Remember what you told that girl the other night,
remember what you wanted her to do that got her so
upset?”
“ If you don’t get the hell out of here— ”
“That’s what she said too, remember? And then she
said she wished she had never met you. And that was the
line, wasn’t it, that gave you the inspiration for our
fictionalized adventure. Poor Nathan never had the
chance you had. Oh yes, very fancy rigmarole with the
enchanted trousers. Blame it all on some old bitch and
her dead husband. Very realistic, I’m sure. When the real
reason— ”
“Get out of here!” he yelled. But he calmed down
somewhat when he saw that ferocity in itself had no
effect on me.
“What did you expect from that girl? You did tell her
that you wanted to embrace, what was it? Oh yes, a
headless woman. A headless woman, for heaven’s sake,
that’s asking a lot. And you did want her to make herself
look like one, at least for a little while. Well, I’ve got the
Notes on the Writing o f Horror: A Story
431
answer to your prayers. How’s this for headless?” I said,
holding up the head from behind my back.
He didn’t make a sound, though his two eyes screamed
a thousand times louder than any single mouth. 1 tossed
the long-haired and bloody noggin in his lap, but he
threw the bedcovers over it and frantically pushed the
whole business onto the floor with his feet.
“The rest of her is in the bathtub. Go see, if you want.
I’ll wait.”
He didn’t make a move or say a word for quite a few
moments. But when he finally did speak, each syllable
came out so calm and smooth, so free of the vibrations of
fear, that I have to say it shook me up a bit.
“Whooo are you?” he asked as if he already knew.
“Do you really need to have a name, and would it even
do any good? Should we call that disengaged head down
there Laura or Loma, or just plain Desiderata? And
what, in heaven’s name, should I call you— Norman or
Nathan, Harold or Gerald?”
“I thought so,” he said disgustedly. Then he began to
speak in an eerily rational voice, but very rapidly. He did
not even seem to be talking to anyone in particular.
“Since the thing to which I am speaking,” he said, “since
this thing knows what only I could know, and since it
tells me what only I could tell myself, I must therefore be
completely alone in this room, or perhaps even dreaming. Yes, dreaming. Otherwise the diagnosis is insanity.
Very true. Profoundly certain. Go away now, Mr. Madness. Go away, Dr. Dream. You made your point, now let me sleep. I’m through with you.”
Then he lay his head down on the pillow and closed his
eyes.
“Norman,” I said. “Do you always go to bed with your
trousers on?”
He opened his eyes and now noticed what he had been
too deranged to notice before. He sat up again.
“Very good, Mr. Madness. These look like the real
432
Thomas Ligotti
thing. But that’s not possible since Laura still has them,
sorry about that. Funny, they won’t come off. The
imaginary zipper must be stuck. Gee, I guess I’m in
trouble now. I’m a dead man if there ever was one, hoo.
Always make sure you know what you’re buying, that’s
what I say. Heaven help me, please. You never know
what you might be getting into. Come off, damn you!
Oh, what grief. Well, so when do I start to rot, Mr.
Madness? Are you still there? What happened to the
lights?”
The lights had gone out in the room and everything
glowed with a bluish luminescence. Lightning began
Sashing outside the bedroom window, and thunder
resounded through a rainless night. The moon shone
through an opening in the clouds, a blood-red moon only
the damned and the dead can see.
“Rot your way back to us, you freak of creation. Rot
your way out of this world. Come home to a pain so great
that it is bliss itself. You were bom to be bones not flesh.
Rot your way free of that skin of mere skin.”
“Is this really happening to me? I mean, I’m doing my
best, sir. It isn’t easy, not at all. Horrible electricity down
there. Horrible. Am I bathed in magic acid or something? Oh, it hurts, my love. Ah, ah, ah. It hurts so much.
Never let it end. If I have to be like this, then never let me
wake up, Dr. Dream. Can you do that, at least?”
I could feel my bony wings rising out of my back and
saw them spread gloriously in the blue mirror before me.
My eyes were now jewels, hard and radiant. My jaws
were a cavern of dripping silver and through my veins
ran rivers of putrescent gold. He was writhing on the bed
like a wounded insect, making sounds like nothing in
human memory. I swept him up and wrapped my sticky
arms again and again around his trembling body. He was
laughing like a child, the child of another world. And a
great wrong was about to be rectified.
I signaled the windows to open onto the night, and,
very slowly, they did. His infant’s laughter had now
Notes on the Writing o f Horror: A Story
433
turned to tears, but they would soon run dry, I knew this.
At last we would be free of the earth. The windows
opened wide over the city below and the profound
blackness above welcomed us.
I had never tried this before. But when the time came,
I found it all so easy.
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David G. Hartwell
A respected editor and scholar of
genre fiction, David G. Hartwell is the
editor of the critically-acclaimed, World
Fantasy Award-winning horror anthology
T h e D a r k D e s c e n t, which was a selection
of the Book of the Month Club and the
Quality Paperback Book Club.
H a rtw e ll is the a u th o r of A g e o f
W o n d e r s , a study of the science fiction
field, and the publisher of T h e N e w Y o rk
R e v i e w o f S c i e n c e F ic tio n , a journal of
criticism and literary analysis.
For the past two years, Hartwell has
taught writing at Harvard University. He
has also ta u g h t at the p re s tig io u s
C la rio n
S cie n ce
F ic tio n
W rite rs
Workshop. David Hartwell holds a doctorate in com parative lite ra tu re from
C o lu m b ia U n ive rsity. He live s in
Pleasantville, New York.
“A must-read, must-own book.”
— R obert Bloch
VISIONS OF FEAR
“ Visions of Fear provides the reader with many
hours of shivery pleasure. An impressive anthology. ”
— Jack Sullivan,
editor of The Penguin Encyclopedia
of Horror and the Supernatural
“Clive Barker’s ‘ In the Hills, the Cities,' in which
the populations of twin Yugoslavian towns bind
themselves to each other to create giant warriors
who engage in ritual combat every decade, has
an eerie, timely relevance.”
— Publishers Weekly
Open Front Cover to See a
Complete List of Contributors
“Visions of Fear [is] superb, with some rare
treasures that make it a must. Deserve[s] to
become [a] classic.”
— Ramsey Campbell
A T om D oherty A s so c ia tes, In c . Book
Printed in the U.S.A.
Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 54