.p.a.ces were so convenient.

You always pretend you"re not going out looking, but you always lift a crip plate a day or two before.

Never mind all that bulls.h.i.t; he was in a jam and that kid over there could bail him out of it.

He got out and walked toward the kid, who was looking around with more and more bewildered panic in his face. Yes, he thought, he was five all right, maybe even six-just very frail. In the harsh fluorescent glare thrown through the gla.s.s doors the boy looked white and ill. Maybe he. really was sick, but Sheridan reckoned he was just scared.

He looked up hopefully at the people pa.s.sing around him, people going into the mall eager to buy, coming out laden with packages, their faces dazed, almost drugged, with something they probably thought was satisfaction.

The kid, dressed in Tuffskin jeans and a Pittsburgh Penguins tee-shirt, looked for help, looked for somebody to look at him and see something was wrong, looked for someone to ask the right question-You get separated from your dad, son? would do-looking for a friend.

Here I am, Sheridan thought, approaching. Here I am, sonny-I"ll be your friend.

He had almost reached the kid when he saw a mall rent-a-cop walking slowly up the concourse toward the doors. He was reaching in his pocket, probably for a pack of cigarettes. He would come out, see the boy, and there would go Sheridan"s sure thing.

s.h.i.t, he thought, but at least he wouldn"t be seen talking to the kid when the cop came out. That would have been worse.

Sheridan drew back a little and made a business of feeling in his own pockets, as if to make sure he still had his keys. His glance flicked from the boy to the security cop and back to the boy. The boy had started to cry. Not all-out bawling, not yet, but great big tears that looked reddish in the reflected glow of the COUSINTOWN MALL sign as they tracked down his smooth cheeks.

The girl in the information booth waved at the cop and said something to him. She was pretty, dark-haired, about twenty-five; he was sandy-blond with a mustache. As he leaned on his elbows, smiling at her, Sheridan thought they looked like the cigarette ads you saw on the backs of magazines. Salem Spirit. Light My Lucky. He was dying out here and they were in there making chit-chat. Now she was batting her eyes at him. How cute.

Sheridan abruptly decided to take the chance. The kid"s chest was. .h.i.tching, and as soon as he started to bawl out loud, someone would notice him. He didn"t like moving in with a cop less than sixty feet away, but if he didn"t cover his markers at Mr. Reggie"s within the next twenty-four hours or so, he thought a couple of very large men would pay him a visit and perform impromptu surgery on his arms, adding several elbow-bends to each.

He walked up to the kid, a big man dressed in an ordinary Van Heusen shirt and khaki pants, a man with a broad, ordinary face that looked kind at first glance. He bent over the little boy, hands on his legs just above the knees, and the boy turned his pale, scared face up to Sheridan"s. His eyes were as green as emeralds, their color accentuated by the tears that washed them.

"You get separated from your dad, son?" Sheridan asked kindly.

"My Popsy," the kid said, wiping his eyes. "My dad"s not here and I ... I can"t find my P-P-Popsy!"

Now the kid did begin to sob, and a woman headed in glanced around with some vague concern.

"It"s all right," Sheridan said to her, and she went on. Sheridan put a comforting arm around the boy"s shoulders and drew him a little to the right ... in the direction of the van. Then he looked back inside.

The rent-a-cop had his face right down next to the information girl"s now. Looked like there was something pretty hot going on between them ... and if there wasn"t, there soon would be. Sheridan relaxed. At this point there could be a stick-up going on at the bank just up the concourse and the cop wouldn"t notice a thing. This was starting to look like a cinch.

"I want my Popsy!" the boy wept.

"Sure you do, of course you do," Sheridan said. "And we"re going to find him. Don"t you worry."

He drew him a little more to the right.

The boy looked up at him, suddenly hopeful.

"Can you? Can you, Mister?"

"Sure!" Sheridan said, and grinned. "Finding lost Popsies ... well, you might say it"s kind of a specialty of mine."

"It is?" The kid actually smiled a little, although his eyes were still leaking.

"It sure is," Sheridan said, glancing inside again to make sure the cop, whom he could now barely see (and who would barely be able to see Sheridan and the boy, should he happen to look up), was still enthralled. He was. "What was your Popsy wearing, son?"

"He was wearing his suit," the boy said. "He almost always wears his suit. I only saw him once in jeans." He spoke as if Sheridan should know all these things about his Popsy.

"I bet it was a black suit," Sheridan said.

The boy"s eyes lit up, flashing red in the light of the mall sigh, as if his tears had turned to blood.

"You saw him! Where?" The boy started eagerly back toward the doors, tears forgotten, and Sheridan had to restrain himself from grabbing the boy right then. No good. Couldn"t cause a scene. Couldn"t do anything people would remember later. Had to get him in the van. The van had sun-filter gla.s.s everywhere except in the windshield; it was almost impossible to see inside even from six inches away.

Had to get him in the van first.

He touched the boy on the arm. "I didn"t see him inside, son. I saw him right over there."

He pointed across the huge parking lot with its endless platoons of cars. There was an access road at the far end of it, and beyond that were the double yellow arches of McDonald"s.

"Why would Popsy go over there?" the boy asked, as if either Sheridan or Popsy-or maybe both of them-had gone utterly mad.

"I don"t know," Sheridan said. His mind was working fast, clicking along like an express train as it always did when it got right down to the point where you had to stop s.h.i.tting and either do it up right or f.u.c.k it up righteously. Popsy. Not Dad or Daddy but Popsy. The kid had corrected him on it. Popsy meant granddad, Sheridan decided. "But I"m pretty sure that was him. Older guy in a black suit. White hair ... green tie ..."

"Popsy had his blue tie on," the boy said. "He knows I like it the best."

"Yeah, it could have been blue," Sheridan said. "Under these lights, who can tell? Come on, hop in the van, I"ll run you over there to him."

"Are you sure it was Popsy? Because I don"t know why he"d go to a place where they-"

Sheridan shrugged. "Look, kid, if you"re sure that wasn"t him, maybe you better look for him on your own. You might even find him." And he started brusquely away, heading back toward the van.

The kid wasn"t biting. He thought about going back, trying again, but it had already gone on too long-you either kept observable contact to a minimum or you were asking for twenty years in Hammerton Bay. It would be better to go on to another mall. Scoterville, maybe. Or- "Wait, mister!" It was the kid, with panic in his voice. There was the light thud of running sneakers. "Wait up! I told im I was thirsty, he must have thought he had to go way over there to get me a drink. Wait!"

Sheridan turned around, smiling. "I wasn"t really going to leave you anyway, son."

He led the boy to the van, which was four years old and painted a nondescript blue. He opened the door and smiled at the kid, who looked up at him doubtfully, his green eyes swimming in that pallid little face.

"Step into my parlor," Sheridan said.

The kid did, and although he didn"t know it, his a.s.s belonged to Briggs Sheridan the minute the pa.s.senger door swung shut.

He had no problem with broads, and he could take booze or leave it alone. His problem was cards-any kind of cards, as long as it was the kind of cards where you started off by changing your greenbacks into chips. He had lost jobs, credit cards, the home his mother had left him. He had never, at least so far, been in jail, but the first time he got in trouble with Mr. Reggie, he thought jail would be a rest-cure by comparison.

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