I went back into the living room. Father was still
watching his football game. His bottle was empty. I
emptied his urine bag, refilled the bottle with beer,
added four Librium. He was still half-awake when he
finished the bottle, though he was passing out fast, so I
gave him three more Librium by telling them they were
vitamins he was supposed to take. He was too groggy to
wonder why I wanted him to take them.
I went back to the bathroom and filled the tub two-
thirds full of water. With him in it it would be all the way
full. Then I pushed his wheelchair into the bathroom and
got him out of it into the tub the way I always did.
The duck stayed down at the other end of the tub, away
from him.
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I pulled the skylight curtains closed, went outside and
shut the shutters. Not all the way, just enough to cut
down the light like it was a cloudy day. I didn’t look, just
walked around the yard looking up at the sky, out at the
fences, over them to the neighbor’s houses, anywhere but
at the bathroom windows.
Then I closed the shutters completely but I still didn’t
look in through them. I went back inside the house,
turned off the television, turned it back on, walked
around, finally opened the bathroom door and turned on
the light so I could see what had happened.
The bottom of the tub was covered with red-brown
mud. The log was half-buried in it.
I pulled the plug, watched the sludge drain out of the
tub. I kept the water running a lot longer to make sure
the drain wasn’t going to get plugged up, then pushed the
log under the running water so I could clean the last of
the sludge off it. When it was clean I picked it up and put
it in the sack again, then took the sack and hid it out
under the floorboards of the shed.
I poured some Draino down the hole to make sure
nothing got clogged up and washed the tub with cleanser,
then put the wheelchair and the urine bottle and all of
Father’s clothes back in the living room and turned the
TV on. There was another football game going, a replay
of some sort of championship from a few years back.
I called up Beth and asked her if I could come over and
go swimming with her for a while. She said yes. We swam
for a while and then I said maybe it would be a good idea
if we went back down to my house, I had some money
back there and we could buy some ice cream or maybe go
get some hamburgers at McDonald’s, and anyway I still
owed her for that time she’d bought me milk and given
me half her sandwich.
So we rode our bikes back down to my house and when
we found Father gone I called Sergeant Crowder and told
him I was scared, Father was gone but his wheelchair was
still there and I didn’t know what had happened to him,
The Lurking Duck
407
whether they’d taken him to the hospital or somebody’d
kidnapped him or what.
He said he’d send somebody right over.
Ju lie : 1 9 9 1
That was three years ago. I’m fourteen now. A year after
Father disappeared Mother married Don but even without Father to take care of she was as bad as ever, maybe even worse, and he divorced her less than a year later.
The duck’s still back under the shed and it still works— I
took it out to check it a little over a week ago, when
Mother was gone for a weekend somewhere, and it
turned from a log back into a duck in the morning and
then back from a duck into a log when it got dark out. So
I can use it on Mother whenever I want. It would be
better if I could wait two years but I don’t think I can
stand it that much longer. It might be better just to have
them put me in a foster home for a year or two.
And anyway, I don’t know if I can wait any longer at
all, now. Three weeks ago Judge Hapgood disappeared
and a week ago Thom Homart, the one that wrote those
articles in the RAG that Dubic’s lawyers sued them for,
also disappeared. And The Forbidden City— the Chinese restaurant that changed their name from The Ivory Pagoda after they were convicted of buying sea gulls and
cats from Dubic ten years ago— burned down and its
owner died in the fire just last week.
I’ve been going down to the lake to feed the ducks
almost every day now since Father disappeared. It’s not
so much that I’ve learned to like them or anything,
though I guess I like them a lot better than I used to, but
just that I wanted to be there watching in case another
robot duck like my mallard ever appeared.
There’s another one there now. A mallard, but a
female this time, brown with black speckle-marks with
bright blue on its sides— what the bird books call its
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Scott Baker
mirror or speculum— and an orange and brown bill. It’s
been there almost a month. And every day now, for just a
little over a month and a half, a skinny middle-aged man
comes down to sit on a bench and watch the ducks. He
comes down early in the morning and he never leaves
until dark and he never, never feeds the ducks or swans
or pigeons, even though he spends all day watching them.
Mother tells me that James Patrick Dubic was released
from prison three months ago. So that has to be him,
down there watching his robot killing the ducks he can’t
kill for himself anymore. I don’t know what he thinks
happened to his other robot.
And while he’s sitting there on his bench watching the
ducks, or maybe at night after he drives away, he’s killing
all the people who helped put him in jail. I don’t know
how, maybe with a robot person or taxicab or something
else that works just like the ducks.
Mother’s one of those people, so if he gets to her before
I do he’ll save me a lot of trouble and I won’t have to
worry about getting caught. And in a way it’s a good
thing to know that if I don’t get her he’ll get her for me
for sure.
But the thing is, I’m another one of the people who
helped put him in jail. Maybe even the main person,
except for Mother, especially, if you believe what all the
newspaper articles they wrote about me said. And from
the way the skinny man watches me sometimes when I’m
feeding the ducks I’m sure he knows who I am and that
he’s watching me.
But he’s too smart to try to get us all at the same time,
at least not unless he’s figured out enough different ways
to kill us all so that nobody’ll see the connection between
all our deaths. So he’s probably going to want to wait a
while before he tries to get me or Mother. And I’ve still
got his duck, and I’ve spent years now thinking about the
best ways to use it.
So I think what I’m going to do is put a lot of the
Librium I had after Father disappeared in Mother’s
&nb
sp; The Lurking Duck
409
whisky glass tonight if she’s alone, or tomorrow night or
the night after if she’s not, so that she’ll still be knocked
out the next morning when it’s light enough out for me to
get her into the bathtub with the duck. Only this time it
won’t be like Father and I want to watch it all happen.
And then that same evening when the sun’s going
down and before Dubic has a chance to find out about
Mother I’ll take the duck down to the park and watch it
jump on him and cut his head off with its scissors.
I’ve got it all figured out and I’m not really scared at
all.
This time it’s going to be fun.
Thomas Ligotti (b. 1959)
Notes o n the Writing o r Horror:
A S tory
Thomas Ligotti is the most startling and talented horror
w riter to em erge in recent years. Exclusively a short story
w riter thus far in his career, he published all of his early
stories in semiprofessional and small press genre magazines for several years, remaining obscure. An American writer, his first trade collection of stories, Songs of a Dead
Dreamer (1990), was published in England, the result of a
gradually growing reputation among the avid genre readers. His second collection. Grimscribe (1991), was^published at the end of 1991. Perhaps the most startling thing
about his work, aside from the extraordinary stylistic
sophistication (one is reminded of the polished prose and
effects of Robert Aickman’s strange stories), is his devotion to horror, which is positively Lovecraftian— as is his bent for theory and knowledge of the history of the
literature. This present piece selected is his masterpiece to
date. “ Few other writers,” says Ramsey Campbell, “could
conceive a horror story in the form of notes on the writing
of the genre, and I can't think of any other w riter who could
have brought it off." It is no less than an instructional essay
on the writing of horror, transformed by stylistic magic and
artful construction into a powerful work of fiction. Writing
students I have taught have found it a revelation. It is
included for your delight and instruction.
Notes on the Writing o f Horror: A Story
411
For much too long I have been promising to formulate
my views on the writing of supernatural horror tales.
Until now I just haven’t had the time. Why not? I was too
busy churning out the leetle darlings. But many people,
for whatever reasons, would like to be writers of horror
tales, I know this. Fortunately, the present moment is a
convenient one for me to share my knowledge and
experience regarding this special literary vocation. Well,
I guess I’m ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s get it over with.
The way I plan to proceed is quite simple. First, I’m
going to sketch out the basic plot, characters, and various
other features of a short horror story. Next, I will offer
suggestions on how these raw elements may be treated in
a few of the major styles which horror writers have
exploited over the years. Each style is different and has
its own little tricks. This approach will serve as an aid in
deciding which style is the right one and for whom. And
if all goes well, the novitiate teller of terror tales will be
saved much time and agony discovering such things for
himself. We’ll pause at certain spots along the way to
examine specific details, make highly biased evaluations,
submit general commentary on the philosophy of horror
fiction, and so forth.
At this point it’s only fair to state that the following
sample story, or rather its rough outline form, is not one
that appears in the published works of Gerald K. Riggers, nor will it ever appear. Frankly, for reasons we’ll explore a little later, I just couldn’t find a way to tell this
one that really satisfied me. Such things happen. (Perhaps farther down the line we’ll analyze these extreme cases of irreparable failure, perhaps not.) Nevertheless
the unfinished state of this story does not preclude using
it as a perfectly fit display model to demonstrate how
horror writers do what they do. Good. Here it is, then, as
told in my own words. A couple-three paragraphs, at
most.
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Thomas Ligotti
T he S to ry ________
A thirtyish but still quite youthful man, let’s name him
Nathan, has a date with a girl whom he deeply wishes to
impress. Toward this end, a minor role is to be played by
an impressive new pair of trousers he intends to find and
purchase. A few obstacles materialize along the way,
petty but frustrating bad luck, before he finally manages
to secure the exact trousers he needs and at an extremely
fair price. They are exceptional in their tailoring, this is
quite plain. So far, so good. Profoundly good, to be sure,
since Nathan intensely believes that one’s personal possessions should themselves possess a certain substance, a certain quality. For example, Nathan’s winter overcoat
is the same one his father wore for thirty winters;
Nathan’s wristwatch is the same one his grandfather
wore going on four decades, in all seasons. For Nathan,
peculiar essences inhere in certain items of apparel, not
to mention certain other articles small and large, certain
happenings in time and space, certain people, and
certain notions. In Nathan’s view, yes, every facet of
one’s life should shine with these essences which alone
make things really real. What are they? Nathan, over a
period of time, has narrowed the essential elements
down to three: something magic, something timeless,
something profound. Though the world around him is
for the most part lacking in these special ingredients, he
perceives his own life to contain them in fluctuating but
usually acceptable quantities. His new trousers certainly
do; and Nathan hopes, for the first time in his life, that a
future romance— to be conducted with one Loma
McFickel— will too.
So far, so good. Luckwise. Until the night of Nathan’s
first date. Miss McFickel resides in a respectable suburb
but, in relation to where Nathan lives, she is clear across
one of the most dangerous sectors of the city. No
problem: Nathan’s ten-year-old car is in mint condition,
Notes on the Writing o f Horror: A Story
413
top form. If he just keeps the doors locked and the
windows rolled up, everything will be fine. Worst luck,
broken bottles on a broken street, and a flat tire. Nathan
curbs the car. He takes off his grandfather’s watch and
locks it in the glove compartment; he takes off his
father’s overcoat, folds it up neatly, and snuggles it into
the shadows beneath the dashboard. As far as the
trousers are concerned, he would simply have to exercise
great care while attempting to change his flat tire in
record time, and in a part of town known as Hope’s Back
Door. With any luck, the trousers would retain their
t
riple traits of magicality, timelessness, and profundity.
Now, all the while Nathan is fixing the tire, his legs feel
stranger and stranger. He could have attributed this to
the physical labor he was performing in a pair of trousers
not exactly designed for such abuse, but he would have
just been fooling himself. For Nathan remembers his legs
feeling strange, though less noticeably so, when he first
tried on the trousers at home. Strange how? Strange as in
a little stiff, and even then some. A little funny. Nonsense, he’s just nervous about his date with lovely Loma McFickel.
To make matters worse, two kids are now standing by
and watching Nathan change the tire, two kids who look
like they recently popped up from a bottomless ash pit.
Nathan tries to ignore them, but he succeeds a little too
well in this. Unseen by him, one of the kids edges toward
the car and opens the front door. Worst luck, Nathan
forgot to lock it. The kid lays his hands on Nathan’s
father’s coat, and then both kids disappear into a rundown apartment house.
Very quickly now. Nathan chases the kids into what
turns out to be a condemned building, and he falls down
the stairs leading to a lightless basement. It’s not that the
stairs were rotten, no. It is that Nathan’s legs have finally
given out; they just won’t work anywhere. They are very
stiff and feel funnier than ever. And not only his legs, but
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Thomas Ligotti
his entire body below the w aist. . . except, for some
reason, his ankles and feet. They’re fine. For the problem
is not with Nathan himself. It’s with those pants of his.
The following is why. A few days before Nathan purchased the pants, they were returned to the store for a cash refund. The woman returning them claimed that
her husband didn’t like the way they felt. She lied.
Actually, her husband couldn’t have cared less how the
pants felt, since he’d collapsed from a long-standing
heart ailment not long after trying them on. And with no
one home to offer him aid, he died. It was only after he
had lain several hours dead in those beautiful trousers
that his unloving wife came home and, trying to salvage
what she could from the tragedy, put her husband into
a pair of old dungarees before making another move.
Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 51