The De vi l’s Co a tta i ls
More Dispa tc h e s From the Da r k Frontier Edited by
Jason V Brock and
William F. Nolan
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___________________________ Also from
Cycatrix Press ANTHOLOGIES
The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers NON-FICTION
William F. Nolan: A Miscellany
POETRY
Totems and Taboos
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The De vi l’s C o a ttai l s
More Dispatc h e s From th e Da rk F ron t i er
Cycatrix Press
The De vi l’s C o a ttai l s
More Dispa tch e s From th e Da r k Frontier Anthology © 2011 by Cycatrix Press Editors: Brock, Jason V and Nolan, William F. 52 Deluxe Hardcovers, Signed and Lettered (MSRP $194.95) ISBN: 978-0-9841676-2-3 0-9841676-2-5 500 Trade Hardcovers (MSRP $49.95) ISBN: 978-0-9841676-3-0 0-9841676-3-3
First Edition, First Printing
Book Design/Layout by JaSunni Productions, LLC Printed in the United States of America using vegetable-based inks. Bound in the USA. No animals were harmed in the making of this book. Go veg!
Published by:
Cycatrix Press http://www.JaSunni.com Email/Contact: JaSunni@jasunni.com
JaSunni Productions, LLC 16420 SE McGillivray Blvd. Ste 103-1010 Vancouver, WA 98683 USA
Foreword Copyright © 2011 by S. T. Joshi
Introduction Copyright © 2011 by Jason V Brock and William F. Nolan Cover Art (The Devil’s Coattails) and Detail Illustrations (Deluxe Edition Only) © 2011 by Vincent Chong Illustration (page 170) for Can You Imagine. . . © 2011 by Antoine Perkins Illustrations by Doré, Munch, Bouguereau, Bosch, Böcklin, Vasalius, Albinus, Ernst, David, Brueghel the Elder, Blake, anonymous, Steenwijck, and Goya remain gifts to Humanity from the Public Domain. Images, illustrations and treatments on pages 3, 8, 40, 52-53, 56, 68, 76, 94, 102, 135, 146, 156, 161, 174, 204, 224, 247, 266, 288 © 2011 by Jason V Brock Author/Artist Photos © 2011 by the respective authors/artists unless otherwise noted; used by kind permission Photos on the dust jacket and on pages 49, 74, 122, 155 © 2011 by Jason V Brock and Sunni K Brock Photo of S. T. Joshi on page 13 © 2011 by Mary Krawczak Wilson Photo of Ramsey Campbell on page 39 © 2011 by Kathleen Probert Photo of Marc Scott Zicree on page 202 © 2011 by Tina Gill (Exposay.com) Book Design © 2011 by JaSunni Productions, LLC The works herein are all unpublished and/or original to this anthology: “The Moons” © 2011 by Ramsey Campbell “Object Lesson” © 2011 by Jason V Brock “Invocation” © 2011 by Dan O’Bannon “Gunboat Whores” © 2011 by John Shirley “Dread Voyage”© 2011 by William F. Nolan “Best Friends” © 2011 by Melanie Tem “Night Food” © 2011 by Jerry E. Airth “Too Good to be Human” © 2011 by Jenny Brundage “‘On the First Day’” © 2011 by James Robert Smith “Barrels Ready?” © 2011 by Norman Corwin “Cattiwampus” © 2011 by Steve Rasnic Tem “Interrogation” © 2011 by Richard Christian Matheson “The Woods Colt” © 2011 by Earl Hamner, Jr. “Dying to Forget” © 2011 by Sunni K Brock “Invisible” © 2011 by Nancy Kilpatrick “Can You Imagine. . .” © 2011 by Paul J. Salamoff “Knife Through the Veil” © 2011 by Marc Scott Zicree “The Hidden Realm” © 2011 by Wilum H. Pugmire & Maryanne K. Snyder “Crimean Vespers” © 2011 by Richard Selzer “‘. . .And Dream of Phaedian Fancies. . .’” © 2011 by Gary A. Braunbeck “If you Love Me” © 2011 by Paul G. Bens, Jr. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction (unless noted otherwise); any and all similarities to the contrary are purely coincidental. Not to be reproduced in any format—electronic, print or photographic— without express written consent from the Publisher, except for brief excerpts (shorter than two paragraphs) used in reviews.
Dedicated to. . . the memory of April, Rudy, Irma, Simon, Claire, Tony, Tim, Bob, Emery, Kyle, Rusty, Tova, Gordon, Greta, the Jacksons, Desiree, Ivan, Asher, Muttsy, James & Marti Brock, Norman Corwin, and Dan O’Bannon— You are all deeply missed; Not to forget all of the others that have been a part of our lives, Or all of the animals suffering in the world because of human callousness. . . —Jason— To H. G. Wells, Frederick Faust, and Ray Bradbury—who showed me the way. —Bill— Special Thanks. . . Mary Krawczak Wilson, S. T. Joshi (for, among other things, his superlative copyediting and proofing services; any errors are the fault of the Publisher), and
Jerad Walters
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o n t e n t
S
ForeworD by S. T. Joshi 13
IntroductioN by Jason V Brock and William F. Nolan 16
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
Papers (Detail)
The Moons
by Ramsey Campbell 19
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
The Moon (Detail)
Object Lesson by Jason V Brock 41
Invocation
by Dan O’Bannon 51
Gunboat Whores by John Shirley 57
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
The Tree (Detail)
Dread Voyage (Poem)
By William F. Nolan 69
Best Friends by Melanie Tem 77
Night Food
by Jerry E. Airth 85
Too Good to be Human by J. Brundage 95
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
The Sky (Detail)
"On the First Day" by James Robert Smith 103
Barrels Ready? (Memoir)
by Norman Corwin 118
Cattiwampus
by Steve Rasnic Tem 125
Interrogation
by Richard Christian Matheson 132
The Woods Colt by Earl Hamner, Jr. 134
Dying to Forget by Sunni K Brock 147
Invisible
by Nancy Kilpatrick 157
Can You Imagine...
(Illustrated Children’s Tale)
by Paul J. Salamoff; Art by Antoine Perkins 170
Knife Through the Veil (Teleplay)
by Marc Scott Zicree 175
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
Ravens (Detail)
The Hidden Realm
by W. H. Pugmire and Maryanne K. Snyder 204
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
Coattails (Detail)
Crimean Vespers by Richard Selzer 225
"...And Dream of Phaedian Fancies..." by Gary A. Braunbeck 247
If You Love Me
by Paul G. Bens, Jr. 263
Select Gallery of Images Various Artists 280
Illustration (Deluxe Edition Only):
Old Scratch (Detail)
F oreword by S. T. Joshi
I
n these days of ever-increasing and ever-more-arcanely specialized anthologies (“all-original stories of lesbian zombies from outer space!!!”), it is refreshing to come upon a volume that simply presents an array of good stories with no apologies and no excessive fanfare. What The Devil’s Coattails also establishes is something that I have long contended: that weird fiction is not a genre in any concrete or meaningful sense, but a mode of writing to which authors of many different sorts can resort when they find that actual genres (science fiction, fantasy, romance, the Western) or mainstream fiction cannot easily accommodate the ideas, moods, or imagery they are seeking to convey. Hence we find, in this book, an affecting if relatively traditional ghost story (Nancy Kilpatrick’s “Invisible”) cheekby-jowl with such an avant-garde piece as Gary A. Braunbeck’s “‘. . .And Dream of Phaedian Fancies. . .’” Meanwhile, stories like J. Brundage’s “Too Good to Be Human” and Richard Seltzer’s “Crimean Vespers” come within striking distance of being mainstream, but retain a sufficient sense of the odd or the numinous to merit inclusion here. Much the same could be said for John Shirley’s stirring Western, “Gunboat Whores” and Richard Christian Matheson’s hard-boiled short-short, “Interrogation.”
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Best Friends
w by Melanie Tem
G
hosts aren’t strangers to me, nor I to them. We’re certainly not afraid of each other. I have my regulars, some whose names I’ve learned, others I’ve made up names for, some who seem fine without anything to call them by. My Darren is almost always with me. Now, Michelle is materializing in my room at night, hovering over my bed, chilling my skin, stealing my breath. I come down the stairs in the morning and she’s standing there, and then she isn’t. I feel her presence in the garden and behind my eyes. As far as I know, she isn’t dead, except to me. After all those years and all that work, I’d finally come to terms with the impossible and then outrageous and then unbearable and then inescapable bone-deep truth that Michelle wasn’t my friend anymore. My life had finally settled into its new architecture without her the way a body can sometimes but not always do after terrible surgery. It only hurt when I pressed it, or breathed too deeply. Now here she is again, and everything hurts. Michelle and I used to stay up all night making ourselves sick on dried apricots and caramel popcorn and pilfered red wine, puzzling over boys and geometry and death and whether there was such a thing as haunting. Later, hours-long transcontinental phone conversations went seamlessly from kids and recipes to God and the soul and back again. There was nothing we couldn’t talk about, and we’d often find we’d been saving up the same topics for each other. . .
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“ On the First Day” by James Robert Smith
S O
n the first day, Norris Atwell went to the window to look out, noting that the sky, while still quite dim, seemed bright for this hour. He was up earlier than most, but no earlier than many. After all, like most of his neighbors in Annandale, he was a government employee with a work schedule similar to their own. He was due at his office by 6:30 a.m. for Defense Intelligence. It was a fact, though, that his true work wasn’t for DIA. He actually earned his pay for deeds far more mysterious and much darker than anything he pretended to do for the civilian branch of the Defense Department. Somewhere along the way some clever fellows had decided that the best place to hide an asset like Norris Atwell was in plain sight. Or almost plain—the DIA didn’t have any assassins on the payroll. Not officially, at any rate. But Atwell’s true masters weren’t the paper-pushers at DIA. He took his real marching orders from far heavier hitters. Already showered, dressed, fed, his shirt buttoned neatly and his tie knotted efficiently, he was dangling his keys in his right hand and looking forward to the drive in to work. Norris had been less bothered by the drive since he and Kate had bought the new car—a Volvo. Since then, he’d rather liked the drive, taking it easy and feeling much less stressed than in the days when he’d driven the rattling, old Geo. Ah, the perks of seniority, he mused. And the rewards for a series of particularly successful hits. Things in the world had been most interesting in recent months. Different sorts of problems had arisen, the kinds of problems that men like Atwell solve: Usually with stealth and
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Dying tForget by Sunni K Brock
signs A
vibration startled Tim into consciousness: He reached into his pocket. A cellphone. He answered it, dreading what he might hear on the line. “Yeah?” Behind you, down the hall, master bathroom. The wife’s name is Lisa. Say goodbye, you love her, that sort of thing—don’t forget the kid, Jenny. Tim knew what he had to do. After all this time, it was getting easier. “’Bye, I’m running late,” he called leaning into the doorway. He admired the attractive young woman curling her hair, clad only in a black thong panty. Tim avoided looking directly into the mirror—seeing a stranger’s reflection staring back still bothered him. “I love you; tell Jenny I love her, too.” “I will—call me later about that dinner party, OK?” She turned to smile at him, still holding the curling iron to her head. He left: families were still hard to deal with, even though he knew he was doing them a favor. Tim exited the apartment, taking the elevator down to the ground floor. As he emerged into the too bright lobby, the door attendant pulled the big brass door handle for his exit. “Good morning, Mr. Johnson,” the man said. “Car’s on the way, sir.” The doorman smiled, but his sad eyes were revealing. Tim stepped out to the roped sidewalk. He tried to get a fix on a license plate. Major city—maybe Paris. . . maybe London, or Manhattan, or Chicago. . . “Hello, there,” a heavyset man with a thick waist and a thicker accent said, giving him a nod. “Taxis are slow today. . .” The man stared out into the road, never making direct
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ROD SERLING’S AFTER TWILIGHT A New Anthology Series For the 21st Century “Knife Through the Veil” by Marc Scott Zicree
Inspired by the Works of Rod Serling
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FIRST DRAFT
heidden ealm
k by W. H. Pugmire & Maryanne K. Snyder “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” —Oscar Wilde
H
W
e felt the coolness on his face and opened his eyes to muted light, not understanding why the bedroom draperies were opened. Subtle starlight washed his large face, and it puz-
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A
A
If You Love Me by Paul G. Bens, Jr.
“N
ine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?” All I could do is sit there, cradling him, the back of his neck slick with sweat, cold and clammy against my rawboned arm. I should have cried; the occasion certainly called for it, but I couldn’t do that. Not for him. Not even for myself. I hadn’t the energy left anymore; it had all been leeched away along with my appetite and my desire and my optimism. It was a struggle just to keep the phone to my ear, and as the rasp of my own labored breath echoed back at me, the light in his beautiful, black eyes grew distant and then flickered out completely, an opaline glaze shrouding the last semblance of life. “Nine-one-one,” she repeated, her tone shrill, piercing my ears. “Do you have an emergency?” Her voice had probably been sweet once, oozing with genteel Southern tones, but the way she said it, fast and clipped as if I were an intrusion, proved that Los Angeles had infected her, transforming a decent and true Melanie into a cold and heartless Scarlett. Still, I found a measure of peace in that voice, for it meant that all of it was finally over, and an exiguous smile crept across my face. “I kept my promise,” I said though my throat was desiccated, hesitant to release the words. “I beg your pardon.” “I kept my promise.” The words rattled out of me. “And what promise is that, sir?” she asked. “I didn’t die first.”
t I preferred Incense, down in Thai Town. It was nothing
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