The Monster's Corner Read online

  Also edited by Christopher Golden

  Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 9780748132218

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Golden

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk.

  “The Awkward Age” copyright © 2011 by David Liss

  “Saint John” copyright © 2011 by Jonathan Maberry

  “Rue” copyright © 2011 by Lauren Groff

  “Succumb” copyright © 2011 by John McIlveen

  “Torn Stitches, Shattered Glass” copyright © 2011 by WordFire, Inc.

  “Rattler and the Mothman” copyright © 2011 by Sharyn McCrumb

  “Big Man” copyright © 2011 by David Moody

  “Rakshasi” copyright © 2011 by Kelley Armstrong

  “Breeding the Demons” copyright © 2010 by Nate Kenyon. “Breeding the Demons” first appeared in When the Night Comes Down, edited by Bill Breedlove and published by Dark Arts.

  “Siren Song” copyright © 2011 by Dana Stabenow

  “Less of a Girl” copyright © 2011 by Chelsea Cain

  “The Cruel Thief of Rosy Infants” copyright © 2011 by Tom Piccirilli

  “The Screaming Room” copyright © 2011 by Sarah Pinborough

  “Wicked Be” copyright © 2011 by Heather Graham

  “Specimen 313” copyright © 2011 by Jeff Strand

  “The Lake” copyright © 2011 by Tananarive Due

  “The Other One” copyright © 2011 by Michael Marshall Smith

  “And Still You Wonder Why Our First Impulse Is to Kill You: An Alphabetized Faux-Manifesto transcribed, edited, and annotated (under duress and protest)” copyright © 2011 by Gary A. Braunbeck

  “Jesus and Satan Go Jogging in the Desert” copyright © 2011 by Simon R. Green

  CONTENTS

  Also edited by Christopher Golden

  Copyright

  Introduction

  THE AWKWARD AGE by David Liss

  SAINT JOHN by Jonathan Maberry

  RUE by Lauren Groff

  SUCCUMB by John Mcllveen

  TORN STITCHES, SHATTERED GLASS by Kevin J. Anderson

  RATTLER AND THE MOTHMAN by Sharyn McCrumb

  BIG MAN by David Moody

  RAKSHASI by Kelley Armstrong

  BREEDING THE DEMONS by Nate Kenyon

  SIREN SONG by Dana Stabenow

  LESS OF A GIRL by Chelsea Cain

  THE CRUEL THIEF OF ROSY INFANTS by Tom Piccirilli

  THE SCREAMING ROOM by Sarah Pinborough

  WICKED BE by Heather Graham

  SPECIMEN 313 by Jeff Strand

  THE LAKE by Tananarive Due

  THE OTHER ONE by Michael Marshall Smith

  AND STILL YOU WONDER WHY OUR FIRST IMPULSE IS TO KILL YOU:

  AN ALPHABETIZED FAUX-MANIFESTO transcribed, edited,

  and annotated (under duress and protest)

  by Gary A. Braunbeck by Gary A. Braunbeck

  JESUS AND SATAN GO JOGGING IN THE DESERT

  by Simon R. Green

  The Authors

  MONSTROSITY: AN INTRODUCTION

  ANYONE WHO HAS EVER READ my work, or even glanced at my Website, will already know that I love monsters. Not in the manner of some passing fancy, the way teenagers express their—OMG—love for those shoes, that dress, this hat. Nor can my love for monsters be compared to your love of ice cream or pizza or pad thai or whatever makes you salivate. It is an enduring love. A love that comes with a deep and abiding connection, an understanding, a knowing.

  One of my earliest childhood memories is of sitting on the back porch of my house on Fox Hill Road in Framingham, Massachusetts, with the little black-and-white TV my mother sometimes had on in the kitchen and watching Frankenstein for the first time. I might have been seven. When the monster finds a moment of joy with the little girl by the lake, laughing with her and tossing flower petals into the water until she is the only flower remaining to be plucked and cast …

  Wow.

  The moment terrified me and broke my heart, all at the same time. The monster didn’t know any better. He didn’t understand the world into which he had been thrust. He had been created with the power to do so much damage, to inflict so much brutality, and yet all he wanted was peace and laughter. When the monster is shown walking into the village with the dead girl in his arms and the villagers react with horror and hatred, the tragedy is complete.

  I cried that day. I’m sure I cried in horror and in fear, but I know that my tears also sprang from my sadness for this creature whose monstrosity is no fault of his own.

  In the years that followed, I developed a love for all kinds of monsters, thanks in large part to a television landscape that included Creature Double Feature and local programmers who filled their airwaves with Japanese giant monster movies, 1950s atomic nightmares, Hammer horror classics, and others in that vein. But it wasn’t just the movies. My favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons always had monsters in them. When I started reading comic books—or, rather, buying them on my own—I gravitated toward the wonderful horror comics Marvel published in the 1970s.

  While there are monsters who are simply that and nothing more, who are truly evil and alien, there are so many more that inspired me to think and feel. The 1976 remake of King Kong, with Jeff Bridges, might not be very good (hey, I was nine, cut me some slack), but when Kong died at the end, it broke my heart. Even as an adult, when I watch the 1933 original, it touches me.

  The Tomb of Dracula, the finest of the Marvel horror comics, gave us a Lord of Vampires who was terrifyingly evil, and yet astonishingly human and sympathetic as written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan. His behavior was monstrous, and yet readers could not help but feel for him.

  As my literary interests grew, I found myself gravitating toward such portrayals of monstrosity again and again. I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein at last, and finally realized something that I had known in my heart for years by that time—the monster was the hero. The monster was the protagonist. Though the story might be structured otherwise, the language and characterization made it an inescapable truth.

  This epiphany opened up a whole new way for me to see these stories. Godzilla, of course, was widely misunderstood. Magneto might be the X-Men’s greatest nemesis, and his methods wrong, but he believed in his cause—believed he was doing the right thing for his people.

  In college, I wrote more than one paper dissecting my favorite film, Blade Runner, examining the Frankenstein-like moral structure of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece. When it came time to write a term paper on Moby-Dick, there could be no other choice for me than to write an essay titled “In Favor of the Whale.” Though the novel is structured to make Ahab the protagonist, everything about Melville’s language tells us that the opposite is true.

  Monsters and monstrosity. Both subjects fascinate me. So much of what we write on those topics is about how we view ourselves, and about the things we fear in ourselves and in others. We want understanding for our own behavior, for the ugliness or otherness we see in ourselves. Like H. P. Lovecraft’s outsider or Billy Joel’s stranger (not Camus’s stranger—that guy’s an asshole), we exist in a world that either does not notice us
, or does not notice the us we believe ourselves to be, or which we hope will never notice the us that we fear will not find acceptance in the world. Who are we? What are we? Will others understand?

  Back to Blade Runner. Roy Batty tells his creator that he has done terrible things, but “nothing the god of bio-mechanics wouldn’t let you in heaven for.”

  Monstrosity is about how we define each other and how we define ourselves. It’s about what we see in the mirror and what we fear others will see. And, at its most basic, it is also about the disturbing truth that we do not know what it is in the minds of others, that the woman next to you in line at the bank or the man dressed as Santa at the mall may view the world and humanity and morality very differently from the way that you do.

  Now, let’s talk about reality for a moment. There are monsters, and then there are monsters. There are real killers who go on rampages that leave people dead and others wounded and destroy the lives and the hopes of so many. These are the real monsters, and there are others in our world. My understanding of and sympathy for monsters does not extend to these real-life horrors. It is reserved for the Beast who is misunderstood, whose noble intentions are wrongly perceived by so many, but who, if he is fortunate, finds understanding in the eyes of a Beauty.

  Let’s be clear about the line between fiction and reality in my philosophy of monsters. Andrew Vachss, novelist and warrior for the rights of children, once wrote—and I paraphrase—that you can have sympathy for how the monster became the monster without having sympathy for the monster itself. You can sympathize with the child whose experiences forged him into a soulless killer, but once he becomes a monster, sympathy ends.

  Got that? Good.

  Back to fiction, and my love of fictional monsters.

  When I conceived of this anthology, it was with the same love of monstrosity that I described above. I knew that many other writers shared my love for such stories. Once again, as in The New Dead, I cast the net wide, luring in contributors from all genres, knowing that such variety would produce a wealth of different approaches to the subject matter. I talked about Frankenstein and Moby-Dick, and they got it, every last one of them. They understood that, even in the case of a monster who wants to eat us or stomp us or deceive us, sympathy is all in your point of view. Professor X wants mutants to live in peace with humans. Magneto thinks that humans are likely to exterminate mutants if mutants don’t get rid of humans first. You could make an argument that neither of them is wrong.

  Stephen King once wrote—and again I’m paraphrasing—that the way we identify monsters is by collective agreement. “I’m okay, you’re okay, but eww, look at that.” I’m fairly certain the thing we’re pointing to, the thing that makes us scowl in disgust, is pointing back with the same look of revulsion. It’s all a matter of perspective. Eew, look at that. Eew, look at us.

  Which brings us right back to the outsider, and the mirror. What we hide. What we fear in others and ourselves. Monstrosity.

  The contributors to this anthology took up the challenge admirably. I had only a few rules. Number one, no vampires and no zombies. You can find more than enough of that elsewhere, and they’re too easy as go-to monsters. Number two, I discouraged human monsters, although you’ll notice that a couple of them slipped in here. Number three, the stories had to be original, though I broke that rule, too. One of the stories was published in a small press anthology that sold about a hundred copies before it appeared here. If you’re one of the hundred people who’ve read it before … sshhh. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

  The results are wonderful. In the following pages there are stories of fear and stories of heartbreak. There are stories of madness and stories of humor. There are philosophical musings and cruel twists of fate. There are man-eating plants, and even a little sympathy for the devil.

  Come, then, and look at things from a new perspective. See the world through inhuman eyes.

  Join me in The Monster’s Corner.

  THE AWKWARD AGE

  by David Liss

  PETE ALWAYS BELIEVED that he and Roberta had done everything they could do, but they’d been doing everything they could for so long that the urgency had long since slipped away, leaving nothing behind but familiarity. It was one of those situations that looked pretty much awful from the outside but was just everyday life to those inside.

  So it was a surprise more confusing than pleasant when the phone rang one weekday night and Pete found himself talking to a woman with one of those congenial San Antonio accents that bespoke social fluidity and comfortable wealth. “Is this Neil’s dad? Hi. This is Mason’s mom.” Which is to say, my mother. I’m Mason. And I know you won’t be happy when you find out how exactly I knew so much about Pete’s life, his take on things, what went on in that fucked-up head of his. You are not going to like it, but I promise to tell you. Only not yet. For now, you are going to have to trust me, which is a lot to ask, I know. But people do trust me. I guess I have one of those faces.

  * * *

  Back to their phone conversation. Pete knew of no child named Mason, so the call caught him off guard. Mason’s mother, Cindy, whom Pete immediately recognized from her voice as a particular kind of San Antonio woman—a blond, ponytailed, lacquered—wanted to invite Neil to sleep over with Mason on Friday night. There were some calls across the house, some quick checking of schedules, and the thing was arranged. Just like that. Not until it was all over did Pete cajole Neil away from his computer long enough to answer some rudimentary questions about Mason, who was, by definition, remarkable simply for being Neil’s friend.

  It was not Pete’s fault that he had no idea how to communicate with his son. Not really. On his best day, Neil was impossible to talk to, and this conversation turned out to be even more difficult than most. Neil had been a withdrawn kid when they’d lived in San Diego, and Pete had hoped their move to San Antonio two years ago would give him a chance to open up, to reinvent his life, but it hadn’t. He remained the same. Quiet without being moody. Withdrawn without being sullen. Alone without being lonely.

  What little attention Neil had for his father evaporated the minute my name was mentioned, and he instantly retreated to the far reaches of his bed, tucked his receding chin into his too-large T-shirt, and mostly nodded yes or shook his head no or shrugged that he didn’t know. Pete—who was tall, broad in the shoulders, fit from a regular and moderately punishing gym routine—felt like a menacing ogre, and he couldn’t find it within himself to press on with the interrogation. He finally opted for a strategic retreat rather than continue to embarrass his son or do anything that might somehow endanger the sleepover.

  Roberta, the lady of the house, made her own foray into Neil Land, but emerged with no more success. “I didn’t want him to feel so uncomfortable that he’d cancel,” she said later that night as they lay in bed. She was reading a mystery that she’d read a jillion times before. Roberta loved to reread books. Some of her favorites she’d read twenty times or more, which Pete would have considered less absurd if she were reading Proust or Joyce, but these were books by Janet Evanovich or John Grisham, books that hardly warranted a single skim, let alone dozens of attentive reads. Some years ago Pete had found this habit endearing, but now he thought it silly, even embarrassing.

  “It’s weird,” Pete said. He was leafing through the New Yorker, not reading much of anything. “He’s getting kind of old for sleepovers, don’t you think? I’m worried there might be some kind of gay component to this. Or pre-gay.”

  “You think this is a pre-gay sleepover?” asked Roberta.

  Pete set down his magazine. “I’m saying it’s odd. I mean, I don’t care if he’s gay. I’d celebrate him being gay.”

  “Like with a coming-out party?” Roberta asked. “Our neighbors would love that.”

  “At least he would be enthusiastic about something. I just want him to be who he is instead of …” But Pete did not finish the sentence, because the only possible way to finish it was nothing, whi
ch was, to his own great shame, how he had come to think of Neil: as a walking depository of nothingness.

  Neil always been that way; even as a baby he’d been detached, uninterested, unnaturally calm. Pete and Roberta had done all the right things, gone to all the right doctors, had all the right tests. The results were always the same. There was nothing wrong with Neil. He had no developmental issues; he was nowhere on the autism scale. He was intelligent and responsive, but he didn’t care for people. That was who he had always been.

  “You should simply enjoy the fact that he has a friend,” Roberta told him.

  A few minutes later, when she turned out her light, Pete vaguely considered rolling over toward Roberta, who remained very attractive for a woman of forty-seven—pretty, slim, the gray in her hair sexy in a Disney villainess kind of way—but he didn’t know if he exactly wanted to have sex. The last three or four—yes, it was exactly four—times he’d made advances, Roberta had rejected him, and he didn’t know if he was up for the emotional trauma of five in a row. He might be awake half the night, pondering this rejection, wondering what it meant for their eighteen-year-old marriage. Alternatively, she might be interested, and he wasn’t entirely sure that would be a good thing either. In theory sex seemed like an excellent idea, but even at its most rushed it was a time-consuming business, and it was already after midnight. He had work to finish in the morning. Did he want to have sex, or did he want to have had sex already so not having sex could be something he didn’t have to ponder? As he turned over these ideas, Roberta began to snore in a low, grumbling rhythm and the decision was made for him.