Fight or flight–I had never truly experienced it until then. There was an instant when I considered fighting the old man, but the glint of the knife in his hands forced me to give up that illusion.
I fled up the stairs.
Norman, despite his old age, was just as fast. He scrambled up the stairs after me, and it was as I reached the top that he reached out and grasped my leg.
I had just enough time to glance back and see him with the knife in his other hand. The knife was arcing down toward my leg. I knew once it penetrated my skin, I was done. I may still be able to crawl away, but Norman would have the advantage. He would pull the knife back out and stab me again, and again, and again. Nothing would stop him.
So I did the only thing I could think to do.
I kicked him in the face.
He teetered for an instant, a pen standing on its tip, and then fell back. He may have cried out, I’m not sure. By then blood was pounding away in my ears. But he fell and kept falling, right down the stairs, until he hit the bottom.
For a moment or two, I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just stood there, staring, until I realized the old man wasn’t getting back up. The angle of his neck and his suddenly blank eyes confirmed this.
Norman Jones was dead.
****
Detective Percy asked, “And then you called 911?”
I nodded. “Then I called 911.”
Detective Percy glanced back at Detective Huston, silently asking if he had anything to add or ask. Detective Huston, staying true to his Bad Cop demeanor, didn’t say a word.
“All right then, Mr. Swartwood,” Detective Percy said with a sigh. “I think that will do for now. If we have any further questions, we’ll give you a call.”
I pushed away from the table and stood up. I started toward the door. Detective Huston stared me down. His face was a blank slate. I thought about picking my nose and wiping it on his shirt just to get a reaction, but decided that might be too much.
Detective Percy’s voice stopped me.
“Oh, one more thing.”
Of course.
“All those papers scattered around the desk and the floor,” the detective said, “were blank. None of them had any writing on it. So… where do you think it went?”
“Where do I think what went?”
“The guy’s quote-unquote perfect story.”
I smiled.
Detective Percy didn’t seem to like that. “What’s so funny?”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet? There was no story. The perfect story doesn’t exist.”
****
Except it does. Or might. I’m still not completely sure.
I left the detectives and went home. They offered to have someone drive me, but I said I would walk. I needed the fresh air. I needed time to myself. I needed to run through once more what truly happened in that house.
The story I gave the detectives wasn’t one hundred percent accurate. I’m a writer, after all, and it’s in my nature to tell stories. Besides, I had three hours to think things over. I had considered telling them the truth, but I knew just as well that they wouldn’t believe me. If anything, they would have shipped me off to a mental institution.
Because this is what really happened:
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw that this was indeed his workspace. There was a desk set up with an Underwood Touch-Master 5. A desk lamp sat beside the typewriter. Papers were scattered across the desk and on the floor.
But that was hardly anything.
The rest of the basement was filled with canvases. Over one hundred of them, spread out around the basement, leaning against walls and each other. They had once been blank but now each had an eerie face drawn in maroon paint. While the faces all looked different, they all looked the same. One canvas was close to me, and I took a hesitant step forward, squinting down at the paint.
Only it wasn’t paint.
“What the hell?”
Norman stepped beside me. His hands were clasped behind his back. He stared down at the canvas and whispered, “Do you see it?”
I said nothing. I couldn’t, my voice suddenly stolen.
Because the eerie face on the canvas was moving.
The eyes blinked and looked up at me, then at Norman. The lips began to move, slightly, the corners rising in a smile.
Norman’s voice became a reverent whisper. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“What… what is that?”
“That, dear boy, is my muse.”
I looked at him, tearing my gaze from the canvas. “Your muse?”
“Of course. Every great writer needs a muse. A muse is what inspires. A muse is what keeps our motivation going. And a great muse–my muse–allows me to write the perfect story.”
I started backing away, toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t. She won’t let you.”
“Who?” I asked, but already I knew.
Because the face on that one canvas wasn’t moving anymore. They all were. Every face was watching me. Every set of eyes blinked. Every corner of every mouth began to drop into a frown.
Norman took a step toward me, his empty hands held out in front of him.
“Please, Robert, don’t make this any harder on yourself than it needs to be. You’re a talented writer. The others were talented writers, too. And it was because of their talent that I was able to continue my story. I’m almost done now. So very close. She has been guiding me all this time. She says I need just one more sacrifice, and the story will be complete.”
“You’re fucking insane.”
I turned away and started up the steps when suddenly my feet disappeared from beneath me. I was weightless in the air for a moment before hitting the ground hard. I looked over my shoulder and saw Norman was several feet away. No way he could have grabbed me like that from that distance.
“She doesn’t want you to leave, Robert. She won’t allow it.”
I climbed to my feet, my body now trembling.
Norman took another step forward.
“Please, Robert, don’t fight it. Make it easier on yourself. The others who fought died very painfully. I don’t want the same to happen to you.”
I backed up, placing one foot on the step. “Stay away from me.”
“She won’t let you leave. Why can’t you accept that?”
The faces on the canvases watched us, their eyes shifting from Norman to me.
“Is that what her face really looks like?”
Norman smiled, turning his attention to the closest canvas.
I used the distraction to bolt up the steps.
I was halfway to the top when I felt the hands grabbing at me. There wasn’t one or two or even three. There were several hands, a dozen or more, and their phantom fingers dug into my arms, into my back, into my shoulders. They slowed my progress, trying to pull me back down into the basement, but I fought them as best as I could. Holding on tight to the railing. Putting a foot on one step, then another.
“Don’t fight her,” Norman said somewhere behind me. His voice sounded close. I refused to look back. “You will only make her angry.”
The hands increased their grip. And, just as suddenly, I heard a strange whispering. It was like the voice was coming from all directions. A woman’s voice. So low and soft I could barely hear what she was saying.
Norman began to ascend the stairs.
“Robert, please. For your own good, stop fighting her.”
I was almost to the top. The door was right there. I knew once I opened it and stepped into the cluttered kitchen, the hands would release me. How I knew this, I wasn’t sure, but I believed it so strongly I kept moving forward.
Norman’s footsteps were steady as he climbed the stairs, almost to me now.
The hands wouldn’t let go. They squeezed even harder. I closed my eyes against the pain, clenched my teeth. The last thing I wanted to d
o was cry out.
“Robert”–Norman’s voice, right behind me–“just let go and it will all be over as soon as you know it.”
I opened my eyes. Stared straight ahead. Thought for a moment, and then nodded and let go.
All at once, the dozen or more hands released me.
The whispering stopped.
I turned around and faced Norman, who stood two steps below me.
“Stairs are a dangerous tool,” I said, and kicked him in the face.
As he tumbled down the steps, he made no noise. But the voice started up again. This time it screamed.
I clamped my hands over my ears and watched Norman Jones fall to his death. Just like I told the detectives, he landed on the bottom, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. His eyes stared blankly.
And then, all at once, the screaming stopped.
Hesitantly, I pulled my hands away from my ears.
Silence.
I opened the basement door and stepped into the kitchen. I knew I needed to call the police. I also knew they weren’t going to believe what just happened. Hell, I was having a hard time accepting it.
So I did as any writer who makes his living making up stories did: I came up with a story.
In the kitchen I found a dishcloth and large butcher knife. Using the cloth so I wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, I headed back down into the basement. I did so slowly, cautiously, knowing I should hightail it out of there. But whatever had been there before–Norman’s muse–was now gone. I was sure of it.
I put the knife in Norman’s dead hand, used the dishcloth to have the hand grip the knife so his fingerprints would be on the handle. Then I set the knife a few feet away, where I believed it would have landed during his fall. If anything came back to bite me later, it would be the placement of the knife. If it were too close to his body, police would question it. If it were too far, they would question it. It needed to be just right.
After that, I approached the desk. I was conscious of the blood-painted faces watching me. I looked at every canvas as I approached the desk, ready to sprint up the stairs if any of them blinked.
There were papers scattered on the desk and on the floor, but it was the pile of papers beside the typewriter that I needed. Maybe thirty, forty pages in all. A short stack. The only pages that had words typed on them.
I grabbed the entire stack and went upstairs.
I headed toward the front, reconsidered, then headed toward the back. Here was the backyard. A gate led into the alley.
Taking a chance, I went that way. I prayed nobody saw me. I slipped into the alley, walked three blocks until I found a trashcan in another alley. I stored the papers under the trashcan. Then I returned through the alley to Norman’s house. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911.
****
The papers were exactly where I left them.
Of course they were.
Norman’s muse wouldn’t have let anything happen to them. After all, the story wasn’t complete. The muse wanted a final sacrifice. It wanted blood.
And what did I want?
Why had I taken a risk and hidden these papers?
Why was I taking a risk and returning for them?
The answer was obvious, wasn’t it?
Every writer strives to write the perfect story.
Even if he can’t write the perfect story, a writer will do whatever he can to at least get a glimpse of it.
And now here it was, what existed of the perfect story.
I saw the words typed on the front page, but I refused to allow myself to read them. Not even the title.
Shadows began to move around the alleyway.
The whispering started up.
Telling me to read the story.
Telling me that I could be the blessed one who finished it.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a lighter.
The shadows increased their movement as soon as they understood what I meant to do.
The whispering turned into shouting.
Those hands grabbed at me again, the phantom fingers digging into my body, but they weren’t strong enough.
I lit a flame and put the flame under the stack of pages.
Fire began to consume them at once.
As the story burned, the hands faded away. The shadows and whispering began to lose their intensity.
I dropped the story on the ground, slipped the lighter back in my pocket.
The shadows and whispering were fading even more, though I heard one word, asked again and again.
Why?
But I didn’t answer. If the muse needed to ask, it wouldn’t understand even if I explained it. And so I stood there for another minute, watching as the pages curled and blackened and turned into ash, and then I headed home. I was hungry and I was exhausted, but when I returned to my apartment, the first thing I did was open my laptop.
When inspiration calls, you can’t ignore it.
Cracking my fingers, I spread them out across the keyboard and began to type.
****
Remembrance by Robert Swartwood
I was a year old when the first issue of The Horror Show came out in the fall of 1982. So suffice it to say, I was not a subscriber. In fact, I don’t believe I ever read a full issue of The Horror Show. I’ve read stories which previously appeared in the magazine, of course, but not an actual issue. So I missed out on what I’m sure was an amazing reader experience–finding new and exciting voices of horror fiction, many of which would become household names decades later.
No, unfortunately I missed out on discovering talent in the pages of The Horror Show, but I had a similar experience in high school when I stumbled across Cemetery Dance and was introduced to the short fiction of great writers such as Jack Ketchum, Douglas Clegg, Norman Partridge, and, of course, David B. Silva.
I don’t remember exactly what my first David B. Silva story was. I think maybe it was “Dry Whiskey,” or maybe it was “The Calling,” or maybe it was neither of those two stories. Whatever it was, I remember being blown away and instantly knowing I needed to read more of his work. There are few writers out there that inspired me as much as Dave’s short fiction did. I looked everywhere for his stuff. And this was before eBooks, so most of his stuff was out of print. I managed to track down his chapbook “The Night in Fog” and I managed to get my hands on a promotional copy of his amazing collection Through Shattered Glass. While I read and enjoyed a few of his novels, it was his short fiction that really shined for me, that always made me want to step up my game. I’ll readily maintain that there is no such thing as the perfect story, but if anybody had ever come close, it would be Dave.
How we ended up in touch, I can’t remember. Obviously it was me who contacted him, probably to tell him how much I enjoyed his work. Then, later, when I was helping edit Flesh & Bloodmagazine, I asked him if he would be willing to submit a story–and was thrilled when he said yes. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what that story was called; F&B folded before it ever came out. I do remember reading the story and loving it but thinking there could be one slight change. It was really nothing major–there was mention of a character passing by a movie theater, and the movies on the marquee were The Lord of the Rings and Cheaper by the Dozen. I felt those titles would eventually make the story dated, and suggested he change the titles, perhaps make them something by Hitchcock or something else that was old, as if the theater was showing classic movies.
The reason I remember this so clearly is because I was very hesitant to ask Dave to make this minor change. I mean, just who the hell did I think I was asking him to change anything about his story? He was David B. Fucking Silva. The man behind The Horror Show. One of my all-time favorite short story writers. Who was I to ask him to do anything?
But I took a chance and sent Dave the request and he replied saying sure, no problem at all, that made sense, and I realized that along with being a great writer, Dave was a true professional through and through.
Wh
en I wrote my first novel, The Calling, I contacted several writers asking if they would take a look and, if they enjoyed it enough, to possibly provide a blurb. The idea was to use these blurbs when querying agents. Dave was kind enough to agree to look at the book. After a few weeks, or maybe it was a month or more, he sent along a short blurb. I was thrilled, of course, but I could tell the blurb wasn’t overly enthusiastic, just a sentence or two about the book, so I asked him if he had any comments or suggestions to make the book better. He was hesitant at first–the reason, apparently, that many young writers in the past got angry when they were told they weren’t the greatest living writers in the world–but eventually we began a back and forth about the book, and it was one of those priceless learning experiences that every writer should be so blessed to receive. Dave didn’t have to look at the book to begin with, and he certainly didn’t have to give me his feedback, but he took the time and because of it I learned what I was doing wrong and how to fix those mistakes. (It’s also one of the reasons why I dedicated my collection, Real Illusions, to Dave, along with Stewart O’Nan, with these three words: inspiration, guidance, friendship.)
A few years later, I was in Las Vegas for a wedding. Dave happened to live in Vegas. I took a chance and emailed saying if he had time, it would be cool to get together. Dave was normally pretty shy; he almost never went to conventions or conferences, and I’m sure meeting up with a young writer who he’d never officially met wasn’t his first choice on how to spend the day. But for some reason he agreed. We had breakfast at Kahunaville, one of the restaurants at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, and we talked about writing and books and just the usual stuff writers talk about when they get together. It was a great time.
We stayed in better contact after that. Sometimes we spoke on the phone. Oftentimes we communicated via Gmail chat. He had started releasing his stuff on Kindle and encouraged me to do the same. We bounced different marketing ideas off each other. At some point, I had the crazy idea to collaborate on a project. I figured it would be a novella and that we could do a blog-to-blog serialization, where one week I would post a chapter, then next week he would post a chapter, and so on. I said I thought it would be fun. He said he thought so, too. And so we started working on what would eventually become a weird western short novel called Walk the Sky.
Better Weird: A Tribute to David B. Silva Page 24