by Unknown
There isn’t anymore.
And when she’s stopped crying and is quite certain that her sister will not speak to her again, that all the secrets she has any business seeing have been revealed, the violinist retrieves the dropped bow and stands, then walks to the desk and returns the ammonite violin to its case. She will not give it to the police when they arrive, after she has gone to the kitchen to call them, and she will not tell them that it was the fat man who gave it to her. She will take it back to Brooklyn, and they will find other things in another room in the yellow house and have no need of the violin and these stolen shreds of her sister. The Collector has kindly written everything down in three books bound in red leather, all the names and dates and places, and there are other souvenirs, besides. And she will never try to put this story into words, for words have never come easily to her, and like the violin, the story has become hers and hers alone.
DARK DELICACIES LAST WORD
A MODEST PROPOSAL
JEFF GELB
HOW THE HELL do I follow eighteen great horror stories? And a foreword by Ray Harryhausen? And Del’s cogent and clever comments about things that go bump in the night and give you a fright? Talk about challenges!
And you know what’s really scary? The fact that numerous other authors are waiting in the wings, stories already written, ready to submit. Will these stories even find an anthology home?
It’s gotta happen, folks. There are so few horror anthologies anymore, so few places where writers can stretch their talents in new directions. Where young writers can appear side by side with the masters. Where readers can enjoy a depth of ideas that movies can’t hope to provide. Movies have to be focused and focus-grouped for maximum appeal to the widest possible masses. That almost always means dumbing it down and playing it safe. As I’m sure you’ve noticed.
Ironically, millions of people of all ages love to be scared—as long as it’s at the movies. Even now they’re at the multiplex seeing Saw IV or Hostel 3—and those are probably the better ones. Chances are they don’t even think about the fun they could have reading horror fiction.
So I’m throwing down the gauntlet, guys and dolls. It’s up to us to get the masses into horror fiction. No one’s getting rich writing for Dark Delicacies. Actually, they wrote their stories for you. They love horror, and they want to share that love with you and other fans.
So what can you do? For starters, how about buying at least one extra copy of a horror novel or anthology you love, and putting it in the hands of that friend or coworker who can’t stop talking about how scary the latest serial killer/slasher flick was? Dare them to read it at night, in a room lit by a single bulb.
I know I’m preaching to the converted. But it all comes down to us, gang. We’ve gotta grow this community of horror fanatics. Ultimately, that’s the only way we will be able to continue to read the kind of fiction we can’t live without.
Is horror dead on paper? Not yet. Is it dying? I’d say it’s somewhere between life support and ambulatory. But if people like you can somehow bring some of your love of this genre to more people, we can have the sort of success with horror novels that the box office has with horror movies.
Okay, I’ll stop pontificating now. I gotta go. I’m sitting on a stack of unread horror novels by immensely talented folks, like the people who wrote stories in this collection. I like being scared in the way only a great piece of horror fiction can creep me out. And I want to be scared—tonight, tomorrow, and for years to come!
How about you?
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
PETER ATKINS—Peter Atkins is the author of the novels Morningstar and Big Thunder and the collection Wishmaster and Others. For the screen, he has written Hellhound: Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Hellraiser: Bloodline, and Wishmaster. He has contributed to Weird Tales, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cemetery Dance, and Postscripts, as well as several award-winning anthologies.
L. A. BANKS—L. A. Banks (aka Leslie Esdaile Banks) is a native of Philadelphia and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton undergraduate program, and holds a master’s in fine arts from Temple University’s School of Film and Media Arts. After a ten-year career as a corporate marketing executive for several Fortune 100 high-tech firms, Banks changed careers in 1991 to pursue a private consulting career—which ultimately led to fiction and film writing. Now, with over twenty-seven novels plus ten anthology contributions in an extraordinary breadth of genres, and many awards to her credit, Banks writes full-time and resides in Philadelphia. Look for a full listing of her published works under an array of pseudonyms at www.vampire-huntress.com or www.LeslieEsdaileBanks.com.
GARY BRANDNER—Gary Brandner, born in the Midwest and much-traveled during his formative years, has thirty-odd published novels, more than a hundred short stories, and a handful of screenplays on his résumé. After surviving the University of Washington, he followed such diverse career paths as amateur boxer, bartender, surveyor, loan company investigator, advertising copywriter, and technical writer, before turning to fiction. Since his breakthrough novel, The Howling, he has settled into a relatively respectable life with wife and cats in California’s San Fernando Valley. He is currently involved in a movie project as writer/coproducer.
MAX BROOKS—Max Brooks was a writer for Saturday Night Live from 2001–2003, during which time the show won an Emmy Award. His first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, was in its sixteenth printing last time we checked. His latest novel, World War Z, has been optioned by Brad Pitt’s company for a film, and he is currently working on a graphic novel adaptation. Both of his books were New York Times bestsellers, and in his spare time, he works on and is the cocreator of the Internet comedy series The Watch List, which is currently running on Comedy Central Motherload.
TANANARIVE DUE—Tananarive Due is the American Book Award-winning author of seven novels, including Joplin’s Ghost, The Good House, The Living Blood, My Soul to Keep, and The Between. She has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. Publishers Weekly wrote that The Living Blood “should set the standard for supernatural thrillers in the new millennium.” Two of Due’s novels are currently in development at Fox Searchlight studios. Her short story “Patient Zero” appeared in two best-of-the-year science fiction anthologies. Due has also published short fiction in the horror and speculative fiction anthologies Dark Dreams, Dark Matter, and Mojo: Conjure Stories. Due and her husband, author Steven Barnes, also collaborate on screenplays and novels. In July of 2007, they published their first mystery novel, Casanegra, which they wrote in collaboration with actor Blair Underwood. Due was raised in Miami by two civil rights activists. She collaborated with her mother, Patricia Stephens Due, to write the nonfiction book Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. Due lives in Southern California with Barnes, her son, Jason, and her stepdaughter, Nicki.
JOHN FARRIS—John Farris has been called “the best writer of horror at work today.” His thirty-eight titles have sold twenty-two million copies worldwide in twenty-five languages. His most recent novels are You Don’t Scare Me and Avenging Fury, the fourth and final volume of the Fury Quartet. He wrote and directed the cult-classic film Dear, Dead Delilah, and has written many other screenplays. He had a short-lived career as a playwright in his twenties. His only produced play, The Death of the Well-Loved Boy, Farris fondly recalls as having received “the worst reviews since Attila the Hun.”
RAY GARTON—Ray Garton is the author of over fifty books, and the winner of the 2006 Grand Master Award. He is currently at work on his next novel, Ravenous, a werewolf story with a twist on the old myth, to be published by Leisure Books. He lives in northern California with his wife, Dawn, and their brood of cats.
JEFF GELB—Dark Delicacies II: Fear is Jeff Gelb’s twenty-first anthology as editor or coeditor. He cocreated the ongoing, internationally published Hot Blood series (now in its thirteenth volume) with Michael Garrett, and coedited t
he Flesh & Blood anthologies with Max Allan Collins. He has also edited several Shock Rock editions and Fear Itself. Gelb’s one novel is Specters, and he also has one comic book writing credit: Bettie Page Comics, done with Dave Stevens. Gelb lives in Southern California with his wife, Terry Gladstone. Their son, Levi, has just completed his rabbinical studies.
BARBARA HAMBLY—Since her first published fantasy in 1982, The Time of the Dark, Barbara Hambly has touched pretty much all the bases in genre fiction, including historical murder mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, comic books, a “contemporary occult romance novella” for Harlequin, and scripts for Saturday-morning cartoon shows. She continues to write both fantasy and historical fiction: her most recent horror novel is Renfield, Slave of Dracula, and her newest historical novel is Patriot Hearts, a novel of the Founding Mothers. She grew up on science fiction and fantasy in Southern California, and attended the University of California, where she received a master’s degree in medieval history and a black belt in karate. She attended the University of Bordeaux and traveled in Europe from 1971 to 1972. She married science fiction writer George Alec Effinger in 1998 and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. Hambly’s interests include historical research, dance, hiking, costuming, and carpentry. Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.
JOHN HARRISON—John Harrison began his career directing rock videos and working as first assistant director for famed horror director George Romero (Night of the Living Dead). Harrison wrote and directed multiple episodes of Romero’s classic TV series, Tales from the Darkside, before helming Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, which won Harrison the Grand Prix du Festival at Avoriaz, France. Harrison has written and directed episodes of Tales from the Crypt, Earth 2, and Profiler. He has written and directed world-premiere movies for the USA Network and Starz/Encore. Harrison’s six-hour miniseries adaptation of Frank Herbert’s monumental bestseller Dune, which he directed, was an Emmy-winning success in the United States. Harrison’s screenplay for Children of Dune, another miniseries, encompassing the next two novels of Frank Herbert’s mythic adventure series, was another Emmy winner for the SciFi Channel. Harrison cowrote the animated feature Dinosaur for Disney. And he has just completed the adaptation of Clive Barker’s fantasy novel Abarat, also for Disney. He has also adapted Barker’s short story “Book of Blood,” which he will direct. Harrison has written screenplays for Robert Zemeckis and Richard Donner among others, and his writing and directing have been honored with awards from the Writers Guild of America, Houston International Film Festival, as well as the Grand Prix at Avoriaz.
RAY HARRYHAUSEN—Ray Harryhausen’s body of work is legendary. Universally regarded as the king of stop-motion animation, Harryhausen’s magical images have jump-started the careers of more movie directors and special effects technicians than can be counted. Starting with Mighty Joe Young in 1949, Harryhausen’s work includes too many classic movie moments to list here. Harryhausen has recently added “author” to his list of accomplishments, with Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life and The Art of Ray Harryhausen. Next up: he has personally supervised the colorization of many of his early films for future DVD releases, and he has developed several new comic book series based on his creations.
GLEN HIRSHBERG—Glen Hirshberg’s most recent collection, American Morons, was published by Earthling Press in 2006. The Two Sams, his first collection, won the International Horror Guild Award, and was selected by Publishers Weekly and Locus as one of the best books of 2003. Hirshberg is also the author of the novels The Snowman’s Children and Sisters of Baikal. With Dennis Etchison and Peter Atkins, he cofounded the Rolling Darkness Revue, a traveling ghost-story performance troupe that tours the west coast of the United States each October. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including multiple appearances in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Dark Terrors 6, The Dark, Inferno, Trampoline, and Cemetery Dance. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and children.
DEL HOWISON—Along with his wife, Sue, Del Howison created America’s only all-horror book and gift store, Dark Delicacies, as fans and for fans, and they remain among horror’s biggest aficionados. They, and the store, have been featured on many television documentaries concerning horror and the nature of evil. As a former photojournalist, Del has written articles for a variety of publications, including Rue Morgue and Gauntlet magazines, along with a foreword for the Wildside Press edition of Varney the Vampyre. His short stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies. He is currently working on two coediting projects: The Horror Book of Lists with Amy Wallace and Scott Bradley, and Dark Screen: Horror Writers on Horror Cinema with Lisa Morton.
CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN—Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of seven novels, including Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, and, most recently, Daughter of Hounds. A four-time recipient of the International Horror Guild Award, her short fiction has been collected in four volumes: Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; Alabaster; and To Charles Fort, With Love (a World Fantasy Award finalist). Her stories have regularly appeared in such anthologies as The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Born near Dublin, Ireland, and trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, she now lives in Atlanta with her partner, photographer and doll-maker Kathryn Pollnac.
GREG KIHN—Greg Kihn was a rock star in the ‘80s and had several worldwide hit records (including “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song”). In the mid-’90s he quit his wild-man ways and began successful parallel careers in writing and radio. He has published four novels and numerous short stories. His radio show Big Rock Beat is now in syndication. Greg lives in northern California and does the morning show on KFOX in San Jose. He still performs with his band.
JOE R. LANSDALE—Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over twenty novels and two hundred short pieces. Bubba Ho-tep was filmed from his work, as well as Incident On and Off a Mountain Road. Many others have been optioned.
ROBERT MASELLO—Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, television writer, and author of many novels and nonfiction books. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared often in a wide variety of publications, such as the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, New York Newsday, the Washington Post, Redbook, Travel and Leisure, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Elle, TV Guide, Cosmopolitan, Parade, Town and Country, and the Wilson Quarterly. He has also served as a writer on such popular TV shows as Early Edition, Charmed, Sliders, and Poltergeist: The Legacy. Among his books are two studies of the occult—Fallen Angels… and Spirits of the Dark, which was quickly followed by Raising Hell: A Concise History of the Black Arts and Those Who Dared to Practice Them—and a number of novels, including The Spirit Wood, Black Horizon, Private Demons, Vigil, and, most recently, Bestiary. His books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, and have been translated into eight languages, ranging from Swedish to Korean. For the past six years, Masello has been the visiting lecturer in literature at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA.
STEVE NILES—Steve Niles is one of the writers responsible for bringing horror comics back to prominence, and was recently named by Fangoria magazine as one of its “thirteen rising talents who promise to keep us terrified for the next twenty-five years.” Niles is currently working for the four top American comic publishers: Marvel, DC, Image, and Dark Horse. His 30 Days of Night comic book miniseries is filming as a major motion picture, with Sam Raimi as producer. In June of 2005, Niles and actor Thomas Jane (The Punisher) formed the production company Raw Entertainment; their first production is The Lurkers. Niles and his Bigfoot cocreator, rocker Rob Zombie, have sold the film rights to Rogue Pictures. Niles and Zombie will be handling script duties. Also in development are adaptations of Wake the Dead, Hyde, Aleister Arcane, and Criminal Macabre. Niles resides in Los Angeles.
JOEY O’BRYAN—Joey O
’Bryan is a former film critic—for the Austin Chronicle and Film Threat, among others—turned screenwriter. He worked for iconic figures like Roger Corman and Sammo Hung before cowriting the Hong Kong action hit Fulltime Killer for acclaimed director Johnnie To. Honored at the Hong Kong Film Critics Association’s Golden Bauhinia Awards as one of the top-ten Chinese-language films of the year, it was distributed all over the world following its selection as Hong Kong’s official entry into the Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category. He has since optioned three specs and tackled a wide variety of screen assignments, for producers big and small, foreign and domestic. “The Unlikely Redemption of Jared Pierce” is his first published piece of short fiction.
JAMES SALLIS—James Sallis’s books include the Lew Griffin cycle, a biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau’s novel Saint Glingin, as well as six other novels and multiple collections of stories, poems, and essays. His most recent books are Drive (called by the New York Times “a perfect noir novel”), Salt River (the third and final installment of his Turner series), and the story collection Potato Tree. He was a longtime columnist for the Boston Globe, regularly reviews for the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and contributes a quarterly books column to F&SF. His Web site is www.jamessallis.com.
HARRY SHANNON—Harry Shannon has been an actor, a singer, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, a recording artist in Europe, a music publisher, a film studio executive, and a freelance music supervisor on films such as Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. He is author of The Night Trilogy, the Mick Callahan suspense novels, Memorial Day and Eye of the Burning Man; and the acclaimed horror/thriller The Pressure of Darkness. Harry’s horror script Dead and Gone was recently filmed by director Yossi Sasson. His Web site is www.harryshannon.com.