Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #40: Horror Once More: "City Limits"

 

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.

Dave's Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #21: "The Grave of Cindy Darner"

I published two stories in Horror Through the Ages. The second one was "The Grave of Cindy Darner." I don't write cowboy or "old West" fiction a lot—in fact, this was the only cowboy-style story I think I've ever written (I watched too many Westerns as a kid). But it came as a unique idea. Once more, it is "soft horror," not "dark horror." Horrific and terrible things happen, and the supernatural elements are threatening, but in the end it works out for the best. Justice and good ultimately triumph over dark forces.

Once in class I asked my students what characterized Westerns. They said, horses, gunfights, saloons, shoot-out's, and, one student commented, "Always going to hang someone." Cindy Darner is a woman who is abused by her husband and decides to take matters in hand. She kills him and disguises the murder to make it look like someone from one of the native tribes in the area did it. Her ruse fails, however. She is charged with murder, breaks down in courtroom and confesses her crime. The townspeople are sympathetic. They know her husband beat and abused her and think she should get a prison term, but the judge sentences her to death. She will die by hanging.

After she goes to her death, complications arise. Executed criminals are usually thrown into a grave with no coffin and no rites. One of the women in town, however, who is sympathetic to Cindy, thinks she should have a decent burial and buys her a pine box. Another faction that is more critical of her objects. They can't prevent her being buried in a coffin, but they keep her out of the town cemetery. She is buried underneath the hanging tree outside of town where the bodies of other executed criminals lie.

Soon her ghost appears. At first she is seen by the town drunk, so the story is dismissed, but eventually more "respectable" people see her. The woman who bought her a coffin, Millie Browne, sees her and is able to speak with her. Cindy says the murderers buried all around her are trying to get to her. At night, they kick at her coffin and threaten her. She is somehow able to keep them at bay, but feels they will eventually break into her coffin and abuse her. She asks Millie what to do.

Millie is frustrated, thinks Cindy truly repented, and does not know why she can't go on her rest. Cindy asks what God wants her to do. Millie doesn't know and asks Cindy if she has any idea of what she needs to do. "I need to do justice," she says. "That's all I know." Millie can't help her and Cindy says she will resign herself to her fate and go to hell like Elsa Towner said she would. Elsa has tormented and vilified Cindy, saying she will go to hell for her crime. Millie tells Cindy how the bible says anger and slander are just as serious as murder. Cindy seems to respond to this, nods, and fades away.

The next day, Elsa is found dead, her heart crushed. Cindy appears again to Millie and says she did justice. No one has bothered her since and she can go on to her reward. With Elsa gone, Cindy's coffin is exhumed. It is battered, people note, as if someone were trying to break into it. She is reburied in the town cemetery with the epigraph from the bible (chosen by Millie), The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness. Jeremiah 31:23.

In my horror, as always, the dark forces do not win. They are not supreme. Cindy goes to her reward, whatever that may be. Elsa, who represents hatred and judgmental bias, is killed (by the way, I blatantly stole the heart-crushing scene from Stephen King's Carrie—but everyone from Homer to Shakespeare could tell you authors use other authors' material). Cindy Darner is vindicated. Her wrongdoing (it is wrong to murder someone) is paid for, but that payment is sufficient. No need for further punishment. And justice needs to be done—one last good deed. And is done.

Horror Through the Ages is available in print form. It contains a number of excellent stories from various periods of history.

This month, I am promoting my novella, ShadowCity. Scott's girlfriend, Jimena, is the guardian of a parallel world ("all related to string theory," she tells him). He follows her there. But her first act upon arriving in that world is to buy a slave; soon she tortures a woman who has betrayed her. Something is not right, Scott senses. Perhaps the darkness is starting to seep into Jimena's soul as well.

Check out my Writer's Page for further titles.

I would love to hear your comments.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #13: Wherein I Write a Real, Genuine Horror Stor

In an earlier post, I said that I did not write what is called "dark horror" and that the stories I do that fall in that genre are mostly "soft horror"—with a happy ending and one where the evil forces are defeated and the good guys win, though it might be a hard-fought and costly battle. I did do one story that is more traditional, where the evil creature dominates and the protagonist is captured by a sinister tormentor in the end of the tale.

I like to write about people who teach literature. Of course, it's what I've done for a living many years, and Hemingway said write about what you know. A literature teacher, Scott Sheridan, meets an attractive woman, Lucinda Arnold, at a book sale. Scott likes his work, but he is vexed by the politics, the bullying, and the egotistic blathering of those who have rank on him in the Literature Department—in other words, I paint an accurate picture of what it's like to work in the academic world!

He and Lucinda talk about books, read together, and, 

soon, are sleeping together. It's a nice relationship. Scott is up for tenure has is nervous because a capricious colleague named Pauline who outranks him is insinuating she might block his tenure—meaning he will have less money and less security. Her reasons are simply that she has power over him and enjoys exercising it and watching him squirm (as often happens in the academic world). Lucinda visits him is introduced.

They talk about Chaucer. Pauline mentions the "Reeve's Tale" one of the Canterbury Tales and notes that the main character in it has a "boil" on his leg. Lucinda corrects her: it's "The Cook's Tale," not "The Reeve's Tale," and it's not a boil. Pauline insists she is right. Lucinda recites a line: “Greet harm was it, as it thoughte me, / That on his shyne a mormal hadde he.” She says a "mormal" was an abscess, a sore that would not heal. Pauline insists Lucinda is wrong and mocks her, saying since she works in a bookstore at least she's around books a lot. Scott is amazed at how accurately she pronounces the Middle English words. Later on, a colleague says he has seen Lucinda somewhere but can't quite recall where.

Charles Dickens

Soon Pauline gets a lesion on her face. It won't heal, spreads, and she dies of infection. Another hostile colleague begins to gain weight so much that before the tenure hearing he is confined to a wheelchair. His obesity necessitates knee surgery. With two hostile colleagues gone, Scott sails through his tenure hearing. Lucinda also begins giving him to books. He reads, they talk about the books, which gets her sexually excited, and they make love. When he fails to finish a book on time, she gets cross and says she will see him when he gets it read.

Soon, too, his friend Mike says he has figured out where he saw Lucinda before and shows Scott a photograph of several Victorian writer's, including Charles Dickens. Behind him, smiling, hands on his shoulders, is a woman who looks like Lucinda's twin. He thinks it must be an ancestor; she is wearing a large onyx ring Lucinda wears, but he knows it could be a family heirloom passed down to her.

After he tells Lucinda, they talk books and go to bed, as usual. He has noticed that their lovemaking often follows the contours to what they have read. Tonight they read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, a violent and rather grim text. Their embrace is violence and dark. When he turns to face her after post-coital dozing, she tells him she is indeed the women in the photo, has lived a long life, and stays alive by means of books she had lovers read to her. He dismisses it as psychosis, but she proves her statement to him in a most unpleasant fashion:

The dim light around her quivered and she in a dark flash she changed. Her skin became green, her eyes feline and red, mouth fanged, fingers claws, hair writhing like snakes.  He tried to get up, but her arms held him down with superhuman strength. Fire flashed from her eyes and her tongue, cloven like a snake’s, shot out at him and left a track of foul-tasting slime from his chin to his nose. He tried to scream but fear had paralyzed him so he could not make a sound. 

Then she was herself again.

 Since he doesn't seem quite convinced, she then transforms into a blob-like, slimy creature was oily pink skin, a shapeless mouth, and tentacles. Scott is convinced. She is succubus who thrives not off of sex but off of reading. He has become her captive. He dares not disobey her. She tells him she has had lots of men in her care:  Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, and others. And, she reminds him, she eliminated the two colleagues who threatened his tenure. He needs to be thankful. She tells him, "I am your friend and lover, Scott.  Don’t be afraid of me.  You don’t need to be—as long as you keep reading.”

She leaves. Stunned, shaken, Scott begins the book she has left him to read:  Bag of Bones by Stephen King. It is 800 pages long. But he has no choice. He begins reading as dawn breaks over the horizon.

I don't like writing dark horror. I don't like to see the monsters win. But, it is a good exercise. You have to know how write in all sorts of genres. And the market for this sort of horror is good. Negative capability enables one to see many facets of a matter without necessarily being committed to one. So it is with me and dark horror.

For titles, check out my Writer's Page.

Daemons, possession, the occult? Look at The Prophetess. Horror from the New Testament! Really!

Dave's Anatomy #10: My History As A Writer: Soft and Dark Horror: "Bertha Todd"

One of the first stories I wrote, and the first story I wrote about my ongoing character, Sossity Chandler, was a horror story. But I don't like what is called "dark horror." Dark horror is where harrowing things happen to people and no one seems to be able to stop the monster, vampire, serial killer, or whatever it is wreaking havoc. Body count is high. In the end, the evil thing gets away and, you can be assured, will strike again soon.

The horror I write is what is called "soft horror," a kinder, gentler version of its wayward sister. There is something evil, it threatens and may destroy, but it is overcome in the end and, if not destroyed, at least contained. If we use Stephen King's work as an example, Pet Semitary is dark horror. Evil wins out and good can't survive. A lot of King's early horror was dark horror. Bag of Bones, on the other hand, is soft horror. A lot of scary things happens in the book, but ultimately the malevolent force is driven away and the main character, though shaken and bloodied by his encounter, will not only survive but thrive and get what he wants (in this case, adopt a young girl he has responsibilities toward).

Dark horror is based on the idea that evil is unstoppable—a thing I don't believe. It also suggests that the nature of things tends toward evil, not good. Again, I don't believe this. Like Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and C. S. Lewis, I believe that evil has no existence in and of itself but is only the twisting and perverting of good. Given this, it cannot have an ultimate power because it is a derivative phenomenon.

The second horror story I published, one with a new character,

was called "Bertha Todd." Like a lot of my characters, the protagonist is a musician. He seems to write his best songs in a house on a remote lake. The lake is ringed by summer houses and also by permanent residents. Like many summer homes, the cabin is named, Bertha Todd, after the woman who had it built.

To simplify the story, Larry finds that the ghost of Bertha Todd, a musician with a tragic past, haunts the place and helps him with his songwriting. He begins dating her granddaughter, Tess Bristow. He also notices that Mil (Millicent) Bristow, Tess's mother and, he later learns, the illegitimate child that ended Bertha Todd's career in the 1930s, drinks a lot—a while lot.

Without rehearsing too much of the plot, the actions of the ghost of Bertha Todd are threatening (when she thinks Larry plans to seduce Tess) but more often they are benevolent and positive. Bertha is not an evil ghost. She is attached to the house because of the sorrow of her life, but she does not exhibit evil behavior. In fact, her actions are rather moralistic. She wants to the best for her daughter and granddaughter. She wants Larry to do what she cannot do for them. She is willing to give him songs that will be hits if he is willing to help her daughter and grandchild. This is the sort of thing that is called soft horror. Evil doesn't have the upper hand. 

Mr. Hyde in foggy London Town

In film versions of Robert Lewis Stevenson's classic tale, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," the evil persona, Hyde, is depicted as bigger than life, magnificent in his monstrosity, and possessing superhuman strength. If you've ever read the story, though, you know the opposite is true. Mr. Hyde is misshapen and ugly. He is not, as in the films, seven feet tall but is so short he has to roll up the legs of his trousers to walk. People laugh at him and mock his shrunken appearance. Yet something about him is repulsive. Evil, in Stevenson's story, is not magnificent but pathetic and ugly.

In the end, Larry is respectful of Tess and careful not to go too far with her. He also helps her mother, Mil, to recognize that she can no longer hide her alcoholism. The story ends on a positive note:

Larry went back to the house. He packed up his car to head south. He intended to drive down and stay with his parents a few days before the other band members came up to see him at Bertha Todd and to hear the new songs he had written. As he left, he felt a quiet serenity in the house. He turned by the door and spoke out loud.

“I understand. You’ve given me what you had to give. The songs I wrote made our group successful and gave me back my life. I’m in your debt.  I owe you a lot. Tess is a wonderful woman.  I will respect her convictions. We’ll see where things go. And Mil—well, you were there. I imagine you heard what she said.” He paused then grinned. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

The emanations in the room were of joy and, he strongly sensed, amusement. He turned, went outside, locked the door behind him, and climbed in his car to drive south.

Looking from my perspective today, I would say the story is overly moralistic and a little bit on the sentimental side. Still, it got published, was enjoyed by some readers, and, like all stories, was another rung on the ladder of learning how to write. I wouldn't disown it because of its flaws. It also showed me my ideas on the nature of horror writing. More soft horror would come, though I did now and then venture into the realm of darker horror—just for the sake of seeing that I could write it.

"Bertha Todd" was published in a journal that is no longer in print; no online copy is available.

But, you can get a copy of The Last Minstrel. You will encounter Celtic mythology, the evil Goddess Morrigan, and much more.  

 Or, if you prefer witches, sorcery, music of the early 1970s, and crazy love, take a look at Strange Brew. When a witch is in love with you, the magic can get serious.