Lydia’s mom was in her own world, embracing her daughter and crying. Dad was a little more level-headed. “So, are there zombies out here? You seemed to make it here okay.”
“There’s a few about a quarter mile from here,” Sammy said.
Lydia’s mother cupped her daughter’s face between her hands. “Oh my baby… are you okay? You look so pale!”
Whatever new sense of vitality Lydia had before, it sprang forth twofold, along with her fangs as she suddenly lunged toward her mother. She buried her fangs in her mother’s neck, driving them both up against the wall. Lydia’s mother cried out once, and then the others lunged at Lydia’s father.
Doug didn’t even get off a shot. Melissa crushed his throat with a vice-like grip at the same time Olivia crushed his hand. The AK-47 clattered to the floor; luckily, it did not discharge the round in the chamber. Sammy joined them as they quickly moved in on Doug, taking their nourishment where they could–his neck, the veins along his forearms, his femoral artery.
The only sounds were those of their feeding.
An hour later, satiated, Sammy pulled back. His face and the front of his shirt was drenched with blood. “No,” he said. He lurched over to Lydia and grasped her by the shoulders. Lydia had moved to her mother’s inner thigh and was lapping up the blood that had seeped from her severed femoral artery. He pulled her away. “No more,” he said. “They can’t be turned. We’ve taken all we can from them.”
Melissa and Olivia stopped, their faces bloody, their eyes blazing with a new-sense of vitality, of awareness, of power.
Sammy went into the kitchen. In the six months since the dead began to walk, Lydia’s mother had kept the kitchen spotless, with everything in its place. The cutting knives were stored in a nice, wooden knife-holder on the counter. Sammy drew out two of the longest and sharpest blades and went back into the entry hall.
One knife went through Dad’s skull, the other through Mom’s. To ensure they wouldn’t come back as the undead.
They sat slumped against the wall, satiated. Lydia was no longer out of danger–she’d gotten some color back, and she wasn’t lethargic or sickly-looking anymore. “You know we can’t stay here,” Sammy said.
“I know,” Melissa said.
“Those kids we ran into,” Olivia began, “one of them said they were heading to New York.”
“Buffalo,” Melissa said.
“Yeah.”
Olivia nodded. “We should head up there. Leave tonight. We can probably get there in a few days.”
“They were going to meet up with a larger party,” Sammy said, the memory he’d plucked from the girl coming to him strong now that he’d replenished herself. “They have a compound, a fortified estate near the lake.”
“That would be perfect,” Melissa said. “We can ride out the winter there. Maybe these goddamned zombies will freeze.”
“And a larger party in a fortified estate will last us a long time,” Lydia said. She spoke as if she were already savoring what was to come. A string of bloody drool ran out of the side of her mouth.
“Yes,” Sammy said. He smiled. “It will.”
A little later, they left the house and headed back to the RV. They met no resistance from the walking dead on their way.
An hour later, they were headed north.
****
Remembrance by J. F. Gonzalez
Better Weird than Plastic
In the summer of 1984, I was a twenty-year-old disillusioned college student. One afternoon, I stopped in at a B. Dalton Bookstore in an Orange County, California, shopping mall. While browsing the magazine racks, something with a stark white cover with a blue border and the words The Horror Show caught my eye.
I picked it up. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before. This little magazine The Horror Show was sandwiched between Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine and something else on the rack, probably Fangoria. It was unique in that I could tell right away that it wasn’t a big slick corporate production. It was small, yet not crudely produced. Obviously put together with care. I opened the front cover to glance at the contents – it was clearly a horror magazine, but the writers were people I’d never heard of. Right then and there, I made the decision to buy it.
I took that issue home and devoured it that night. Not every story was a gem, but they were all good, some were excellent. There was obvious talent in the overall editing and production of the magazine. And the editorial space was written by a guy who obviously cared a lot about the field. His voice was friendly, inviting, and kind. I liked his style immediately.
I became a subscriber to The Horror Show with that issue, and eventually wound up with a near complete run of the magazine. In the years that followed, I was introduced to a wide variety of writers within its pages, nearly all of them just setting forth on their journeys as writers of dark fiction: Bentley Little, Kevin J. Anderson, Elizabeth Massie, Brian Hodge, Gary Raisor, Poppy Z. Brite, A. R. Morlan. It became a venue for pros like Al Sarrantonio, Joe R. Lansdale, John Skipp & Craig Spector, Richard Christian Matheson, and David J. Schow. In time, the magazine attracted genre heavyweights: William F. Nolan, Robert Bloch, Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, Ramsey Campbell. Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine might have had a much bigger budget and a wider distribution reach, but in my book, The Horror Show was the horror fiction magazine of the 1980’s. There was nothing like it.
I loved everything about The Horror Show. Its influence was immeasurable. Without The Horror Show, much of the small press explosion of the late 1980’s would not have happened. Dave Silva showed that with a shoestring budget, one could produce a publication of high professional quality. The fact that he managed to get the magazine onto the magazine racks of large chain bookstores is nothing short of a miracle.
I was exposed to Silva’s short fiction shortly after first encountering his magazine. In the years to come, whenever his byline appeared in an anthology or magazine, I knew I was in for something special. “Dwindling” was the first of his tales I encountered, in Karl Edward Wagner’s seminal The Year’s Best Horror Stories. Others followed - “Ice Sculptures”, “The Hollow”, “Metastasis”, “The Night of the Fog”, “Dry Whiskey”, and probably his most infamous and well-known story of all: “The Calling”.
Much has been said of David Silva’s kindness and generosity toward beginning writers – he was that way with beginning publishers and editors, too, which is how I first entered the field. Every small press editor/publisher of that era I knew – from David Niall Wilson (The Tome) to Mark Rainey (Deathrealm), to Richard T. Chizmar (Cemetery Dance) – readily admits that David Silva was always quick to offer advice and guidance on the ins and outs of publishing a small magazine. I can’t speak for those gentlemen, but I’d be willing to bet that all of them submitted short fiction to Dave at one point when they first started out; I know I did. My early efforts weren’t good enough to make it into the magazine, but his rejections were always insightful - some of those stories I later rewrote based on his feedback and sold elsewhere. Newbie writers: this is how it’s supposed to work.
David Silva was not known for making appearances at genre conventions like World Horror, but he did show up at some World Fantasy Conventions back in the day. That’s where I first met him - in Chicago, 1990. I met him one other time, about eight months later, when he accepted his Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction from the HWA. Bentley Little was also present to accept his own Stoker for Superior Achievement for a First Novel (for The Revelation). Yes. I was present at a con in which two of the most reclusive writers of horror attended. From what I recall, Bentley went home immediately after accepting his award and wasn’t seen again in public until I signed books with him and Richard Laymon at Dark Delicacies Bookstore, in Burbank, California, about a decade later.
In the years that followed our correspondence was sporadic. It picked up a bit when he co-edited/published Hellnotes (and when he and Paul F. Olson decided to turn Hellnot
es over to somebody else, Dave called me and asked if I wanted to do it; unfortunately, I had to turn the offer down). When he heard I had a brush with cancer, he called me. I was touched by his concern. That’s the kind of person David was; he genuinely cared about people.
I hadn’t been in touch with him all that much in the early years of this new century. It was only recently with the advent of Facebook that we were within each other’s orbit again. I was surprised to hear he’d relocated to Las Vegas. Dave didn’t post on Facebook all that much; most of what I learned about him was through his new writing partner on several new projects, Robert Swartwood. I knew he’d restarted Hellnotes as a web publication, and while he wasn’t as prolific through much of the 2000’s as he was in the 1980’s and 1990’s, I was optimistic about recent developments: he was reprinting his backlist as eBooks, and he was working on new projects – a novel or two, some novellas, short stories, some of these in collaboration with Robert Swartwood. I was happy for him.
And now, he’s gone. Taken so suddenly.
Dave Silva was a unique individual in a field where flash and noise have given way to substance and depth. His fiction was superior to anything being written and published by flash-in-the-pan writers who are big on promotion but short on talent. Long after their work is forgotten, I can rest assured that Dave’s accomplishments – his superior short fiction and handful of novels, his excellent anthologies, and, of course, the writing careers he cultivated and nurtured through his magazine The Horror Show – will live on.
And with that, I am reminded of the phrase he used to sign off on in his Hellnotes column in The Horror Show – Better weird than plastic. He started using it in the Spring 1986 issue, and continued the tradition until the final issue (Spring 1990). He never addressed what the phrase meant until the Summer 1989 issue, shortly after he’d made the decision to discontinue publishing and editing The Horror Show and devote more time to his own writing: “… it’s an old sixties phrase we used to banter about, not all that cryptic. It means: it’s better to be weird and to be yourself, than to be phony and be like everyone else.”
So true, Dave. Words to live by.
Better weird than plastic.
J. F. Gonzalez
NOTHING THERE
G. Wayne Miller
He drove north from Chicago in a rented Buick. The Saturday afternoon traffic was thick and sluggish, like blood through diseased arteries. How polite these drivers seemed. Back in Boston, you couldn’t go a block without some idiot trying to nail you. Here, folks signaled when passing. They stayed close to the speed limit. No one tailgated. He supposed it was part of their Midwestern nature to be so courteous. He wondered momentarily what kind of world it would be if everyone were like them.
Before long, the factories and tenements had thinned and then disappeared. The jets in and out of O’Hare had shrunk to distant specks. He passed an amusement park, closed for the season. He saw transmission lines coming down from Canada. It was suburbia now, 7-11 stores and neat little lawns fronting neat little houses. Soon they, too, had faded. Farmhouses took their place. Cornfields and dairy cattle. Silos, rigid and tall, guardians of this rich black soil. He crossed the line and he was in Wisconsin. From here, she’d said, it was only another half hour.
The traffic was weaker now. The November day was, too. High, thin clouds spread across the measureless sky. Another hour and the sun would be swallowed by the fields. At kitchen tables, dinner would be served. He imagined seeing aproned housewives, their hair done up in curlers and kerchiefs, bending over ovens where hamburger casseroles simmered. He imagined hearing the children, giddy with the thought of Saturday night, and the tired husbands, ready for their evening of rest.
Overhead, the sign said County K, one mile. What a funny name for a road, he thought. County K, like some new brand of cereal. He looked down at the directions he’d scribbled on hotel stationery. Yes, this was it. He eased over into the travel lane, slowed and left Interstate 94. There was the 76 truck stop, just as she’d said. A combination restaurant, gift shop and Greyhound bus stop. A parking lot full of full-sized Fords and Chryslers, with hardly a Toyota in sight. The heartland.
He’d called her after lunch from his hotel room. The first few minutes had been awkward for them both. He could hear the sounds of kids in the background. He told her about his convention. She talked about the weather, unseasonably mild, and unlikely to last, considering Thanksgiving was just around the corner.
“Where are you staying?” she’d asked.
“The Palmer House.”
“Very fancy.”
“It’s OK.”
“No, it’s fancy,” she insisted. “I’ve been there. Window-shopping in that big lobby.”
“They have some nice shops.”
“You’ve done all right for yourself, John,” she said, trying to mask her bitterness. A trace still showed. “You always did.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t know what he could have said if he’d tried.
“So how’d you find me?” she asked after shouting at the children to be quiet, Mommy’s got a very special call.
“The alumni office.” They’d been the same class, the class of ’76. He’d gone back east after graduation. She’d gone home to Wisconsin, never expecting to hear from him again.
“It’s funny.”
“What?”
“That you tracked me down. I tried to find you, you know.”
He didn’t. But it didn’t surprise him. There was a time he’d actually dreaded her call, but that had passed. During the period he was married, he’d almost forgotten her. It wasn’t until after his divorce that he’d thought much about her again.
“I tried several times, as a matter of fact,” she continued. “I wrote letters. They kept coming back.”
“I’ve moved a lot,” he said. “The company.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
There was another pause. The words weren’t coming easily for either of them.
“I’m divorced, you know,” she said after a bit.
“I know. I am, too.”
“I’ve got two children. That’s who you hear running around. A boy and a girl.”
“I know,” he repeated dumbly.
“You seem to have done your homework,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was mad or not.
“It’s all on record at the alumni office,” he explained. “Anyone can get it by calling.”
“Did they tell you they were both adopted?” she asked.
“No.”
“After Bryce, I couldn’t have children. Of my own.”
Bryce, he thought. So that’s what she called him. Why did she even bother to name him? What could it matter?
“I’m sorry,” he said. He wished he had a glass of water to get rid of the dryness in his mouth.
“I am, too.” He was surprised at how cold her voice had turned. How suddenly. He didn’t remember her like that. He remembered her as soft, pretty, the youngest-looking girl sitting at the back of Economics 101 the morning he first set eyes on her.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Sure.”
There was silence again. It was a bad cell, and he could hear static through the phone.
The child had been stillborn. That much he’d heard years ago from a friend of a friend of a friend. There had been whispers of some horrible deformity, but he’d never been able to confirm that, never bothered to try. What would have been the gain? What was done was done. All he knew for sure was that Sheryl had carried the baby to term, and he’d come out blue and unbreathing. There was a question of medical malpractice. As far as he knew, it had never come to a suit. That wouldn’t have been like her. This had all happened that September, three months after he’d said goodbye.
“So why’d you call, John?” she asked, breaking the silence.
He’d been ready for this one, but he still didn’t have a good answer. Just some private feelings he couldn’t share because he wasn’t su
re what they meant, if they meant anything at all.
“I just thought I should,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“Do you want to see him?” she asked. “I think you should see him. Just once. It wouldn’t have to be for long.”
He had no idea what she was talking about.
“Who?”
“Bryce. His grave, I mean.”
What a strange idea, he thought. Perverse. Again, the pause was long, uncomfortable. He wished desperately that the call was over, but he saw no way of ending it. It was up to her now.
“I could tell you how to get there. It’s not even two hours from Chicago.”
“I–”
“I think you should, John,” she said sternly. “I think you owe him at least that. Him and me. Respect for the memory. Respect for the past.”
“Yes,” he finally said. “I’d like to.”
She gave him directions. He was reading them again now after stopping at the restaurant to use the men’s room. County K six miles west to an intersection. Right on Rowe’s Lane about a mile to a seed farm. The cemetery would be just over the next knoll. You can’t miss it, she’d said. It’s on the highest land around.
He rolled the window down and put the car in gear.
Night wasn’t far off, but it seemed to have warmed up since leaving Chicago. The air on his face felt refreshing, like a shower after a bad night’s sleep. For some reason, he’d been getting increasingly anxious the last few miles. Strung out. He could feel the excess nervous energy running up and down his body. It was like having too many cups of coffee. His palms were actually sweaty. For the first time since talking to her, he wondered what exactly he’d gotten himself into, and why. He didn’t have the answers. That bothered him more than anything. He’d gotten where he had in business by coming up with answers.
****
County K, a two-lane blacktop, wound off toward the setting sun. There was almost no traffic, only an occasional tractor or pickup truck or stainless-steel tanker carrying milk destined to become butter or cheese. The only buildings were farmhouses and barns. It seemed everyone was flying an American flag. In the Ivy-League East, patriotism smacked too much of Reaganism to be worn on the sleeve. Here, it fit.
Better Weird: A Tribute to David B. Silva Page 18