I have a love/hate relationship with horror. I'm drawn to the genre.
As a pointed out in an earlier blog, my first story to appear in a print
journal was a horror story. I've tried to write them and, sometimes, succeeded in
getting such stories published. But my record is spotty. I don't like
"dark horror." To me, the dark side isn't more powerful than the side
where the light shines. I don't like to write about horrific things happening
to innocent people. So I write "soft" horror. Usually the good guys
(and girls) win out in the end. Evil, the twisting of good, does not have an
ultimate ontology—which is to say, it is derived from good, and does not have
an existence in and of itself.
 |
| Umberto Eco |
But
I wanted to get a little more horrific and came up with the idea for the story
"City Limits." Like all stories, it is derivative. I hear people say
how William Shakespeare "stole" all his story lines. One writer said
C. S. Lewis "stole" the idea of the kingdom of "Numinor,"
which he mentions That Hideous Strength,
from Tolkien. But the idea of "stealing" is not exactly right. Story
lines are public property. Italian novelist and critic Umberto Eco wrote,
"Books always speak of other books,
and every story tells a story that has already been told." This story had
some ideas from other authors.
One I got from Deep Rising, a horror film which involves an attack from creatures
who live six miles down in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean. At one
point, someone asks if these creatures eat humans. Someone replies, "They
don't eat you, they drink you"—meaning, they swallow you whole and then
digest you by sucking out your body fluids—blood, lymph, everything. Not a nice
way to die. This tied in with the idea in C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters that demons in hell drink and eat people—not physically,
but spiritually. A quote from the story explains: If … you can
finally secure his soul, he will then be yours forever—a brimful living chalice
of despair and horror and astonishment which you can raise to your lips as
often as you please. Sounds
pretty gruesome. But the idea of being drained—of your "precious bodily fluids"
or of your spirit—came to be the center of this story.
My
ongoing character, Sossity Chandler, accepts an invitation to play for an old
college friend, Melinda, who now lives in a small town. She remembers how Melinda and how she got messed up with drugs and occultism in school and
ended up dropping out. They are reunited, but Sossity is trouble that she is constantly
followed by a creepy-looking guy who is friendly and cordial and identifies
himself as a friend of Melissa's but always seems to keep Sossity in in sight
as if he is guarding Melissa from her.
Later,
she goes to her old friend's apartment. A pale-skinned woman joins them and
Melissa murders her. Sossity is horrified, but Melissa cuts the girl's arm to
reveal how a milky fluid runs in her veins instead of blood. She—Melissa—is a
prisoner to a group of the undead who live in the town and feed off the people they
have captured by enchantment. Melissa says she only occasionally is drained of
her soul, but when the undead find out she has destroyed one of their number she
says, “They’ll absorb me. I’ll live
inside one of them. They’ll transfer me from time to time and leech the life
out of me slowly. The way things are now, I at least live my own life most of
the time. If they absorb me, I’ll never see the light of day. I’ll live until I
die inside their gross, stinking bodies.” Melissa mentions that this has
already happened to another girl named Caitlin.
Sossity
comes up with a plan and the two of them manage to escape—and to rescue
Caitlin. Once they are out of the city limits of the town, the undead cannot
use their magic and they are free. But Sossity wonders if there are others, if
the undead have a network, and if they will eventually track down Melissa,
Caitlin, or even her. The turmoil of good and evil, of freedom and bondage, of
parasitical life and genuine life, are themes in the story. It is horrific for
us to think of being devoured or absorbed and of being helpless as this is done—which
is why stories about giant spiders that trap someone in a web and then suck out
their life is so disturbing to us. In my story, the women get away and are not
absorbed. But will the story end there?
"City Limits" appeared in a book called Anthology of Ichor II put
out by Unearthed Press, available through Amazon. It is one of my more horrific
horror stories and the anthology is a good read.
I would love to hear your comments on horror. What is your favorite horror novel or story? Do you like hard or soft horror? Do you write horror? Leave a comment!
For
some horror right of the New Testament, read The Prophetess.
The girl mentioned as a demoniac fortune teller in the Book of Acts
has a backstory.
For more titles, see my Writer's Page.
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