As
a writer I continued doing horror. I've been reading more of it lately. A story
I just read contained the typical elements. A young woman is trapped in a
restroom on a train after the lights go out and the train fills with screams,
thumps, and blood covers the floor and seeps into the john. She doesn't know
what's going on, finally opens the door to see a young girl who may be a
vampire, manages to get away from her and lock herself in the loo once more,
and hears voices talking about killing her and burning her body and how it
would be better for the little girl than what will befall her if they don't. As
a reader, you get the idea that some kind of purge—maybe of vampires—is going
on and that the vampirism (or zombie state) may be contagious and the narrator
has been infected. But you're not certain. The uncertainty, along with the
darkness, squishing, screaming, and blood make for horror.
This
is horror's mainstay. But there are others ways to do it. In my story,
"Saint Cointha's Bridge," geography and history inform the horror.
In
her marvelous book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, author Kathleen
Norris speculates on how geography—where we live, the landscape around us, the
physical make-up of our place on earth—affects us spiritually. Norris argues
that how we understand God, the supernatural, the spirit world, whatever you
want to call it, is shaped and formed by the physicality of the land around us.
If you live in Dakota, your spirituality will be different from what it will be
if you live in Florida—or Vermont, or Devonshire or the Mekong Delta.
Proximity
has always figured into stories of magic and evil. There are haunted houses,
castles, and forests; being within their physical limits makes you susceptible
to the evil lurking there. I had just finished Norris' book. The idea of
geography lay fresh in my mind. All the old horror stories that involve evil places
also informed the string of ideas that led to the story "Saint Cointha's
Bridge."
In
this story, a peaceful village in England is menaced by the spirit of an evil
woman burned at the stake long ago. Thirsty for revenge, her ghost appears, but
the village is inhabited by a lot of good people and in every generation some
people there are "gifted":
they can see her and their mere presence—because they are virtuous—stops
the woman from harming the town.
But
a short distance away is a college also known as evil. From the Middle Ages,
rumors of dark rites have clouded the school's reputation. Today it produces
unscrupulous business types and does weapons research. It has also, over the
last few centuries, systematically bought up the land around the village and
now controls enough of it to build a road from the college to Saint Cointha's
bridge, where the spirit of the evil woman, Jacquetta Montfort, is most often seen. The
main character in the story, Sebastian, knows that if the two sites of evil—the
bridge and the college—are physically united by a line of paving stones, the
evil of the two sites will be united, and the village engulfed by an evil energy that will permit Jacquetta to
carry out her long-contemplated revenge.
Sebastian
is one of the people who can see her. He is contemplating her when a local
skinhead, who complains about the bullying local political administration,
tells him that there will be a little "surprise" for the Mayor and
the
City Council—one they won't soon forget. Sebastian
has other
things to think about. He senses his life will be the payment for stopping Jacquetta
Montfort. He doesn't quite know why or how, but he is sure of it.
Just
before the last stones to unite the college and the bridge are laid, Sebastian
encounters Jacquetta. The road to the college is not connected yet, but it is
close enough to empower Jacquetta. She assaults him, knocking him to the ground
and saying she means to kill him—and that now there will be no stopping her.
But even as she speaks, something happens. The bridge, built with her blood in
the mortar, begins to burn. Jacquetta, whose soul is "in" the bridge,
is destroyed. Sebastian, hurt, can't get up and thinks he will die too, though he
is satisfied that his life was well spent and instrumental, somehow, in
stopping evil from engulfing the town. Someone rescues him.
It is
the skinhead. He and his buddies have burned the bridge in retaliation for the
city administration's heavy-handed rule. Sebastian thanks him and promises he
won't tell anyone what has happened. He knows that the local roughnecks (who
never do any real harm to anyone) have inadvertently done the city a good turn.
The
bridge is completely destroyed. The city decides not to rebuild it. The road to
the college ends in a plaza, since there is no bridge now to connect with. The geographical coupling that would have exponentially increased
the velocity of evil is effectively stopped.
"Saint
Cointha's Bridge" appeared in a print anthology Horror Through the Ages, available from Amazon. I had another story in that anthology
and wrote the introduction as well. Get a copy! It contains lots of good
stories--a good introduction too!
I am
promoting my fantasy novel, ShadowCity. In a dark world, the light inside you is all have.
For more titles, check my Writer's Page.
Comments are always welcome.
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