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Zip Code Telephone / €>1994. Thunder's Shadow FICTICN CEMETERY DANCE MAGAZINE Volume Six, Issue One Winter 1 994 EDrrOR/PUBUSHER Richard T.

Chizmar ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kara L. Tipton EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Adam Fusco CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Tyson Blue Edward Bryant Matthew J. Costello Ed Gorman Charles L. Liam McDonald Thomas F. Monteleone Bob Morrish Kathryn Ptacek Paul Sammon David E. Webb Douglas E. Winter GRAPHICS EDITOR Alfred Klosterman CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Alfred Klosterman Keith Minnion COVER ARTIST Alan M.

Clark ISSN# 1047-7675 COPYRIGHT © 1994 by Richard T. All rights revert to contributor upon publication. All inquiries should be addressed to Cemetery Dance, P.O.

Box 858, Edgewood, Maryland 21040. No response without SASE. Advertising rates available. Discount rates available for bulk and stand- ing retail orders. Please note: the opinions expressed within are not necessarily those of the publisher. THE RIGHT TfflNG WALL OF WORDS THE RENDERING MAN DEUS-X WEIGHT THE LEVEL OF THE FLAME Gary Raisor 5 Lucy Taylor 20 Douglas Clegg 37 Joseph A.

Citro 57 Dominick Cancilla 68 David Niall Wilson 83 DEPARTMENTS WORDS FROM THE EDITOR Richard T. Chizmar 3 RAMBUNGS FROM THE DARK Charles L Grant 14 GORMANIA Ed Gorman 17 TRASH THEATRE Joe R. Lansdale & David Webb 25 SPOTUGHT ON PUBUSHING Bob Morrish 32 (Featuring TuHlight Publishing) NIGHTMARE ALLEY Matthew J. Costello 48 BOOK REVIEWS Ed Bryant 50 NIGHT LETTERS Douglas E. Winter 61 NEEDFUL KINGS & OTHER THINGS Tyson Blue 65 ROUGH CUTS Paul Sammon 74 ANTHOLOGY ATTIC Kathryn Ptacek 80 MOTHERS AND FATHERS ITALIAN ASSOCIATION Thomas F. Monteleone 88 CD REVIEWS Various Reviewers 92 2 CEMETERY DANCE WORDS FROM THE EDITOR RICHARD T.

CHIZMAR CEMETERY DANCE #19 — Welcome back to another issue of Cemetery Dance, the magazine of dark mystery, suspense, and horror. If you have picked us up from a book or sp>ecialty store and are reading us for the first time.

We hope you enjoy this issue enough to subscribe or keep an eye out for the Spring Issue, due in retail stores the third week of May. •f ♦ Before I get on to the business at hand, I want to offer two personal asides. First, my heartiest congratulations go out to Cemetery Dance editorial assistant, Adam Fusco.

Adam contributes quite a bit to both the magazine and the hard- cover book line, but at heart, he’s a writer. And a very talented one. His short fiction is starting to app>ear in many genre books/ magazines; and just last week the news came that his short story, “Breath,” originally printed in Peter Crowther’s wonderful Touchwood: Narrow Houses Volume Two, was selected for the forthcoming Dadow and Windling The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

So congratulations! And a heartfelt thank you to my good friend (and Kara’s best friend) Mindy Fritzie for the absolutely wonderful Christmas gift She spent what had to be many days crafting a beautifully sculpted version of the CD logo, then she framed it in elegance, and topped it all off with my favorite “start the dance” motto. It’s a true work of art, and it means a lot to both of us. 4 - ♦ Take a close look at the front cover of this issue and, after you are overwhelmed by the stunningly gruesome artwork of Alan M. Clark, you will notice the banner headline: 5TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Yeah, I can hardly believe it myself.

But it’s true. I checked Just to be sure... The Premiere Issue of Cemetery Dance was— for the record— the Winter 1988 issue, and it shipped in mid-Decem- ber of that same year. We ran 1,000 copies, and mailed half that number.

A few of the authors included in that black- and-white dinosaur of an issue (which ran only 48 pages, with a dozen stories, zero columns and a scattering of poems, for heavensake!) are David B. Silva, Steve Rasnic Tern, Bentley Little, Barry Hoffman, Ronald Kelly, and Roman Ranieri. When I scanned that list earlier today, a single thought ran through my head. We were damn lucky from the very beginning.

Lucky that so many high caliber writers were willing to have their work published in a brand new magazine. That they were willing to work with this unknown, unproved editor. I still feel that way today, actually. Not about the unknown editor part, mind you, but the ‘lucky” part.

I take a look at my current list of Contributing Editors and pinch myself. I think about the fact that I’ve worked with both of my dark fantasy idols— Stephen King and Dean Koontz— and I can only shake my head in wonder. These gentlemen are responsible for my love of this field. So many years ago, it was King’s ‘The Monkey” and then the novels, and soon after it was the suspenseful creations of Koontz; books like Shat- tered and Phantoms and The Face of Fear. I think about how closely I work with many of the field’s top writers, guys like Ed Gorman and Joe Lansdale and a bunch of others and I can only give my head another shake.

Then, I think about the five figure circulation of this magazine and our fast-growing hardcover line, and I realize that I’m not alone in my love and resjject of this type of literature. And, finally, I think about all the friendships... If all this sounds overly sentimental, or self4ndulgent, I ap>ologize. It’s Just that five years is a long time in the publishing business.

Any business, for that matter. Tradi- tional wisdom states that the first year is the toughest.

Make it p>ast that and you have a chance. Make it two years and it’s even money. Stick around past that third year and you must be doing something right. For what it’s worth, here’s my opinion: What we here at CD have done right is very simple: we’ve pursued a dream very dear to us; we’ve done so with f>assion and energy; and, most importandy, we’ve been blessed with the support of each and every one of you out there— the readers, the writers, the artists, the booksellers.

Accept our warmest thanks...... And we’ll see you five more years down the road! 4 - 4 - That’s all for now.

It’s time to enjoy the issue. We think (hope) you will enjoy it! And please remember that Ingram Periodicals is Cemetery Dance’s newsstand distributor. If you frequent a chain store— yes, any chain store— or an inde- pendent book or comic store, please ask the manager to carry Cemetery Dance. Thanks— we appreciate your help!

Now turn down the lightjust a notch, flip the page, take my hand, and start the dance... CEMETERY DANCE 3 THE RIGHT THING GARY RAISOR CARY RAISOR is the author of the popular vampire novel, Less Than Human (soon to be published as a beautiful hardcover edition from The Overlook Con- nection Press) and the editor of Obessions, His short fiction is always filled with quirky characters and nasty surprises, and the following tale is no excep- tion.

Downstate Illinois. August Something unseen was moving. It wove in and out of the cornfield, causing the thin, brown stalks to murmur a dry protest. Two boys, one large, the other small, stood at the edge of the field and watched expectandy. ‘Jesus,” the small one said, “that could be Old Man Nichol’s dog. Steel, in there. What are we gonna do if he sees us?” An odd, flat expression app>eared on the larger boy’s face when he looked at his brother.

“We’ll probably get ripped apart, and our guts’ll get spread all over. Then the crows’ll come and tear out our eyes and eat them.” He snickered. “It’ll be really disgust- ing.” ‘Tommy, you’re.” “I’m what?” the older boy asked. “Crazy?” “No.” They watched the corn stalks part. A dog emerged.

It wasn’t Steel, it was a beagle, and there was something wrong with the animal. It had no eyes. The boys watched the dog stagger into the barbed-wire fence, cutdng itself to the bone. The animal yelped and lurched back into the cornfield.

A line of red trailed after it. After a while the com stalks quit rustling and quiet settled in. The older boy. Tommy lichner, smiled, but it never reached his eyes. His younger brother Michael, who was eleven, breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his face.

“Wonder what happened to him?” Tommy shmgged, looked away. “How would I know? Dad’ll be back from town pretty soon.

We’d better haul ass if we’re gonna make the quarry.” “It looks like something tore his eyes out.” Mi- chael’s freckled face crumpled with pain as he took a hit from his aspirator. His asthma was acting up today. It happened whenever he got too excited. This was his first trip to the quarry and his adrenalin was pumping. “Are you sure it’s okay. About the quarry. Dad said he’d—” Michael’s chest hitched, “—skin us alive if he ever caught us near there.” “He’s not going to catch us, okay?” Tommy watched his brother struggle to breathe and he started forward.

Something in Michael’s eyes stopped him. Michael took another hit from his aspirator and his breathing smoothed out, a ragged engine finally hitdng on all cylinders. “Will you come on?” Tommy touched the barbed-wire fence and his fingers came back red. “I could be doing something fun today instead of taking your scrawny litde butt swimming.” “Like what?” Michael’s face wrinkled up with curiosity.

“I could be over at Lisa Robinson’s house.” “Oh yeah, what’s so fun over there?” Michael’s voice was teasing. “None of your business, you litde pervert.” “You brought it up.” “Shut up.” They walked in silence for a while, Michael eyeing his brother the way a puppy with a full bladder eyes new carpet. Finally, Michael could stand it no longer.

“So you gonna tell me what you been doing over at Lisa Robinson’s house?” Tonuny hesitated for a moment, trying to make up his mind about something, then plunged ahead. “I’m trying to get into her pants, okay.

I’ve been trying all summer, but she won’t let me. Are you sadsfied now?

Anything else?” Michael considered his brother’s words and his eyes widened. “You can’t.” He began laughing with manic glee. Tommy was afraid his brother wras about to have another attack. “Can’t what?” Tommy finally asked. “Get in Lisa Robinson’s pants, duh.” “Michael.” Tommy’s voice was ominous.

“She doesn’t wear any pants. I heard Stuart Grimes talking about it.” Tommy felt sudden heat building in his stomach. “How does Stuart know?” “Cause he sits in front of her in home room. He said he’s dropped his pencil so many dmes everyone thinks he’s a spaz.” “Does anybody else in school know about this?” “Everyone except you. There’s somethin’ else.” CEMETERY DANCE 5 “What?” Tommy felt the heat climbing his neck.

“Stuart claims he saw her snatch.” Michael saved the big news for last and he delivered it with the respect it deserved. “He says she’s a real hundred percent blond.” Tommy paused to consider the mysteries of blond hair, womanhood, and the fact that Stuart Grimes knew his girlfriend didn’t wear any underwear. He didn’t even know that Lisa didn’t wear underwear. “Stuart had better be careful about that big mouth of his. It could get him into trouble.” The heat crept across Tommy’s face, settled in his eyes. “Real trouble.” “You ain’t mad at me are you.

I didn’t tell nobody.” Michael was suddenly afraid. What had started out funny had taken a wrong turn and had veered into unknown territory. His brother had a crazy, unpredictable temper. “No, Michael, I’m not mad at you. Not at you.” They tramped on through the prickly afternoon heat. Tommy had the oddest sensation someone was watching them.

For an instant, he thought he saw a figure standing high on the hill, but he couldn’t be sure because of the angle of the sun. He thought that whoever was back there was dressed in white— all in white. The idea that someone was watching them caused a chill to crawl up his back, despite the heat.

When he looked again, the hill was vacant. He decided he must be seeing things.

Shrugging it off, he kept walking. Michael tagged along behind. Tommy tasted dust in the back of his throat and spat it out. “Couple more years and I’m outta this cow fuckers’ paradise.” He plucked at his NORTHWEST- ERN T-shirt, pulling it away from his sweaty skin.

“If I don’t die of terminal boredom first. The only thing you can get around here is a heat rash.” “Stuart got a rash,” Michael volunteered, “on his Mr. He got it from Nina Hodgkess.” “One more word about Stuart and we’re going homel” They came to another barbed-wire fence and scooted beneath its strands. “Wait a minute.” Michael spied the small white conductors nailed to the fence p>osts and he knew the fence was electrified.

His expression became suspi- cious. “I thought you said we were going to the quarry? This is the wrong way, this is Mr. Nichols’ farm, this is where Steel.” “You’re not scared, are you?” Tommy challenged. Michael looked at his brother and squared his thin shoulders defiantly. “No, I’m not scared. It’s just a stupid old dog.” ‘We’ll only be a minute.

I want to check out something, and then we’ll go swimming. Okay?” “Okay.” Michael still sounded dubious. In the far distance, past the heat waves that rose with watery undulations, a herd of Black Angus cows were crowding under the only tree in the pasture.

Michael took a few steps, changed his mind and stopped, his face going pale. ‘Tommy, I don’t want to go any closer. This is Steel’s farm. He guards those cows. You saw what he did to Stuart, bit him in the face. C’mon, Tommy, let’s don’t do nothing crazy.” “Are you saying I’m crazy?” “No, Tommy.” Michael tried to look away. “Stuart Grimes is a big, fat pussy.” Tommy had a bloodless smile painted on his face now, and his eyes had gone all hard and shiny.

“Steel probably caught Stuart while he was squatting down to pee.” Tommy grabbed Michael by the arm and dragged him toward the cows clustered beneath the tree. Michael’s efforts to resist were useless.

His older brother was too strong. As they drew nearer the cows.

Tommy started talking again, his voice flat, hard. “I heard Stuart took his old man’s twelve-gauge and evened up the score with Steel.” “He shot Steel?” Michael was stunned. ‘That’s the rumor going round. We’re going to see if it’s true, or if Stuart’s Just blowing more hot air.” The black shapes were growing clearer in the watery heat waves, and the high sweet odor of rotting meat reached Michael. The odor grew stronger with each step. The cows lay sprawled around the tree, twisted into unnatural shap>es.

Looking at them, all Michael could think about was the train derailment he’d seen up in Fort Wayne, where his dad had taken him for his asthma tests. The dead cows looked Just like the boxcars that had been thrown from the tracks that day. “Whewl Man, they’re getting pretty ripe.” Tommy fanned the air. “You think Stuart did this?” “See the holes in them. They were killed with a shotgun.” Michael edged through the dead cows and some- thing occurred to him.

“What if Stuart didn’t shoot Steel? What if he’s still running around loose?” Tommy’s face never changed expression as he scanned the pasture.

“There’s Steel, over by the barn.” Following his brother’s pointing finger, Michael saw the black shape that scared the shit out of every kid in town— Steel. The hundred twenty pound Rottweiler was dead, more dead than anything Michael had ever seen in his entire life.

But the big dog hadn’t died easily. He had fought to the end. His shiny dark hide was pelted with dozens of holes where the shotgun blasts had struck. There 6 CEMETERY DANCE was a trail of blood and slime on the ground where he had crawled toward his attacker, even as he was dying. The last shotgun blast had been the worst, it had caught him square in the face, putdng out his eyes. Michael stared down the length of the dog, saw the Rottweiler’s intestines were poking out. Dried to stiffness by the sun, they gave the dead animal a sadly fesdve air, sort of like pink curb feelers on an over- turned, trashed black Cadillac.

“How come he’s all split open?” Michael asked. “It’s the heat that causes it. Makes them swell up dll they pop.” Michael didn’t know how to respond to that. He tried not to look at Steel, but he couldn’t help himself. There were things feeding on Steel. Flies and crows mostly. The crows were busy tearing out chunks of pinkish gray flesh and flapping away.

With uneasy fascination, Michael watched the scavengers pick over the carcass of the dog. The boy had never thought something as big smd mean as Steel would ever die. Could ever die.

He yanked his arm free of Tommy’s grip and threw up, his pink Berry Berry Kix spewing onto the tops of his K-Mart specials with wet, splattering sounds. When he saw his break- fast was the same color as the flesh the crows were pulling from Steel, he retched again. Tommy examined the dog’s wounds with a calm, knowing eye. “Looks like a twelve gauge to me. Man, Stuart wasn’t blowing hot air, that shithead really did it. He killed Steel.” “We got to tell somebody.” Michael took a hit from his aspirator. It did litde to ease his cramping chest.

“How come Mr. Nichols don’t know about this?” “Cause he’s in South Bend at his daughter’s.” Tommy was paying little attention to Michael, he only had eyes for Steel. “That bastard’s gone. I can’t fucking believe it.” Tommy fired a dirt clod at the dead dog and it struck him on the flank, turning into a puff of dust.

The crows took lazily to the air. The flies paid little attention; they kept on eating.

“He was mean.” Tommy’s voice was reverent. “The meanest.” “Yeah, he was the meanest,” Michael agreed. Tommy’s voice was wistful. “You peed your pants the first time you saw him.” Michael g;rinned. He should have felt good, after all, the boogie man was dead, and he wouldn’t have to be scared of him anymore. But Michael didn’t feel good. An indefinable sense of loss had come over him, and when he looked over at Tommy, he knew his brother felt the same way.

Some of the magic was gone from their lives. Never to return. They started to walk away when a plaindve mewl- ing caused them to halt. A puppy staggered out from behind the bam, a Greetings from THC T1A)C TOMMCL Write for our New, 13 -page Stepbea King Catalog and * Our Monthly Newsletter Detailing and Reviewing Fiction by Today’s Top Horror Writers * Limited Editions Hardcovers A Paperbacks Backdate Magazines Craig Goden 313 Beech wood Ave.

NJ 08846 (9 CEMETERY DANCE 7 Rottweiler. Their talking must have awakened it. The baby stared at them for a moment and tried to balance on unsteady legs. Deciding the two boys posed no threat, it managed to lurch over to where they stood. “Where did you come from?” Michael knelt and stroked the puppy.

Tommy walked over to the comer of the bam and looked into the shadows. “That’s where he came from.” Tommy jerked his head at a dead female Rottweiler and her five dead puppies. All of them had been shotgunned. Some were in pieces. The puppy staggered over to its mother and tried to nurse.

Its mewling became a constant thing when it couldn’t get any milk. “The little guy’s in bad shape.” Tommy gendy touched the pellet holes in the baby Rottweiler’s skin. “I can’t believe it, that asshole Stuart shot the puppies too. I wonder why didn’t he finish off this one?” “Maybe it was under the mother, and Stuart didn’t see it.” Michael touched the puppy’s dry nose.

It began sucking on his fingers. “What are we gonna do? You think Dad’ll let us keep him?” “Nah, Dad won’t let us have a dog. He hates ’em.” Tonuny condnued stroking the shiny black hide, and Michael could tell his brother was trying to make up his mind about something. “Can’t let him suffer,” Tommy said, picking up the puppy. “It wouldn’t be the right thing to do.” “What’re you gonna do. Tommy?” Tommy stared into the eyes of the puppy, and its tail wagged feebly while it tried to lick his face.

Then it began whining and lowered its head, as though it had grown too heavy to hold up. A thin line of bloody mucus trailed from the puppy’s nose, ran onto Tommy’s hands, trickled into the dust. Tommy watched without expression while he stroked the dny head with gentle fingers. “Litde bastard looks just like his dad, doesn’t he?” The puppy seemed suddenly content and it snug- gled up in Tommy’s arms. Michael watched wordlessly. Tommy finally took the puppy over to the water trough where the cows drank.

“Don’t do it. Shit—” Tommy lowered the puppy in. The baby Rottweiler’s mouth opened wide as it tried desperately to breathe. Bubbles floated to the top, burst.

Tommy held it under until it quit thrashing. When Michael looked into the pink water, he saw the puppy had no eyes. Tommy had gouged them out. Tommy wiped the sweat from his face with the back of a trembling hand. He was breathing heavily. “Come on Michael, I thought we were going swimming today.” Tommy walked back to the fence in silence, his feet throwing up puffs of dust that hung in the still afternoon air like accusing eyes. When Tommy wouldn’t look back, Michael knew his older brother was crying.

Michael knew Tommy didn’t like anybody to see him crying. It ruined his tough-guy act.

A litde later Michael caught up, and they pushed through the bone-white sycamores, undl they came to a NO TRESPASSING sign. Someone had painted three small crosses on it. “It’s the number of kids that’s supposed to have drowned here,” Tommy said.

“No shit?” “Yeah, no shit.” The two boys got down on their stomachs and crawled beneath the strands of barbed wire that guarded the path to the quarry. Michael smelled something cool and damp in the air.

The quarry was close, but he didn’t feel much like swimming now. A -Ct Michael stood at the rim of the abandoned rock quarry and stared down with awe. “I didn’t know it was so big.” The glassy surface stretched out of sight, a gash in the earth that ran for miles. Slabs of lime- stone, as high as a man was tall, lay along the edges of the water as though they were blocks left by some gigantic child who had been called away. The rocks were streaked with red, the color of diluted blood. “This is where Dad used to work.” Tommy spat in the water, like the words left a bad taste in his mouth. Hundreds of cattails were clustered around the bank on the far side, and when a breeze sprang up, their heads bent together, and their soft, clicking voices whispered secrets Tommy couldn’t quite deci- pher.

He knew they were whispering alx>ut him, though. “How come the water turns black?” Michael asked. “Cause it’s real deep.” Tommy skimmed a stone. “How deep you think it is?” Michael nervously asked, picking up a stone and trying to duplicate his brother’s feat. His stone only skipped twice before being dragged down. The water looked hungry.

Could be a couple hundred feet, maybe more. You ain’t getting scared again, are you?” Michael dropped his gaze, stung by the accusa- tion. “I ain’t scared.” Tommy saw the hurt expression and his tone softened. “Come on, lighten up.” A sudden smile crossed his face as he yanked off his T-shirt. “Last one in asks Lisa Robinson if she dyes her cunt hair.” Michael giggled.

Tommy began stripping off his jeans, hopping on one leg when they stuck to his sweaty skin, ^fore he could free himself, he fell into the water. When he 8 CEMETERY DANCE x>pped to the surface, he threw his soggy jeans onto shore. Something fell out of the pocket. It was a shotgun shell.

“I picked it up at the farm,” Tommy said with an easy, guileless smile. He stroked toward deeper water where a huge, inflated innertube floated. Michael saw the shotgun shell was unfired and something frightening occurred to him. What if Tommy had killed all those animals at Old Man Nichols’ place?

Michael didn’t want to think about that. Because that would mean his brother really was crazy. “You’d better hurry up if you’re gonna get your scrawny, litde butt wet,” Tommy yelled. “We already wasted too much time on those dogs.” Michael cast a furtive glance at the quarry, scared of his brother and scared now that he had to go into the water. His hands shook when he placed his aspi- rator on the rocks.

He walked to the water’s edge, hesitated. “Come on, dingle berry, jump.

I won’t do noth- ing to you.” “You promise?” Michael danced from foot to foot on the hot rocks, looking into Tommy’s eyes, while he tried to decide whether his older brother was crazy or not. “You wouldn’t ever hurt me, would you. Tommy?” Tommy smiled. Making up his mind, Michael leaped.

The water sucked him down, closing over his head, pulling at him with flat, cold hands. He bit back a scream, clawed his way to the surface. Tommy was watching. There was something un- readable in his eyes.

Michael waited for some comment on his bravery, but Tommy’s face still held that distant expression. That meant something bad was going to happen. ‘The water’s freezing my nuts off,” Michael said.

“You don’t have any nuts. You’re too little.” Michael smiled and clung to the innertube. “Hey, Tommy, they ever find the kids that drowned here?” “No. Just their tracks at the edge of the quarry.” Michael digested this information. “You think they’re still in here?” “Yeah, what’s left of them.” “What do you mean?” “I mean there’d just be some bones, maybe a little hair, after the turtles and everything got through. No eyes though. Their eyes would be gone.” “No shit.” Michael was quiet as they drifted into the shadow of the rock wall on the far side of the quarry.

He looked at it and was more afraid than ever. Trickles of water oozed down the stones, thick and dark, red as blood seeping from the skin of some wounded animal. He thought of Steel’s puppy and how blood had spilled from its nose before it had died. Off in the distance came the low whine of a truck pulling the grade on the Interstate. The sound re- minded him of something in pain.

Michael turned to his brother. “How come you gouged out the puppy’s eyes?” “I don’t know.” Tommy looked away. “Maybe I didn’t want him looking at me.” “Did you do it to the beagle we saw?” ‘Jesus, will you knock off with all the questions. Who cares about some stupid old dog?” Anger col- ored Tommy’s voice. “Beagles are slow and dumb, you know. Kinda like you.

Maybe he was sad because he couldn’t catch any rabbits. Maybe he decided to kill himself and fucked up the job. Okay?” “Okay. Can I ask you just one more question?” Tommy looked suddenly very tired, but he nod- ded. “Is it about the cows and the Rottweilers?” “Sort of. You promise you won’t get mad?” Mi- chael asked. “I won’t get mad.” Michael took a deep breath, exhaled, and screwed up his courage.

“Are you really... Like what the kids at school say?” “Crazy? That’s what they say, isn’t it, that I’m crazy?” Tommy looked into Michael’s eyes.

And for a second, everything dissolved, it was like he was looking into a window of some other place, that there were people in that other place, p>eople dressed all in white, and they were looking back at him. The teen- ager squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. And everything was okay. The people in white were gone. “This trip’s turning into a fucking drag.” Tommy shaded his eyes and looked over at the rock face. “Hey, Michael, you wanna see me do something neat?” Michael’s gaze traveled up the rock wall and he realized what his brother was about to do. “No, Tommy, don’t be stupid, it’s too high.

Don’t do noth- ing crazy.” Too late, he realized he had said the worst thing he could have said, the very worst. “You think I’m crazy, well I’ll show you crazy.” Tommy swam ashore, scrambled across the rocks and disappeared into the sumac bushes. Several minutes later the teenager emerged at the top of the rock face, seventy feet above the water. Even though he flashed a wide smile, Michael could see Tommy was afraid. “We’d better get homel” Michael cupp>ed his hands around his mouth.

“Dad’s gonna be looking for us!” “Dad can kiss my ass. I ain’t scared of him.” Tommy moved closer to the edge and a handful of stones rattled down, taking forever to strike the black water below. He watched them hit and it seemed like a dream.

He heard Michael calling. It was all a dream. “Wait, Tommy. I can’t breathe, I can’t—” CEMETERY DANCE 9 Tommy Ics^ied into space. Michael watched his brother descend, growing larger against the cloudless blue sky. Tommy was a good diver, but something was wrong.

He must have slipped, he was flailing his arms in circles, trying to regain his balance as he plummeted downward. The distance between him and the water grew shorter.

He wasn’t going to get strai^tened out in time. Tommy’s mouth opened in a wide oval, a scream that he was too terrified to utter.

He smacked the water and it erupted in a violent geyser, stinging Michael. And just like that. Tommy was gone. Michael was too fi'ozen to even flinch.

Anxiously he waited for his brother to pop to the surfiu:e. This had to be a joke, but Tommy didn’t appear. The ripples lengthened. The surface became as smooth as glass. Tommy, you shithead, quit it I ain’t laughing.” The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness and still the water remained undbturbed. A dragonfly hovered, lit ssit modonless for a few seconds, and then buzzed away.

Time had ceased to exist. A faint breeze rufiOed Michael’s hair. He wished he had his aspirator as he listened for a sound. There was only silence.

The cattails weren’t even whispering now. This wasn’t a joke; Tommy was down there in the water, way down ^^lere it was dark and cold. Where he couldn’t breathe. Michael knew what that was like. He had to find Tommy.

The innertube squeaked a shrill warning when Michael slid across it and fell into the watery blackness waiting below. He groped downward, fighting back his fear. Fighting not to breathe. He had to find Tommy.

The quarry squeezed his chest with its soft, heavy hands when he went deeper. Complete darkness now. Deeper, deeper, no up, no down. Only this empty, terrifying vastness. Just as he was about to explode, he bumped into something. Something cold. Whatever it was moved, wrapped around his foot, and held him fiut He kicked, trying to break free.

Fighting away panic, he started to reach down to see what held him. But the panic won out, his air was gone, and he began thrashing back and forth. Seconds passed. The tapping sound of his heart echoed in his ears, a small hard pebble skimming across the water.

Clawing, his fingers raking water, he kept reaching for the surface. It remained out of reach.

Whatever had hold of him wasn’t letting go. He opened his mouth and screamed, and his life began spewing out in tiny silvery bubbles. When the last bubble was gone, Michael took a breath. Water filled his lungs and it was a sledgehammer made of ice. He opened his mouth again, sucked more water into his lungs. It was warmer now. The cold was going away, along with his fear, along with the pain, and he wondered what he had been afraid of all this time.

The water wouldn’t hurt him. The water was his friend. He took another breath, and the cold was gone. Before the darkness came for him, Michael saw Steel. Saw the huge Rottweiler was trying to show him something. The dog was trotting down a long, brightly lit hallway, headed toward a door at the fiu* end. The door was closed and water was oozii^ out from be- neath.

Running along the black and white linoleum. The door flew open, and Michael saw there was someone in a bathtub, lying beneath the water. He couldn’t make out the face because of a stream of bubbles that covered the surface. The door closed. And Steel was dead, shot full of holes. And then there was only darkness. Seconds passed.

Michael breathed one last time and a few bubbles floated to the surface of the quarry, then stopped. Everything became serene. The dragonfly again lit, and the cattails whis- pered. A ripple stirred below. Something was coming. As the insect launched itself into the still air— Tommy appeared. He sucked in air and flung an arm across the innertube.

When he began making his way to shore, he tried not to look at the small aspirator gleaming in the sun. His face was pale and his eyes were filled with shadows. ‘Tm sorry, Michael, I’m sorry. It was the only way.” He collapsed face down among the rocks and began gagging. Afterward, still crying, he lifted his head and wiped the bitter puke from his mouth.

“I wished we could’ve said goodbye, but I couldn’t stand you looking at me. Not you.” The sound of water lapping against the rock shore came to him, languid, peaceful, and he thought he might rest here for a moment. Just a few seconds. He was more tired than he could ever remember. Too tired to get up. The sun felt good on his icy skin.

He thought about his brother and wondered if Michael was cold. Did dead people feel cold? He hoped not. His eyes grew heavy as he watched a white bird spin away from the quarry wall.

He watched while it climbed higher and higher, until it finally became a speck against the cloudless blue sky. The bird was free, without guilt, and how Tommy envied it His eyes closed and he slept 10 CEMETERY DANCE And while he slept, he dreamed... About a man and the five-yearokl lx>y at his side. It it The boy and the man stood on a creek bank, watching the turgid, green water slide by, each of them lost in his own thoughts.

The heat was brutal. As the sun gazed down at them through the oaks, the boy tried to wipe away the wetness gathering in his eyes. In the distance, heavy dark clouds inched closer, wrapping themselves around the sun, slowly smother- ing it Thunder rumUed. The boy held a burlap sack in his hands.

Inside, something moved. “Son, little things can’t fend for themselves.” The man’s voice was patient, yet tinged with suppressed anger. “They got to have big things to take care of them, or they die.” The man snapped off a piece of a branch and threw it into the water. The creek sucked it under. The boy stared straight ahead, his f^e carved from stone.

Only his shiny-wet eyes betrayed his des- peration. The man bent down on one knee and looked into the boy’s eyes as he struggled to explain. He was a man unused to talking. “Those puppies in your sack got no mother to take care of them. They’re sick and they’re going to die slow. They’ll suffer.

You don’t want that, do you?” The boy shook his head no, scuffing bare callused feet in the dirt as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat He felt his Other’s hand on his sunburned shoulder, but he didn’t flinch and he didn’t pull away. That would make his &thcr angry. He didn’t want to make his hither angry. “Sometimes, a man has to do things that are hard,” his father explained. ‘That’s what being a man is all about Taking responsibility. No matter what.” He lifted the oil-smudged baseball cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I want you to prove to me that you’re ready to be a man.

You know what you got to do, don’t you?” The boy nodded, the movement almost imper- ceptible. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be,” the man said.

The c:^ went back on and there was something final in the gesture. “We could get them some medicine,” the boy said in a small voice. Then they wouldn’t be sick.” The hand on the boy’s shoulder tightened and, this time, he flinched. “We ain’t got money to buy medicine for a bunch of stray pups.” The hand dug deeper into the small shoulder. The pain was intense. ‘'Hiey laid me off at the quarry, they said they’ll call me back soon as things pick up.” The seams in the tired, bitter face deepened.

‘That’s a goddamned lie, the quarry’s finished and everybody knows it” The boy looked at his father and the boy was sure this was somehow his fault Maybe, if just this once, he could make his father proud of him, everything would be okay. It would be back to like it was before Mom died. The boy clutched the coarse burlap and lifted with all his strength, and yet, try as he might, he couldn’t raise the bag off the ground. Whimpers of pain accom- panied his struggle to drag the squirming contents nearer the water. The bag tangled in a tree root, turning the whimpers into yelps. As he kept edging nearer the creek, he thought about how small the puppies were, he thought about how they had licked his hand with their tiny, pink, sandpaper tongues when he had lowered their wriggling bodies into the ba^.

He thought about how they would look —dead. Teetering at the edge of the creek, he looked at his fiither and hesitated. His eyes held a final, desper- ate appeal. His father looked away. The boy took a deep breath and pushed the ba{' into the water.

It landed with a splash and it shoulc have went down quickly, but it didn’t, because there was an air pocket keeping it afloat. The shrill yaps of the puppies filled the boy’s ears and the bag boiled as they fought to escape.

He covered his ears. Then the air pocket began leaking, spewing bubbles like some childish game the boy played in the bathtub. The bag held steady for a bit, then listed to one side, then slid under. The yammering was silenced. In a moment, the puppies were gone as though they had never existed. But somehow one had gotten free. It swam gamely for the shore.

A second before the puppy would reach safety, the man knelt and pushed it under. The boy watched its small, pink tongue unfurl as it struggled to breathe. He watched as it died. The last thing he saw was the puppy’s accusing eyes staring back at him from be- neath the water. The boy stood with his own eyes fixed on the spot where the puppy had gone under, watching blankly while a last bubble floated up.

It was quiet under the oaks, growing suddenly cool when the storm clouds at last wrapped themselves around the sun. A shiver passed through the boy and he wondered if he would ever be warm again. He turned away from the creek. He couldn’t face his reflection. Something was wrong with the eyes staring back at him. A rough hand grabbed his arm and pulled him around, m^e him look at the creek.

“I’m proud of you,” his father said, approval and regret mixed in the CEMETERY DANCE 11 seamed face. “What you did might seem harsh to you now, son, but someday you’ll look back on this and see you did the right thing.” The first drops of rain began falling, softly at first, then harder, distorting his reflection. But not the eyes that looked back at him. Not the eyes. “Yes sir, I did the right thing,” the boy repeated, looking into his father’s eyes. He saw they were the same green as the creek, and in their depths he saw dead puppies floating, swirling around and around, staring accusingly at him with their long pink tongues lolling from their mouths. Another voice spoke to Tommy, pulling him around.

It wasn’t his father’s voice. How many more times are we gonna do this?” Tommy opened his sleep-heavy eyes to see his younger brother sitting on the rocks beside the quarry. “Hi, Michael, what are you doing here? I thought I killed you.” “You did.” Michael frowned as he did some quick arithmetic in his head. “This makes nine hundred and eighty-three times you killed me.” “Then why do you keep coming back?” “Because you keep bringing me back, you stupid shit. You’re the one who keeps doing this over and over.” The small boy was watching Tommy intently, curiosity on his face. “It’s not going to change.

You can’t bring me back. You need to let go of me.” Tommy looked around at the quarry, saw the water was red as blood now. The sun was going down, and he realized he must have slept a long time. “I was dreaming about white rooms, Michael, endless rows of white rooms. And people with dead-white skin who keep watching me.

I hear them whispering my name. What do they want?” ‘They want you to let go, to get on with your life.” Tommy recoiled as their gaze locked, held. All the strength left him.

“What are you talking about?” “Letting go of the past. Don’t you get it?

The people you see in your dreams are doctors. You went crazy. Tommy, crazy as a shithouse rat. Now you live in a litde white room where they have to watch you all the time.” Michael ran a hand through his water- soaked hair and propped himself against a sycamore. “I only live in your mind. I’ve been dead almost three years now. I had asthma.

Tommy, real bad asthma. You took me swimming while Dad was gone to town.” Michael’s gaze shifted to the sun-glinted water. “And you drowned me.” He smiled. “I guess you thought it was the right thing to do.” “It was,” Tommy said softly, without conviction.

“It’s not so easy doing the right thing, is it? The doctors said the asthma might have killed me sooner or later, so maybe my drowning was a blessing. The only problem was, you couldn’t accept my death. You kept on blaming yourself.” “You were suffering, I saw what the asthma was doing to you. I couldn’t help but see. You were always following me around like a litde.” “Puppy,” Michael finished. “We know what you do to puppies, don’t we?” Tommy flinched.

In Michael’s eyes he’d caught a glimpse of dead puppies floating, swirling around and around, staring accusingly at him with their long pink tongues lolling from their mouths. “See something you didn’t like?” Michael’s grin was guileless. 'That’s right, you don’t like to look ’em in the eyes, do you?

That must be why you pretended your dive went wrong. So you could get me down there where it was dark.” Tommy watched Steel come over to Michael to have his ears scratched. “I was only doing what I thought was right.” “Well, then, don’t take it so hard,” Michael said with a shrug. “Besides, it doesn’t do any good. My death was for the best. You said so yourself, you did the right thing.” “I killed three other kids, too.

Brought them out here and drowned them. They died easy, Michael, without a fight.” Tommy grabbed hold of Michael’s shirt and held on. His brother’s shirt was wet, cold. “I did it because they were sick. I would’ve killed more if they hadn’t caught me.” Michael’s eyes setded on Tommy’s stricken face. There was only compassion in their depths. “You’re my brother,” Michael said.

“I forgive you.” “But I can’t forgive me. Don’t you understand, I can’t forgive me.” “Then you know what you gotta do? You’re not scared, are you?” Tommy smiled, and there was something fragile in the smile. “No, I’m not scared. Not anymore.” He stared at his d at his reflection in the water, watching it ripple beneath the hot, dry evening wind that pushed across the quarry.

Something about his ims^e dis- turbed him and he couldn’t figure out what it was, not until the cattails whispered the answer to him. They had been trying to tell him all along. He nodded his understanding. His voice was filled with sadness as he began walking into the water. “I just wanted to do the right thing, Michael...

That’s all I ever wanted... Was to do the right thing.” He kept walking until the water closed over his head. In a small white room, the last bubble floated up from the overflowing tub, and the face of Tommy Lichner appeared in the water. And it was peaceftil at last.

At long last. When the nurse found him, she saw he had dug his eyes from their sockets. And was still holding them in his clenched fists. _ CD CEMETERY DANCE 13 CHARLES L.

GRANT RAMBLINGS FROM THE DARK #21 On Nostradamus, Jean Dixon, Doomsaycrs, Cheerleaders, and Other Psychic Phenomena: Some years ago, a young woman of my acquaintance csyoled me into letting her read my palm. Unfortu- nately (because of what she said), nothing she saw there came true. A few years later, another woman of my acquaintance took one look at my palm and said, “My God, look at all those wrinkles!” I’ve also been scanned by a&- trologists (once).

Tarot readers, delvers into reincarnadon, and a couple of seif-proclaimed psychics, most of whom were experts in spot- reading of people’s characters, and all of whom were lousy at predic- tion. I’m still not rich, 199x (pick a year, it doesn’t matter) did not turn out to be my best year yet, and my hair is still falling out Nostradamus, on the other hand, knew his stuff. At least, he knew how to make it sound as if he knew his stuff He was so vague, and just flashy enough, that people who hanker for such things have no doubt that he predicted world wars, spot wars, cold wars, specific dictators, and Orson Welles. The writing field has its own crystal-gazers as well, and as long as this particular column will be out somewhere around the beginning of 1994 (it’s being written at the beginning of December, 1993), I reckon I might as well take a shot at it myself. I’ve had some experience, I have some knowledge, I’m probably already in trouble for Just thinking about doing this, and I have a big mouth- all of which makes me about as qualified as anyone for looking ahead sagely and with benign cono- passion to what will happen to writ- ers and publishing during the next twelve months. And yes, I wiU stand by every blessed one of my predictions. If they’re wrong, let me know imme- diately so I can ac^ust to the times and blame someone else for my folly; if they’re correct, I will a^ust to the times and take full credit.

As far as you writers are con- cerned: don’t bother skimming this to find your name. You’re probably not here. I’m dumb, but I ain’t stupid. With all that in mind, here are my twenty-two, sure-fire predic- tions for 1994: I. Copyeditors throughout the civ- ilized world still won’t know how to spell Dr Pepper. Kaanta Laga Hd Video Free Download.

Which is to say, they’ll continue to put in the. After the Dr, and we will, of course, all be the better for it.

As long as I’m at it, they still won’t know the dif- ference between a sentence that begins with “immediately” with a comma, and “immediately” without the comma. And when we fix it, they’ll ignore it anyway. Thirdly, they’ll be so lacking in histori- cal/literary background that they’ll question every allusion, metaphor, and outright mention of such arcane knowledge, assum- ing that the public is as stupid as they are.

And when we change it back to the way it’s supposed to be, they’ll ignore it. Some nearsighted accountant will look at some computer figures, ignore the reading public, and de- clare horror/sf/mystery/ro- mance/ westerns/ thriller dead. Lines will be cut, titles slashed, prices raised, and the genre will become comatose for about six to seven months, at which point somebody will notice a gap and start buying again. This is what’s known as the “Boom and Bust” cycle, which sounds like something I used to go to at the old Hudson Theater in New York City while I was in college. That, however, was a lot more fun. Sometime during the year, somebody will lambast an author because he received too much money too soon in his career.

Last year (1993) it was Poppy Z. Brite, vilified by a number of small- minded, green-eyed beanpods be- cause she made a few bucks; thereby, apparently, depleting the resources available to the rest of us who are, of course, far more de- 14 CEMETERY DANCE serving, both in talent and finan- cial need. They did not, however, (and will not) vilify Stephen King or Dean Koontz, even though those genUemen no doubt paid more in taxes than Poppy received even before her agent and Uncle Sam took their cuts. In a corollary prediedon, Ms Brite will probably oudast every one of those beanpods.

Publishers will condnue to ex- hort their authors to come up with that all-important “breakthrough novel,” even though neither they nor the author vdll have the slight- est idea what it will look like. And when it doesn’t happten, everyone will get grumpy.

“Breakthrough novel,” by the way, is a technical term meaning bestseller. “Bestsel- ler” is a technical term as well, meaning what an author wants all his books to be, and what a publish- er couldn’t produce on purpose if his life depended on it. And when it doesn’t happen, the author gets the blame because he didn’t write one; and the publisher gets the blame because he didn’t make it happen. When this happens once too often, the publisher dumps the author, the author dumps the agent, and fingers get pointed in so many direcdons, everybody gets cross-eyed. And grumpier than they were the first dme.

Publishers will continue to prac- dee indefensible business methods by heavily promodng that which needs litde promodon, and ignor- ing that which they claim they are solidly behind. In other words, the Cadillacs will get 90% of the pro- modon money, 2 md the Taurus’s will get, probably, zilch.

The check will be in the mail; the contract will be in the mail; and the editor will have just stepped out of the office. The writer will get the flu, the writer’s kid will play paper dolls with the manuscript, the manu- script will be in the mail, the printer will die, the computer will die, and nobody makes ribbons for that typewriter anymore, except in a small village in Alberta.

Horror, after several years of literal nonsense packag;ing, will condnue to be recognized for what it really is-^ somedmes but not always vital element in a story; not what it isn’t— a category of genre dedon as definable as, say, science fiction. This will not, however, stop some folks from publishing horror as category genre fiedon, thereby allowing them to declare that horror is dead.

Every horror story/ novel that takes place in a small town will be called derivadve of Stephen King; every horror story/ novel that has lots of cross-country action will be called derivadve of Dean Koontz; every horror story/ novel that is even vaguely poedc in nature will JIM ORBAUGH, Bookseller ♦ Specializing in Contemporary Horror and Weird Fantasy ♦ Catering to the Completist Collector ♦ Hew 8e Used Books fif Magazines ♦ Mostly 1st Edition. Many Signed STEPHEN KING DEAN R. KOONTZ ROBERT R. McCAMMON CLIVE BARKER RAY GARTON JOE R. LANSDALE.and many more Send $1.00 for next 3 catalogs 1500 Shadowridge Drive, #125 Vista, California 92083 (619) 598-2734 CEMETERY DANCE 15 be declared derivative of Ray Brad- bury; and anything that is labeled “the cutting edge of horror” won’t be, because nobody knows what the hell that is, but it sure sounds good.

Women writers will complain about the Good Old Boys club, which prevents them from getting enough attention, enough anthol- ogy slots, and enough money; male writers will complain that women writers get too much attention, too many anthology slots, and too much money. None of these people will ever accept the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, they either don’t write so hot, or the public doesn’t like what they write even if they write pretty good. Stephen Gallagher, James Her- bert, and Stephen Laws will still be the most underrated, and under- promoted, non-US writers in the US. Somebody, somewhere, will come up with a new “dark” label for genre fiedon. Dark Sus- pense, Dark Mystery, Dark Fan- tasy, Dark SF, Dark Cyber, or Dark Gothic. There will not, however, be Dark Romance. The new label will be just as meaningless as the old ones.

But it’ll look good on the cover. The beanpods that write cover copy will sdll give away too much of the plot. They will also give away the ending. They will conse- quendy defend this praedee by claiming that they need to get the reader to buy the book by tempdng them with juicy bits from within the book itself; or, they will say they don’t have enough dme to do it right, and if the writer doesn’t like it, he can do it himself. As if, of course, that jusdfies giving away the ending, or the twist, or the mystery. Any writer who cridcizes pub- lishers for their occasional stupid- ity will be accused of being naive and not understanding of the busi- ness; any publisher who accuses writers of being naive and ignorant of the business will be accused of false adverdsing and bad complex- ions.

Genre writers will condnue to lambast mainstream writers for concentradng on Art instead of story. They will then declare that they would prefer to be read by only a handful of dedicated and intelligent readers, rather than prosdtute themselves by actually wridng something somebody will pay for and lots of people will read. This will be hailed as “taking a stand against commercialism” by some, and “bone-headedness” by others. It will not address the fact that garrets went out of style a cou- ple of hundred years ago, and Dick- ens and Hemingway wrote for money. The horror small press will attack HWA for insisdng on pro- fessionalism and professional standards; and HWA will continue to play political correctness and dilute its professionalism and pro- fessional standards.

Everybody wiU grouse about the Stokers, the Nebulas, the Hu- gos, the Edgars, and the Whatevers, denouncing them as unfair, biased, and worthless. Somebody will say, “Hey, I don’t mind losing. It was an honor just to be nominated.” 20. There will continue to be no nekkid barbarian women at con- vendons. Nekkid barbarian men, either, for that matter.

Vampire books will sdll Qood the shelves, will sdll emphasize the alleged romance and seductive qualides of the vampire, and will sdll ignore the fact that A) vam- pires are dead, which makes it kind of hard to sympathize with a woman or man who wants to get it on with them; and B) vampires are just as nasty as werewolves, but they’re prettier, unless you like your met;/ women hairy. I will continue to be labeled a male chauvinist scummy cranky old-fashioned autocratic out-of- touch Old Fart pig. I will also con- dnue not to give a damn. And from this place of mine to that place of yours, have a great deal of good health, good fortune, and laughter.

Box 322, CIrdovHIo, NY 10B19 (014) 361-1100 • SF/FANTASY • HORROR LITERATURE • NEW AND USED HRST EDITIONS • MONTHLY CATALOGS ISSUED • WANT LIST/SEARCH SERVICE 16 CEMETERY DANCE “Good writing is not mystery writ- ing, it’s not western writing, horror writing, science fiction writing. Good writing is good writing. It can be appreciated by anyone who picks up the book. In that sense, I think (John D.) MacDonald is right. It doesn’t matter what you write about, there really isn’t enough of the good stuff to go around.” —Stephen King, Bare Bones Had a call the other day from a very talented writer I know. The purpose of the call, I discovered after a few minutes, was to give me a sort of literary pep talk.

Seems she and her group of writers had been discussing writers whom they felt should be better known, and my name was mentioned. Understand this.

She meant well and was in fact rather endear- ing: in an indifferent world few people ever take the trouble to worry about people the way this woman and her fnends worried about me. She said: “We think you should sdek to big suspense novels and not do any more westerns or horror novek or things like that.” And you know what?

From a strictly commercial point of view, she’s absolutely correct. Big sus- pense novels make sense. And, in fact, thanks to Bob Gleason, Managing Editor of Tor, that’s just what I have been doing for nearly two years now, writing a large novel about the reladonship between our government in Wash- ington and our secular Vadcan in Hollywood.

It’s called The Marilyn Tapes and it’s about JFK trying to retrieve some tapes from Marilyn Monroe’s bedroom— tapes that J. Edgar Hoover could use to black- mail him. Or even bring down his government. The research for this was enormous. I hired a very bright young woman in LA to help me with all the 1962 period detail, and I hired her male counterpart in DC to help me do the same there. I must have logged 100 hours in sev- eral libraries myself.

This doesn’t include the private invesdgators I interviewed or some of the old movie studio people who were will- ing to talk off the record. (I got a lot of great Marilyn stuff from a redred studio cinematographer.) Was all this worth it? I did seven or eight drafts (de- pending on how you define “draft”), wrote over 2,000 pages, and learned more about wridng through Bob Gleason than I did in the first seven years of my profes- sional career. The worth of the book is for you to decide. It can be yours for twenty-some dollars in January of ’95. So what next? Well, I plan to write another large polidcal novel.

In fact, I plan to write— and have sold from oudine— haw more large polidcal novels. I spent several years as a speechwriter for various congressmen and governors and am a life-long polidcal Junkie. Po- lidcal thrillers are probably what I should be wridng. But this is where my friend on the phone and I disagree. While I know that he who is not busy being bom is busy dying (in publishing terms that means you lift yourself bodily out of the midlist or you sink back into the quicksand and vanish forever), I also know that when my dme comes to die, I want to look at a row of books on my shelf that gave me pleasure to write, and through which I was able to say at least a few things about myself and my dme on the planet.

Yes, I am ambidous; and yes, I would very much like to be a successful popular novelist. Dean Koontz-big or Stephen King-big or Michael Crighton-big is out of the quesdon— but I do think that mine can be a more formidable market- place name than it is today (I hon- esdy believe that I can sell more than 6,238 copies in paperback, at least once I start peddling them door-to-door. With a gun.) But ambidon aside, I will sdll, when I am so moved, write the occasional small book, the western or the dark suspense novel.

Prob- ably under a pen-name. Probably with my agent grinding his teeth. But so be it. There are some stories that CEMETERY DANCE 1 7 can be told only as westerns, some only as horror, some only as mys- tery. You have to tell them as they come to you.

An example would he my last two westerns. Wolf Moon and The Sharpshooter (and yes, I know that I’m talking about myself in this column but the subject matter re- quires it* ) I’d been reading Edmund Sanderson’s essay on folk tales and I thought.

Gee, I’ve never really tried to write a simple camp&re story before, maybe it would be fim. At the same time, I was also writing a piece on Gold Medal books and reading through several early issues of Black Mask that had been used as props on the set of “Hammett.” (As the editor of Mys- tery Scene, I occasionaUy get some pretty nifty gifts.) All these elements converged and I decided to make “Moon” a folk tale written along the lines of the early John D. Gold Medal origi- nals (Soft Touch being one of my hivorite books of his) and the sec- ond written to that strange amal- gam of hardboiled crime and western that was Black Mask’s hall- mark for its first few years. I wanted to update both forms, stand them on their heads if possi- ble, and see if there was anything fresh I could bring to them. These books could not have been written as anythii^ but west- erns. The form chose me more than I chose it.

I had a great time writing them but— A few days ago an editor called and said maybe I’d like to do a western for him and I said let me think it over for a few days. The notion of a western appealed to me but when I sat down and actually started thinking through some ideas, I realized that I had no real compulsion to write a western. I’d just be filling up pages. I called him back and respectfully de- clined. I may be through with west- erns for life. Maybe I’ve done everything I knew how to do with the form.

So, for rig^t now. I’ve given up the western. But I’m not doing this because it’s a good ca- reer move, I’m doing this because I don’t have anything passionate to give to it.

But maybe five years from now I’ll get an idea I can’t resist— and I’ll write it. Maybe it’ll have to go out under a pen-name but that’s all right All that matters is that I be open to it as a piece of work and bring to it all the fire and skill I can. Same goes with horror. Or science fiction.

Ifl get a good idea. Parting shot: I think that work done passionately can only improve you as a writer. Tor sent “Marilyn” out for quotes and one writer not only gave us a great blurb but wrote me a letter about the book and said that what he liked about it was “the quirks and spontaneity of the characters. Hell, these are the same folks you have in your mysteries and west- erns and your better horror nov- els— the whole sick crew. You managed to write a ‘bigger’ book with real heart. I was afhud you were going to give us all those plas- tic humanoids they put in big books these days.” That’s the nic- est compliment I’ve yet received about “Marilyn”— that I kept my same loopy cast of characters.

The same ones I discovered lurking in the pages of my genre books. The same ones I can’t wait to meet most mornings at the old computer. But I couldn’t have written it any other way because I want wridng to be fun for me and fun means writ- ing about people I like and fear for and admire— the same crazy bas- tards that arc in all my books. Yes, I want to write bigger and more important books but I don’t want to lose the better qualities of my genre books, either.

I hope I can wed them successfully with the larger novels. These days, a writer has to be two people, craftsman and busi- nessman. Sometimes these two roles conflict. Occasionally you have to make decisions that favor the businessman slightly more than the writer. But if you ever get to the point where the businessman wins all the big batdes, you’ve not only let your readers down— you’ve let yourself down, too.

Wridng’s got to be frm, for me anyway. * Next issue I’ll be my familiar self-effacing guy again. Bmp IN THE NIGHT BOOKS We buy & sell the stuff that nightmares are made of. Send for our catalogue. 133-135 Elfreth’s Alloy Philadelphia, PA 19106 1 - 215 - 925-4840 18 CEMETERY DANCE JACKET ART BY WORLD FANTASY MARK V.

ZIESING BOOKS/P.O. BOX 76/$HINGLET0WN, (A 9A088 i WALL OF WORDS LUCY TAYLOR LUCY TAYLOR’b short fiction wiU soon appear in a variety of publications, including Hot Blood 4, Splat- terputJu 2, and Ellen Datlow*s upcoming anthology of cat horror stories. Her fiction has also been collected in the clu^>book. Unnatural Acts (TAL Publications) and Close to die Bone (Silver Salamander Press).

This is her first appearance in Cemetery Dance. I burned the Wall of Words last night, right before I headed south on Highway 87 toward Colo- rado. It torched just like a big old funeral pyre, and I watched ’dl the last ember sizzled and charred and the last vowel crisped and the final consonant became Just so much soot Pa’s fiunous Wall of Words, the talk of northwest Nebraska, that people came all the way from Denver and Sioux Falls and Kansas City to see, now it’s only so much blackened kindling. No more words. Just silence, except for the breeze whistling through cinders and ash. Enough silence now even for Pa, I ’spect.

We never talked much around our house in Hay Springs, Nebraska, mostly ’cause Pa forbid what he called “idle gabbing,” that is, conversadons that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Myself, I guess I wouldn’t have minded a bit more talk, but then Pa took up his carving hobby, and I figured we had words to spare, more words than I ever knew existed: long complicated words like fornication and serendipity stacked up on the mantel, peculiar words like quandary and abacus on the coffee table, chunky words like gash and brood stoppering the doors. I never did know what most of ’em meant and Pa, he probably didn’t either.

He Just found ’em in the dicdonary and liked their shape and sound, figured they’d look right attractive on somebody’s dressertop or what-not shelf. Pa, you see, was a wordsmith. Not some wuss with nothin’ better to do than peck out words on a type- writer or a computer, but a real wordsmith. He made words. Download Dragon Ball Af Episode 1 Subtitle Indonesia. In the shed back of the house, what I reckon some people would call his studio. Pa carved words out of balsa and pine and cherry and other things besides. It started soon after Pa came back from prison two years ago, when I’d Just started tenth grade for the second time.

Pa’d been a champion bull rider and calf roper during the years my older brother Josh and I was litde, and he spent the best part of the year on the road. Then he got convicted of attempted murder after knifin’ a rodeo clown that Pa claimed drove him half crazy singin’ Gene Autry tunes all the time. When Pa got out of the Joint after six and a half years, that was the end of his career on the rodeo circuit. I guess maybe he developed a taste for silence in prison, though, ’cause after he come home.

Pa started to complain that Ma talked too much. She was a ‘Jabbeijaw,” as he put it, andjosh weren’t much better; Pa called him a “yakkity-yak.” Pa forbid Ma to say anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, which I al- ways figured was why she communed with Jim Beam so often and so long. One night, though, after Ma’d threatened to leave Pa the first time some drinkin’ buddy offered her a ticket out of town, she screamed, “If words was money, Ben Foley, you’d be the richest man in Nebraska, the way you miser every syllable away!” Well, that musta’ give Pa an idea. Next day he bought some wood and sharpened up the old carving knife he used for whittlin’ back in his rodeo days and he started to carve out words. At first Pa carved ordinary words-Tblks’ names and a few inspiradonal words, but he tired of that real quick. He bought a dictionary and browsed in it for longer and more unusual words whose letters lent themselves to squiggles tmd corkscrews: long words and short ones, adverbs and nouns and adjectives, swear words and sex words (which he always carved small, but with a lot of fancy doodads), even a few foreign words— Himmel and merde and Kindertot are a few I recall.

Pa didn’t Just carve words, you see, he made works of art. He’d spend all afternoon curlicueing the ends of the “I’s” in languid and lewdly and longitude or turning the “b” in betrothed into a fire-breathing serpent 20 CEMETERY DANCE singeing its own tail.

The more Pa carved, the less he talked and the more he enforced the No Idle Chatter and No Speakin’ Unless Spoke To rules. And Ma, she took to drinkin’ in nearby towns like Rushville and Chadron, and some- times didn’t come home for days at a time. When she did straggle in, Pa wouldn’t say nothin’ at all, but from the door of his workshop he’d hurl a word at her— f/tit or bovine or perversity — she teetered on up the walk with her hair teased like a bird’s nest and her clothes rumpled and soiled.

And Ma’d retaliate by letdng loose a stream of words fit to shame Old Nick himself. “You daft old coot, you with your woodcarving, you got woodshavings for brainsi Why can’t you talk to me, holler or yell, like any normal man?” But Pa’d just glare and pull his silence round him like a cloak and turn his back to her. By this time, Pa’d bought a router and an assort- ment of attachable drill bits and cutters, so he could make his words bigger and more complex. Some of the letters stood two or three feet high, and the shed where Pa worked was so full up with words the walls looked like pages out of a dictionary. Finally, I come in from school one day and saw he’d commenced to building something with the words. At first, I thought it was some kind of sign or Joke or pun, but I soon realized the words stacked up in the backyard held no particular significance or sense. Thimble and kissing and macaroon formed part of the base with slurp and bereavement and a very highly ornamental clannish topping these and then some other words, short ones, on the third tier.

Pa’d driven nails into the wood to hold the words together. The wall rose maybe four feet high then, at its tallest point, and stretched ’bout ten feet long. Soon after the wall went up, my older brother Josh, who had a small farm of his own across the highway, stopped by the house one Saturday to ask me would I go with him to talk to Pa about what we referred to as “Ma’s pasttime.” I agreed to go, but my heart was heavy... Havin’ a conversation with Pa was about as easy as gettin’ milk out of a chicken. But Josh was always better’n with words than I was and less afraid of Pa, too, him bein’ older and livin’ on his own. “We gotta do somethin’ about Ma,” Josh said, standing there in the shed while Pa carved. “Put her in the hospital or something.” Pa was working on the tail of the “y” in chastity, and he finished it before he replied, which took a good ten minutes.

“A drunk tank?” he said finally. “No sir, I was thinkin’ more like a treatment center.” Pa carved on. Five minutes later, he said, “She’s like the lot of y’all. You gab too much, fritter away your dme. Jabbeijaw and yakkity-yak, all day long.” He blew loose wood shavings off the letters. “But Pa, I think.... ” He looked up, eyes hooded and hawkish, wood- chips clinging to his beard like dark beedes.

He stared at me, and I felt just like he’d turned the router on me and was drillin’ out parts of my gut. “How ’bout you, Billie-boy? You gonna have your say, too?” I couldn’t have admitted it then, not even to myself, but I was scared of Pa. He wielded silence like a club, and the few words that he ever spoke were more the kind that separate than those that might make bridges. “No, Pa, I ain’t got nothin’ to say.” His eyes carved me up in secdons, and I thought about that rodeo clown back in Denver and how many sdtehes they said it’d took to put his face back together. “You goin’ into town today?” “Yessir.” He nodded, concentradng on the wood. “Be long?” “Few hours mebbe.” “Bring me back some Copenhagen.” ‘Yessir.” “...

And your Ma some whiskey.” “But Pa. ” Pa reached for his diedonary and opened it to choose another word. I peered over his shoulder and saw his long fingers pick out scrumptious. About Ma, I think...

” But he wasn’t listening anymore, and I knew if Josh and I stood there all day long, we’d get no discussion from him. ☆ Not long after Josh tried to talk to Pa, Ma went out on a drunk, and didn’t come back.

I figured she’d turn up in a few days, like she always did, but when a week passed, I decided she musta’ gone and done it, run off with some man who asked her like she’d been threaten’ to do ever since Pa took up his carving. I didn’t say nothin’ about it, not even to Josh. I missed Ma, but I felt happy that she’d run away.

For a while there, I had dreams of me and Ma together, in a fancy party at a big castle, where everyone talked and laughed about their hopes and dreams and fantasies, and the words just flowed all over each other, all rainbow-colored and glowing like fireworks in the dark. I hoped wherever she’d run off to there’d be lots of people she could talk to.

Meantime, with Ma gone. Pa worked even harder. CEMETERY DANCE 21 The Wall of Words, as people had begun to call it, was getting higher, longer. Pa added elephantine and gargoyle and parsimonious, carved vertically like totem poles out of huge beams of wood with smaller words connecting them horizontally like in a crossword puz- zle. People started taking notice from the road and dropping by to look around, but Pa wouldn’t let them inside the shed no longer. He kept it locked, and hardly ever came out at all ’cept to take a piss and nail another word onto the Wall.

Meantime, the visitors that stopped by took pic- tures of each other by the Wall and let their kids crawl over it til finally Pa put up a fence around it and a sign saying Do Not Touch and Quiet Please. Over the next few weeks, dozens of other words were added, obsequious and foreboding and juvenile, malcontent and kindness and adroitly, and the Wall just kept getting higher and longer, and some letters were as big as fireplugs and others fancied up with vines and buds and scrollwork, and Pa kept addin’ to it, some- times two or three words a day. Josh stopped by my room one afternoon while I was laying there, having me a little sip of Scotch and daydreaming about Ma and me gossiping together at some fancy party.

He was all fidgety and nervous and had that clenched jaw look he gets when he’s been grindin’ his teeth at night. I stood up and offered Josh a pull from my bottle, but he just sneered and said, “Now that Ma’s run off, you gonna be the family lush?” “Helps me relax,” I said, which was true. With enough booze in me, I could kinda float in and out of that grand, high society party in the casde where Ma and I drifted among high class nobility, with Ma chit- chatting to her heart’s content and me confiding my life story to a beautiful big-bosomed lady in a low-cut red gown like one I saw on some old pirate movie one time. “Look, we got to ta/^” Josh said.

That made me uncomfortable. It’s one thing to fantasize about somethin’, another thing to do it. Josh knew we didn’t talk in our fiunily. That wasn’t our way. I shrugged, ‘'bout what?” The goddamn Wall.” “Yeah?” “Have you looked at it lately? Since Pa put up the fence and started makin’ it longer?” “I glance at it from time to time.” “Some of those words, Billie.” “Yeah?” “I think.” And wc stood there, staring at the floor, the windows, everywhere but at each other, ’til I took another swig and lost my balance and plopped back on the bed, and Josh said, “Ya damn drunk... When you can sec straight, just go take a look at the Wall.” “Where you goin’?” I said as he walked out the door.

‘To talk to Pa,” Josh said. And that was the last I seen of him. ■ik A After that, it was hard to gauge how many days passed, cause most nights I’d drink and doze off or pass out maybe, and the sun would be cornin’ up and I’d haul my ass off to school, but like as not I wouldn’t go at all.

School was a lot like Pa’s Wall...just words on top of words that made no sense, all meaningless and stupid. But when I went by Josh’s place sometime later to sec would he lend me a few dollars to go buy some hooch and I seen Josh’s truck was there but he wasn’t anywheres around, I got a little worried. I knocked on the door of Pa’s shed to ask if he’d seen Josh anywhere. Pa unlocked the door 2md stood there, his big frame blocking my view of everything but one end of his workbench, where the router lay with a particularly vicious-looking cutter slotted into it. “Josh?” said Pa. “Ain’t seen him.” “Not this week?” “Naw.” “Last?” “Yep.

He stopped by to talk.” This surprised me. ‘'bout what?” Pa actually smiled, but on him it looked unnatu- ral, the muscles at the corners of his mouth hunched up like the hind end of a rutting dog. “He come by ’cause he got the idea he’d like to sign up with the rodeo fer a spell. I give him the names of some buddies of mine he could call up in Laramie and Denver. Told him they could help to get him started.

He was all fired up about it. We sat up til past midnight with me tellin’ him my stories.

If he ain’t been around of late, I reckon he done left to join the circuit. Reckon he’ll do right fine, too. Takes after me.

Josh does.” And Pa shut the door in my face. It was the most words I’d ever heard Pa speak all at one time. It got me to wonderin’. He That evening I studied the Wall, looking at the words that had been added since Ma disappeared.

There was mercenary and idolater and spinnaker, and below porous and euphonious and dozens of others, words of all shapes and sizes and different materiak, and I noticed it then. The two long, light-colored words. Nearly white. Smaller than most and stuck into spaces between the bigger words that were carved out of pinewood and balsa.

CEMETERY DANCE 23 There on the side of the Wall, I snytjabberjaw and a litde ways from that was yakkityyak. They was half hidden by some bigger words, but their paleness made them stand out real sharp. I musta stared at them two words half an hour or more, running my fingers over each letter, learning their shape and their feel and trying to realize their meaning. And when I thought I understood, I wrenched loose a word near the top that was carved out of teak, and I went lookin’ for Pa. In Mexico, where I’m headed. I’ll hear them, but I won’t understand. They’ll fall over me like so much freezing rain.

And if I start to understand. I’ll move on. To Japan or China maybe, anyplace where the words, to me, are nothin’ more than decoration— singsong, meaningless sounds like birdcalls on a hot summer morning. ’Cause I can’t go back to Hay Springs, Nebraska, never. That new length of the Wall, the earth below it had been disturbed, dig up and then repacked before the words were piled on top. And them white words I found— jabberjaw and yakkityyak— they was carved from bone. Well, right before I burned the Wall, I cornered him in that shed of his with all the bloodstains on the walls and I killed the silence-loving, murdering old bastard.

With kindness, right between the eyes. - CD Join Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and many more of horror's most infamous practitioners. There's only one place in the world where the major names in horror fiction share a fomm with writers who are just starting out-Horror Writers of America. HWA is a professional organization, dedicated to improving the public perception of the genre both as literature and entertainment, and, beyond the genre, to the fight for authors' rights around the world. Members of Horror Writers of America receive a bi-monthly newsletter, a directory of members and a model publishing contract and royalty statement. In addition, members are eligible to appear in our best-selling fiction anthologies, have access to a group health insurance plan, receive free books from several publishers and participate in the selection process for The Bram Stoker Awards.

There are several different types of membership, so whether you’re a writer, a comic book scripter, an artist, an agent, an editor, or are trying to become any of these things, HWA welcomes your interest. For more information, and a membership application, contact new secretary: Virginia Aalko Executive Secretary Horror Writers of America 5336 Reef Way Oxnard, California 93035 HWA Horror Writers of America 24 CEMETERY DANCE JOE R. LANSDALE & DAVID E.

WEBB TRASH THEATRE Last time, due to a nasty acci- dent, in which a would-be drive-in sneak-in lost his testicles to a snap- ping barb wire, we were forced to go overtime in describing the nec- essary emergency techniques used to, hopefully, have this guy’s nuts sewn back on, and therefore lost valuable movie reviewing time. We’re going to return now and pick right up where we started. The rest of the movies are: Viva Las Vegas, 1964 86 min.

Starring: Elvis Presley, Ann Mar- gret. Jack Carter (Remember him from... Hey, was this the Maverick guy or the shitty co- median with the same name?) Wil- liam Demarest (Remember him from My Three Sons?) Directed by: George Sidney The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, 1963 81 min. Starring: Herb Evers, Virginia Leith, Adelc Lamont, Leslie Daniel, Paula Maurice.

Directed by: Joseph Green Clam Bake (Coin’ to uh. Clambake.) 1967 97 min. Starring: Big E, his own goddamn self.

Shelly Fabares, Will Hutchins (Remember him in Sugarfootf) Bill Bixby (Remember him in The HulkT) Directed by: Arthur Nadel It should be noted that we are writing this now in the cheery glow of a car fire, flaming two rows away. We thought at first a barbe- cue grill had gotten out of hand, perhaps too much gasoline tossed or an overly greasy pork chop that flamed up, but turns out an eye witness we talked to named Cletus, explained it like this. “Well now, 1 was over’n that pickup right there.

The one with the gun rack in the back and the hippie’s skull on the hood orna- ment— Got that back in 1968. Right through the liver. Well, I was sittin’ there and when- ever the movie got borin’. I’d take me peek over there, cause the way my truck is all jacked up, I could see what they was a doin’, and it wasn’t Baptist business, I can tell you that.” To make his long, meander- ing story short, seems Cletus was watching this gal with a bouffant hairdo, and she had her head bob- bin’ in the lap of this fella wearin’ a Hawaiian shirt and polyester knits, and she was doing a sword swallowing act, and damn if she and this fella didn’t get so worked up, he kicked a foot up and hit the lit skeeter coil on the dash and knocked it into her hairdo, which was ripe with Aqua Net hair spray. That dude went up like a dry wasp’s nest, flames jumped to that ole boy’s shirt, caught them polyes- ter slacks on fire, speedily spread to them goddamn vinyl seat covers, and that was all she wrote. Damn car blazed like a rocket engine. Anyway, that was the lead up, and by then, we were over there, and the car was a blazin’, and hands and heads were pokin’ out of the car— there were only two people in there— but they were poppin’ from one side to the next so fast, trying’ to get out, you’d have thought there were a dozen.

It was just horrible. Someone yelled, “Kick some dirt on the fire,” but there wasn’t any available dirt. Just asphalt, so that didn’t work.

Some cold drinks were tossed, but that was like trying to put out the sun by pissin’ on it. CEMETERY DANCE 25 David Wabb We were all frantic, then a fella yelled from the crowd. This here car’s got Yankee license plates. It’s from Michigan.” A silence descended on the crowd, and they began to move back. A woman with a baby gently instructed everyone: “Back off. Let ’er burn.” Dave and Joe didn’t share these sentiments. We think Yan- kees are okay.

Well, they’re kinda okay. We don’t mind some of them. Some of our best friends are Yankees. They’re all right you don’t associate with them, too much. Don’t be seen with them.

Well, they’re all right in their place. Anyway, them damn Yankees burned right up. They weren’t watchin’ the movies anyway.

Litde later, on our way to the concession stand, we saw a sign spelled out in popcorn on the as- phalt next to the charred hull of the automobile containing the burnt skeletons of the amorous Yankees. In bold popcorn letters someone had written a touch- ing sentiment: WELCOME TO TEXAS, GOD- DAMNIT. Anyway, this little distraction is soon forgotten when Elvis starts blatting “Viva Las Vegas” from 165 drive-in pole speakers.

In the back- ground, back there in them cars and pickups, you can actually hear them blue haired cracker ladies sucking them stretch pants up their cunts, they’re so excited cause Elvis is on the screen. Lot of old fat peckerwood fellas ain’t had a round of snatch since Elvis’s Ha- waiian special, are now getting their poles greased, and it’s a sure thing the bulk of them pecker- woods will be purchasing Elvis’s collected works on video and CD tomorrow at K-Mart, maybe comb- ing what’s left of their hair back and coloring it black, and splashing on that Elvis brand cologne. So Elvis is on. His name in fourteen foot 1964 style gold glit- ter letters.

The sucking of cunt flaps ceases in the background as we breathlessly await the moment when Ovis’s voice hits right on tar- get with that quintessential honkey attitude: “Gotta whole lot of money to bum, so get those stakes up higher! If I wind up broke. I’ll know I had a swinging time.” You see, Elvis, Big E, is a fiercely independent race car driver. He’s on his way to L.A. To pick up an engine for his race car, but he gets sidetracked by a girl. He’s hot for her. He doesn’t know who she is, and she takes off not telling him, his sau- sage hanging in defeat in his trou- sers.

Course, we all know who that gal is. She’s Ann Margret. E goes to Las Vegas, and he wants this chick, as they like to refer to them in these movies. A term that designates something stupid and mindless, cute and fuzzy, which, in the case of this movie, is right on. So Elvis, convinced this “groovy chick” is a show girl, goes from one Las Vegas club to the next in search of her.

It’s a search designed to treat the males in the audience to a bevy of big-butted show girl babes dressed in ostrich feathers and tank suits. This part reminds us of the 1963 movie. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. (Well, it does re- mind us of it.

Otherwise, do you think we would have bothered to mention it?) Part where this doc- tor’s good-looking girlfriend gets her head pinched off in a car wreck, and he wraps her head in a rag, and runs like a scalded-assed ape to his lab, and wires that sucker up to some tubes and wires and an Everyready. This keeps the head fresh. (Try this with a deceased pet, and let us know how it comes out, will you?) And while it’s kept that way. Doc goes out in search of a new body for his Everyready Bunny’s head. He goes from club to club (see the connecdon now?) eyeing female butts, babes in tank suits, looking for just the right one to fit his sugar doodle back at the lab.

This, of course, causes some problems. People really don’t want their heads cut off, no matter how much Doc loves his babycums. Tragedy ensues. The head is un- 26 CEMETERY DANCE happy. The Doc’s plans to acquire bodies turns into a mess, so it ends up the Doc’s sex life is ruined, and aU he can get from now on is, you guessed it, a litde head.

But that’s enough. What’s most important about The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is you shouldn’t confuse it with The Brain That Couldn’t Die or The Brain That Shouldn ’t Die (wait a minute, did we make that up?) or even. They Saved Hitler’s Brain, which has got to be one of the worst movies made since film was invented, next to a couple of episodes of Barney the Fucking Purple Dinosaur. And, there’s The Brain from Planet Arous, and there are brains with spinal cords that strangle peo- ple in Fiend Without A Face and turn to shitty oatmeal when they get a.45 slug through the grey matter. There’s also Donovan’s Brain, The Man With Two Brains, and one we here at Trash Theater are financing called.

That Brain Ain’t Gonna Fuckin’ Die. And that just touches the sur- face on Brain movies, something we hope to do a column on even- tually. Right now we’re working on an Insect Fear column, written around a trip to The Philbert, Texas Fire Ant festival, but that’s going to be in a chapbook, and you ain’t gonna see it unless you buy it from Crossroads Press come Spring of 94, cause it ain’t gonna be here in Cemetery Dance, brothers and sisters. It will come with draw- ings too, but we don’t know who the artist is.

We’ve got enough to worry about Just putting our notes together on the Fire Ant Festival and trying to heal our ant bite wounds, which have lingered. But, we don’t believe in adver- tising our stuff, especially in our column, so, the less said about the chapbook, the better.

Crossroads Press address is: P.O. Box 10433, Holyoke, Ma.. We sincerely doubt anything would happen to you should you not purchase this forty to fifty page chapbook, but we just want to say now, and up front, we don’t want to be responsible if something does. I mean, these things happen. Remember, that’s Cross- road’s Press: A Nest of Fear,. Trash Theater Goes to the Fire Ant Festival Anyway, this really isn’t the time or place for that, and since that is not our way, to advertise shamelessly, we’ll move on.

(Remember: Crossroads Press. A Nest of Fear) But anyway, this Elvis movie, it’s like these Vegas gals could have been the same show girk. Maybe we could re-edit this, you know, splice in the Elvis movie with The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. I mean, if that Doc had found Ann Margret, he just might have turned off the electricity to sugar doodle’s head back at the lab, and keep Ann Marg;ret, head and all.

But say we put Elvis in the Doc’s part. You know, a race car driver, and he wrecks, and he’s got Ann Margret in the car with him, and she gets her head cut off, and Elvis, be- ing the kinda guy he is, just throws the head away.

Keeps the body. Maybe he doesn’t even want a head on it. Just cauter- izes the neck. Hot wires the de- capitated corpse to a car battery with jumper ca- bles, least when they have sex he does this, and then we got us a serious movie, something with a little existential angst. Like, does it really matter if your mate has a head or not, that kind of thing. Something about what men with IQs of 3 really want.

Viva, The Vegas Honey Hole That Wouldn’t Die. It could be a hit. But as for the movie of re- cord, Viva Las Vegas, Elvis, he’s searching for Ann Margret. He goes from place to place, even to a room full of— and we find this hard to believe— obnoxious Texas tour- ists.

Elvis takes care of this. Like a pied piper, he sings “The Eyes of Texas Are Up On You”, and the Texans, mesmerized, follow him out to a flatbed truck, and he has them hauled to the dump. Finally, he finds Ann Margret. She’s not just your normal bimbo here. She’s a swim instructor- singer-dancer, and she steals the show when she struts her stuff wearing some yeller knit hot pants that are so tight, when she walks, her clam looks like its chewing bub- Jo» R.

Lansdale CEMETERY DANCE 27 BAD MOON BOOKS Is Proud To Announce □ 724 S, Falcon Street □ Anaheim, CA 92804 □ (714) 533-1828 □ MISTER WEED-EATER A New Novella By JOE R. LANSDALE Published By JAMES CAHILL PUBLISHING Signed/Limited Hardback Edition of 300 Copies!

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(Add $2 per book - Shipping) Checks payable to: BAD MOON BOOKS 724 S. Falcon Street Anaheim, CA 92804 (714)533-1828 ble gum, maybe shelling a walnut. Course, it was even more in- teresting where we were sitting, up under the big tin corrugated screen. That way, at times, when she walked just right, her clam stood out above us in bold 3-D relief, causing Joe to faint and horns to blow and random gunfire to go off from an assortment of pistols and deer rifles brought in by the crowd. At this point, the plot, which stands on spindly toothpick legs to begin with, starts to evaporate.

Having stunned the male audience with her protruding, mutant, fleshy article, which is the whole point of Ann Margret’s presence in this movie, and if this sounds Male Chauvinist, well, fuck you, because this is an exploitation film, and we know it, and we know stupid when we see it, even if you don’t. And if you do, we like you lots.

And we’re also males and don’t mind looking at pussy. We’ve said it up front. So, the male audience is stunned by Ann, and the female audience have Elvis to look at, and he’s got tight pants too, not that we care, and we’re assaulted by some musical numbers with all the depth and artistic beauty of a colored light wheel flashing on a foil Christ- mas tree. (In fact, there’s an album of this stuff, the worst of Elvis, mostly from the movies, maybe all of it from the movies, called Elvis’s Greatest Shit.

No shit.) Anyway, everyone wanders around for a while. There’s a car race, and guess what, Elvis loses!!!! Just kidding.

He wins, of course. Be sure and notice the force field he has over his car which keeps the wind from mussing his hair. Either that, or he’s got the goldangest brand of gel and hair spray this side of Essence of Tar Pit. We’re gonna have a Clambake!” We got to admit the title threw us.

We thought this was an In-And-Out movie, but it ain’t It’s an Elvis flick. After a few seconds of pout- ing, however, we got into it “Clambake. We’re gonna have a Qambake!” We Just can’t stop hummin’ this little number.

I mean, it kicks poodle ass with shitty and twangy studio guitar solos, and it’s backed up by perky whitebread trumpets that sound a litde like a one-lunged smoker blowing through a card- board toilet paper roller. Elvis also performs several songs where he glorifies mollusks and crustaceans. Long before The Little Mermaid, and the singing crab, Sebastian, Elvis was doing his tribute to the denizens of the sea. There’s “Song of the Shrimp,” 1962, a real toe tapper. “Do the Clam,” 1965, some- thing that’ll really get you off your ass.

And, of course, “Clam Bake,” 1967. According to what we’ve read, this was quite a stretch for Elvis, who (if Brenda Arlene Buder the author of Are You Hungry Toni^L Elvis’s Favorite Recipes, can be ac- cepted as gospel concerning his culinary delights) didn’t even like sea food. About the only thing close to seafood Elvis might have enjoyed, or desired to eiyoy, was the tuna he dove in on, wrapped in white cot- ton pull-ups. Are You Hungry Toni^it, from Gramercy Books, shows us why Elvis had a weight problem later in life, and checked out early. Drugs didn’t help him any, but considering this boy thought a meal wasn’t complete unless it could be wrung out to deliver enough grease to comb and plaster down an unruly head of hair, it’s amazing he lived as long as he did.

If it wasn’t fried or full of sugar, he didn’t much care for it. Well, not entirely true. The fact that he did eat vegetables is also revealed in the book. Under a spe- cial heading: Vegetables— Yes, The King Ate Vegetables. When it has to be pointed out like that, you got to have your doubts about how many of them good healthy vegetables he ate.

Considering these vegetables in- clude such fine, but fattening foods as Heavenly Mashed Potatoes, Mustard Greens and Potatoes, Southern Style, and Butter-Baked Sweet Potatoes, maybe he’d been doing about as good having a fried peanut butter and banana sand- wich. Which, of course, he often had, referring to it as a peanut butter and ’nanner sandwich. You cat a couple of these babies back to back, your blood pressure’s gonna go up so high your balls will swell up.

If you’re a lady, we’re not sure what swells, but something will. They sound pretty good, though. Clam Bake opens with Elvis tooling down the road— he’s always tooling— in a fabulous custom Vettc. He’s got that force field around him again. His hair don’t move, no matter how fast the scen- ery on the back screen whizzes. He wears a cowboy hat sometimes, and it won’t blow off neither. That sonofabitch is welded to his head, even when he tops out at 80 miles an hour.

In this one, Elvis plays a guy named Duster Heyward. Seems this poor Duster feller has too much of his Dad’s money, and he is just fed up with it. This money is pissing him off. People don’t take him serious.

His hair doesn’t blow. His cowboy hat stays on. And he’s a chemical engineer with plans. No sir, he’s a walking, talking bank account. Nothing more. He’s so pissed off about it, that in a kind of play on The Prince and CEMETERY DANCE 29 Pauper (Elvis’s literary nod to Msirk Twain), he trades places with a “regular guy”-^layed as a goofy asshole water ski instructor by Will Hutchins— and sets out for a zany reality check. The Regular Guy Asshole heads for Miami in Duster’s ride, and Duster goes off on Regular Guy Asshole’s Harley, complete with saddle bags.

He hits the same hotel where Regular Guy Asshole is supposed to show up, and takes over his life as the new water ski instructor. Now a new plot angle, as elu- sive as swamp gas, wavers into sight. Shelly Fabares is a gold dig- ger on holiday. She wants to meet someone and marry them for money. But she meets Duster, and goddamn, if she doesn’t fall for the big no-money lug. Spot the irony here?

Silly Shelly tries to just stay pals with Elvis. One dme, while they’re taking a cruise on the Regu- lar Guy Asshole’s Harley, riding along the beach. Shelly confides to Duster that she has a desire to marry a sugar daddy, and Duster says he’ll help her bag one. (We don’t remember much about this part of the plot. Seems like she meets someone with money, or something. Frankly, we don’t care and we’re not watching it again.) Needless to say, they have a perfectly safe afternoon where Elvis, in another moment of poign- ant, crushing irony, sings Shelly a song about a sad girl who marries for money, not love.

There’s a race in this movie too. Seems Duster, that clever shit, has developed a super hard varnish in his dad’s lab, and needs to prove that it works.

He comes up with this only 24 hours before the big race. (You following this?) Anyway, he whips up a batch, and a bunch of babes show up to have a twist and varnish the boat party. It’s fun and games. Only thing, if the varnish isn’t perfect, the boat will self-destruct. And it’s never been tested.

Tension crackles in the air like an ignorant lineman straddling a 4,000 volt power line. Personally, we had invented this, and were worrying about it self-destructing, we’d skip that race, or maybe talk Neal Barrett into driving the boat. Tell him it’s okay, or something. What we might try is putdng the varnish on our dicks (Why doesn’t that surprise you?) or have the bimbos do it.* The varnish worked, made things hard, think of all the money you could make with it as a marital aid. Talk about a woody. Meanwhile, we get to attend a cool clam bake party, and it’s com- plete with bongos, twisdn’ hip bug- gers with hips in them, and of course, the sacred Baking of the Clam.

Time for the big race, and the suspense builds like a stack of boiled rice kernels. But not to worry. Duster’s boat stays in one piece— which is a disappointment— and he wins the race. Meanwhile, Shelly, that silly girl, has come around and decided she’d rather fall for Duster, the water ski in- structor. Imagine her goddamn sur- prise when he says he is Duster Heyward, and has lots of Dad’s money. She just passes smooth out from shock and happiness.

And so do we. What’s the snack on this one? A greasy cheeseburger with lots of cheese. No ketchup, as that would make it a Yankee burger, and the King, he didn’t eat no Yankee bur- gers. Make it with lettuce and pickle, sliced ’maters, sliced red on- ions, mustard and mayonnaise or salad dressing. Maybe that fried p>eanut but- ter and ’nanner sandwich would be even more appropriate. That was Elvis’s signature meal.

This is our end of the year column, coming to you at the first of the New Year, so, a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The ballots are in. The deci- sion for placing the Canned Yam is about to be made. And, the envelope please. And, the winner is.

Rush Lim- baugh, the Honkey Guru, the con- servadve Jerry Rubin of the 90s, whose cracker minions follow mindlessly in his wake, and it’s a big wake, as he seems to have Elvis’s former chef. Recently, Rush cridcized Na- cogdoches on his radio show as being populated by nothing other than a bunch of stupid, unedu- cated crackers. We know this, but we don’t like to hear it from him. Actually, Nacogdoches is just like any other place in the world. It’s mostly stupid, but it ain’t all stupid, and where the hell does Rush “Fat Ass” Limbaugh get off calling Nacogdoches stupid merely because someone from here dis- agreed with him.

We’d also hojie Rush would share his award with his followers here who make us want to fucking throw up. Maybe he could drive it up his ass for a day or so, then he could pass it around, then he could get it back up his ass later. So Rush, from Trash Theater, the Canned Yam Award, and up your assi Footnote: * Well, it’s our column, and if we say bimbos would varnish our dicks, then they’d varnish our dicks. We are celebrities, after all. 30 CEMETERY DANCE SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS NORMAN PARTRIDGE The long-awaited debut novel by the winner of the prestigious 1993 Bram Stoker Award and finalist for the World Fantasy Award (for Best Short Story Collection)! Slippin* Into Darkness is a truly startling first novel, weaving complex threads of dark suspense, gritty drama, and terror into a wonderfully chilling tale!

☆ Limited to only 500 signed Sc numbered copies! ☆ Featuring full-color wraparound dus^acket artwork and five interior iUustrations by ALAN M. Bound in full cloth and smyth-sewn, with acid-free paper and illustrated endpapers! ☆ Only $35.00 — and guaranteed to sell out quickly! 'One of the most astonishing new writers to make a splash... His imagination is fresh; his versatility is amazing. The best and brightest of all the brand- new writers!'

— Ed Bryant Send orders to: CD PUBUCATIONS P.O. Box 18433 Baltimore, Maryland 21237 Or Call (410) 574-3217 for Viso/Mostercard ordersi 'Partridge's talent is so exciting and sufficiently protean, it isn't climbing that far out on a limb to speculate that a new Dan Simmons may be coalescing in front of us.' — Locus BOB MORRISH INTERVIEWS TWILIGHT PUBLISHING ON PUBLISHING The “old blood” of the horror small press is getting tired. New blood is needed.

With some relatively long- time specialty publishers— such as Whispers Press, Phantasia Press, and Screanv^Press— on indefinite hiatus (or worse), and other presses— such as Arkham House, Donald Grant, and Dark Harvest— increasingly trying their hand with books outside the genre, there’s a definite need for some new presses to fill the gaps. One of the publishers filling that call for new blood is Twilight Publishing. Twilight is the product of husband and wife team Wayne and Darlene Decker, who run the press out of their home in New Jersey. Twilight debuted in 1993, with the publication of Matthew Costello’s Garden, a novella-length sequel to his mass market paper- back novel Wurm. With their first book under their belts, the Deckers are preparing for the May 1994 release of their first novel, Joseph Citro’s Deus-X. In this issue’s in- stallment of Spotlig^ on Publishing the Deckers discuss the creation of Twilight Publishing, and their plans for the future.

Cemetery DANCE: Teiiusa little about your background and how you decided to get involved in specialty publishing. ARLENE: Well, we’re both printers, and we both really like books. We started collecting books about five years ago... That kind of started with Wayne... WaYNE: I’ve always been an avid reader of horror and science fiction. When I heard about [the Lord John limited edition of] Do- lan’s Cadillac, that’s really when I started to find out about these smaller publishers. That’s when we started getting into collecting limited editions and.

We met a guy at a F 2 mgoria convendon in New York, a guy named Craig Goden who runs Time Tunnel books. It turned out he only lived about five miles away from us, so we started going over to his house and... Spending lots of money. He told us about the Necon con- vendon up in New England, and we went to the 10th anniversary convendon there. While we were there, we listened to a lot of authors talk about... How much they hated publishers. Right around that dme, the company that I had worked for for twenty-two years went under, and.

We thought about selling books, becoming a book dealer, but we decided that we didn’t want to do that. We thought that the next best thing would be to try and publish a book. We told Craig that we were thinking about trying it and then.

At a ChillerCon con- vendon here in New Jersey, we met Matt Costello. Craig had told him that we were thinking about pub- lishing... DaRLENE: So we just started talking to him about it. We figured that since we were printers, we at least knew half of what we needed to know. And that’s kind of how it all started. Cd: Do you both have day jobs now?

DaRLENE: Oh, yes. We have to 32 CEMETERY DANCE in order to support our publishing habit. Cd: How do you split the duties of Twilight Publishing between the two of you? It WaYNE: When one of us gets lazy, the other one pushes them— and we’ve both gotten lazy at times. DaRLENE: It depends on who makes the first contact with some- one— whoever makes that first con- tact winds up following through on it. We kind of both do everything. Cd: You mentioned Dolan’s Cadillac-wcrc there particular small press publishers whose work you especially admired?

WaYNE: I really like the work that Charnel House and Lord John have done. And there are some others— that I wouldn’t want to mention by name— who I think have done horrible work. DaRLENE: Which is also one of the reasons that we got into [pub- lishing]— because we knew that we could put out a nicer product than some of [the other publishers] were doing. For the amount of money that you spend for some of these limited editions, the product you get— not the written product, but the physical one— isn’t always satisfying. Cd: You mentioned meeting Matt Costello at ChillerCon— as I recall, there’s an interesting story about how you came to acquire Garden, a story that involves F. Tell us how that came about.

WaYNE: I had Just finished Matt’s novel Midsummer, and I was picking up Wurm while I was there talk- ing to him [at Chiller- Con]. He told me that F. Paul Wilson had called him after read- ing it, and said he wanted more. So Matt was tossing around the idea of maybe following it up with a novella, but nothing had been decided yet. I bought the book there, and after I had read it, that’s when we decided to contact Matt and ask him if he still wanted to do it. That’s really how Twilight was born.

DaRLENE: And then at Necon, we talked to F. Paul Wilson and asked him if he would write the introduedon, since he had been instrumental in getting Matt to think about doing a se- quel in the first place. Cd; So right from the beginning, Costello had planned for Garden to be no- vella length? WaYNE: He had specifically men- doned a novella, and then when we got to- gether, he asked us how many words we’d want, and we figured that since this was our first book, we’d try something a little bit smaller, instead of a full-length novel. Although I kind of would have liked to have had more, since I really liked the story. DaRLENE: Afterward, he said that he could have given us more. Matt’s pretty much of a technician, and he could have worked the story to whatever length we wanted.

Cd; You published three differ- ent edidons of Garden. Could you briefly describe each edidon and give us the print runs for each? DaRLENE: There was a trade paperback, of which we did 1,950.

Then we did a clothbound, num bered edidon of 350, and a 26-copy lettered, leatherbound edition with worms embossed on the cover. Cd= Some people might think that that’s a lot of copies for a specialty press to be doing, espe- cially for their first book. How has the book sold for you, and if you had to do it over again, would you alter the size of the print runs? WaYNE: I think I like the size of the print run. It hasn’t sold out, but I think that’s largely because we didn’t have a big adverdsing budget.

We also don’t have a distributor yet. We’ve tried to get a distributor for that book, but we’ve had a hard dme. We seem to be having better luck for our next book, Deus-X. We also have a much larger adverdsing budget for Deus-X-and we’re going to adver- dse the Costello book some more. DaRLENE: For the amount of adverdsing we did, I think [Garden] did all right. Like I said, we’re CEMETERY DANCE 33 printers and we know how to pro- duce a book, but it’s the markedng end of things that we’re... Cd: As you’ve mendoned, your next book is scheduled to be Deus- X, a novel by Joe Citro.

What can you tell us about that book? WaYNE: It’s an original novel that was scheduled to be published by Warner, where it was part of a three or four book deal that Joe had there.

I’m not clear on the detaik, but I think. His editor left Warner and the book was just shelved.

The book was originally supposed to come out... Last January, I think— over a year ago. DaRLENE: Whoever took his editor’s place came in and obvi- ously didn’t read the book and Just let it sit. Joe was pretty upset about it, and he wound up buying the rights back. It was about at that point when we heard from Craig Goden thatjoe had abook that was available. Limited edidon from the trade?

DaRLENE: There’s the signa- ture page, nicer binding... [the book] will probably be boxed... And there will be addidonal art- work on the signature page. Cd: How did you decide upon Bissette for the illustradons? WaYNE: He’s a friend of Joe’s, and he had talked to Joe about wandng to illustrate it, if Joe had it done by a small press. One of the things we try to do-4ike I said, when we first went up to Necon, we heard all these authors bitching about their publishers— we try to work with the authors a litde bit, and give them a litde more input. Matt didn’t really care who we got to do the illustradons [for Garden], whereas Joe has taken a lot more interest, and he’s working with Bis- sette.

Cd; Speaking of the Costello book, the cover ardst for that book was...? WaYNE; [The book] is being illustrated by Steve Bissette and... We’re going to be publishing 2,000 copies of a trade hardcover, priced at $25, and a I25er in her ear. “I ain’t sayin’ anything, Thay, but the Widow wanted that sow and she knew Daddy wasn’t never gonna sell it to her. I heard she hexed the Horleich’s cows so they dried up.” “Ain’t no witches,” Thalia said, disturbed by her brother’s suspicions. ‘Just fairy tales, that’s what Mama says.” “And the Bible says there is.

And since the Bible’s the only book ever written with truth in it, you better believe there’s witches, and they’re just like her, mean and vengeful and working hexes on anything they covet” Lucius put his hand across his sister’s shoulder, and hugged her in close to him again. He kissed her gently on her forehead, right above her small red birthmark.

“Don’t you be scared of her, though, Thay, we’re God-fearin’ people, and she can’t hurt us ’less we shut out our lights under bushels.” Thalia knew her brother well enough to know he never lied. So, the old Grass Widow was a witch. She looked at her brother, then back to the pig. “We gonna bury her?” “The sow?

Naw, too much work. Let’s get it in the wheelbarrow and take it around near the coops. Sdnks so bad, nobody’s gonna notice a dead pig, and then when Mama gets home in the mornin’. I’ll take the truck. We can drive the sow out to the renderin’ man.” This seemed a good plan, because Thalia knew that the Rendering Man could give them something in exchange for the carcass— if not money, then some other service or work. The Rendering Man had come by some time back for the old horse, Dinah, sick on her feet and worthless.

He took Dinah into his factory, and gave Thalia’s father three dollars and two smoked hams. She was aware that the Rendering Man had a great love for animals, both dead and alive, for he paid money for them regardless.

He was a tall, thin man with a pot belly, and a grin like walrus, two teeth thrusting down on either side of his lip. He always had red cheeks, like Santa Claus, and told her he knew magic. She had asked him (when she was younger), “What kind of magic?” He had said, “The kind where you give me some- thing, and I turn it into something else.” Then he showed her his wallet.

He’d said, “It used to be a snake.” She drew her hand back; looked at the wallet; at the Rendering Man; at the wallet; at her hand. She’d only been six or seven then, but she knew that the Rendering Man was someone powerful. If anyone could help with the dead sow, he could. ■A ik The next morning was cool and the sky was fretted with strips of clouds. Thalia had to tear off her apron as she raced from the house to climb up beside 38 CEMETERY DANCE Lucius in the truck. “I didn’t know you’s gonna take off so quick,” she panted, slanuning the truck door shut beside her, ”I barely got the dishes done.” “Got to get the old sow to the Rendering Man, or we may as well just open a bottle-neck fly circus out back.” Thalia glanced in the back; the sow lay there peacefully, so different than its brutal, nasty dumb animal life when it would attack anything that came in its f>en. It was much nicer dead.

“What’s it anyways?” she asked. 'Thay, honey?” “Renderin’.” “Oh,” Lucius laughed, turning down the Post Road, “it’s taking animals and things and turning them into something else.” “Witchcraft’s like that.” “Naw, not like that This is natural. You take the pig, say, and you put it in a big pot of boiling water, and the bones, see, they go over here, and the skin goes over there, and then, over there’s the fat Why you think they call a football a pigskin?” Thalia’s eyes widened. “Oh my goodness.” “And hog bristle brushes— they get those from renderin’. And what else? Maybe the fat can be used for greasing something, maybe....

” “Goodness sakes,” Thalia said, imitating her mother’s voice. “I had no idea. And he pays good money for this, does he?” “Any money on a dead sow’s been eaten by mag- gots’s good money, Thay.” It struck her, what happened to the old horse. “He kill Dinah, too? Dinah got turned into flit and bones and skin and guts even whilst she was alive? Somebody use her fat to grease up their wheels?” Lucius said nothing; he whisded flundy. She felt tears threatening to bust out of her eyes.

She held them back. She had loved that old horse, had seen it as a friend.

Her father had lied to her about what happened to Dinah; he had said that she just went to retire in greener pastures out behind the Rendering Man’s place. She took a swallow of air. “I wished somebody’d told me so I coulda said a proper goodbye.” “My strong, brave litde sister,” Lucius said, and brought the truck to an abrupt stop. “Here we are.” Then, he turned to her, cupping her chin in his hand the way her flither did whenever she needed talking to. “Death ain’t bad for those that die, remember, it’s only bad for the rest of us.

We got to suffer and carry on. The Dead, they get to be at peace in the arms of the Lord. Don’t ever cry for the Dead, Thay, better let them cry for us.” He brought his hand back down to his side. “See, the Rendering Man’s just sort of a part of Nature. He takes all God’s creatures and makes sure their suffering is over, but makes them useful, even so.” “I don’t care about the sow,” she said. “Render- ing Man can do what he likes with it I just wish we coulda et it” She tried to hide her tears; sniffed them back; it wasn’t just her horse Dinah, or the sow, but somethii^ about her own flesh that bothered her, as if she and the sow could be in the same spot one day, rendered, and she didn’t like that idea.

The Rendering Man’s place was made of stone, and was like a fruit crate turned upside down-^t on top, with slits for windows. There were two big smoke stacks rising up from behind it like insect feelers; yellow-black smoke rose up from one of them discol- oring the sky and making a stink in the general vicinity.

Somebody’s old mule was tied to a skinny tree in the front yard. Soon to be rendered^ Thalia thought. She got out of the truck and walked around to pet it The mule was old; its face was almost white, and made her think of her granny, all white of hair and skin at the end of her life. The Rendering Man had a wife with yellow hair like summer wheat; she stood in the front doorway with a large apron that had once been white, now filthy, covering her enormous German thighs tight as skin across a drum. “Guten tag,” the lady said, and she came out and scooped Thalia into her arms like she was a tin angel, smothered her scalp with kisses.

“Ach, mein leibchen. You are grown so tall.

Last I saw you, you was barely over with the cradle.” Just guessing as to what might be smeared on the woman’s apron made Thalia slip through her arms again so that no dead animal bits would touch her. “Hello, ma’am,” she said in her most formal voice. The lady looked at her brother.

“Herr Lucius, you arc very grown. How is your mutter?” ‘Just fine, ma’am,” Lucius said, “we got the old sow in the back.” He rapped on the side of the truck. ‘Just went last night. No good eating. Thought you might be interested.” “Ach, da, yes, of naturally we arc,” she said, “come in, come in, children.

Father is still at the table mit breakfast You will have some ham? Fresh milk and butter, too. Litde Thalia, you arc so thin, we must put some fat on those bones,” and the Rendering Man’s wife led them down the narrow hall to the kitchen. The kitchen table was small, which made its crowded plates seem all the more enormous: fried eggs on one, on another long fat sausages tied with ribbon at the end, then there were dishes of bread and jam and butter. Thalia’s eyes were about to burst just taking it all in— slices of flit-laccd ham, jewels of sweets in a brighdy painted plate, and two pitchers, one full of thick milk, and the other, orange juice. The Rendering Man sat in a chair, a napkin tucked into his collar.

He had a scar on the left side of his face, as if an animal had scratched him deeply there. Grease had dripped down his chin and along his neck. CEMETERY DANCE 59 He had his usual grin and sparkle to his eyes. “Well, my young friends. You’ve brought me something, have you?” His wife put her hand over her left breast like she was about to faint, her eyes rolling to the back of her head, “Ach, a great pig, shotzi.

They will want more than just the usual payment for that one.” Thalia asked, “Can I have a piece of ham please?” The Rendering Man patted the place beside him. “Sit with me, both of you, yes, Eva, bring another chair. We will talk business over a good meal, won’t we, Lucius?

And you, sweet litde bird, you must try my wife’s elegant pastries. She learned how to make them in her home country, they are so light and delicate, like the sun-dried skin of a dove, but I scare you, my little bird, it is not a dove, it is bread and sugar and butter!” After she’d eaten her fill, ignoring the conversa- tion between her brother and the Rendering Man, Thalia asked, “How come you pay good money for dead animals. Mister?” He drank from a large mug of coffee, wiped his lips, glanced at her brother, then at her. “Even dead, we are worth something, little bird.” “I know that. Lucius told me about the fat and bones and whiskers. But folks’d dump those animals for free.

Why you pay money for them?” The Rendering Man looked at his wife, and they both laughed. “Maybe I’m a terrible businessman,” he said, shaking his head. “But,” he calmed, “you see, my pet, I can sell these things for more money than I pay. I am not the only man capable of rendering.

There is competition in this world. If I pay you two dollars today for your dead pig, and send you home with sweets, you will bring me more business later on, am I right?” “I s’pose.” “So, by paying you, I keep you coming to me. And I get more skins and fat and bones to sell to places that make soap and dog-food and other things. I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I make more money off your pig than you do. But it is a service, little bird.” “I see,” Thalia nodded, finishing off the last of the bacon. “It seems like a terrible thing to do.” “Thay, now, a x>logize for that,” Lucius reached over and pinched her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. The Rendering Man said, “It is most terrible. But it is part of how we all must live life. Someone must do the rendering.

If not, everything would go to waste and we would have dead pigs rotting with flies on the side of the road, and the smell.” “But you’re like a buzzard or something.” The man held his index finger up and shook it like a teacher about to give a lesson. “If I saw myself as a buzzard or jackal I could not look in the mirror.

But others have said this to my face, litde bird, and it never hurts to hear it. I see myself as a man who takes the weak and weary and useless, empty shells of our animal brethren and breathes new life into them, makes them go on in some other fashion. I see it as a noble profession. It is only a pity that we do not render ourselves, for what a tragedy it is to be buried and left for useless, for worm fodder, when we could be brush- ing a beaudful woman’s hair, or adorning her purse, or even, perhaps, providing shade from the glare of a lamp so that she might read her book and not harm her eyes. It is a way to soften the blow of death, you see, for it brings forth new life. And one other thing, sweet,” he brought his face closer to hers until she could smell his breath of sausage and ham, “we each have a purpose in life, and our desdny is to seek it out, whatever the cost, and make ourselves one with it.

It is like brown eyes or blond hair or short and tall, it is there in us, and will come out no matter how much we try to hide it. I did not choose this life; it chose me. I think you understand, litde bird, yes. You and I know.” Thalia thought about what he’d said all the way home. She tried not to imagine the old sow being tossed in a vat and sdrred up in the boiling water undl it started to separate into its different parts. Lucius scolded her for trying to take the Rendering Man to task, but she ignored him.