Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set Read online

  BAD STACKS

  A Box Set of Three Story Collections

  By Scott Nicholson

  Copyright©2011 Scott Nicholson

  Published by Haunted Computer Books

  Scott’s Amazon Author Central page

  Master Table of Contents

  “Keep both hands on your pants, because Nicholson is about to scare them off.”—J.A. Konrath, Origin

  ASHES

  A Ghost Story Collection

  By Scott Nicholson

  Copyright ©2010 Scott Nicholson

  Published by Haunted Computer Books

  Scott’s Amazon Author Central page

  Master Table of Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction: The Horror Of It All by Jonathan Maberry

  1. Homecoming

  2. Haunted

  3. The Christening

  4. She Climbs A Winding Stair

  5. Must See To Appreciate

  6. The Three-Dollar Corpse

  7. Bonus Story: The Bleeder by J.R. Rain

  Ashes Afterword

  About the Author

  Other Books by Scott Nicholson

  Scott’s Amazon US Links

  Scott’s Amazon UK links

  Scott’s Amazon Author Central page

  Return to Master Table of Contents

  The Horror Of It All

  By Jonathan Maberry

  Horror is a scary word.

  Especially to people in the horror industry.

  To readers, it’s a great word –full of dark promise and wicked delights. To the largest of the mainstream publishers and most chain bookstores, “horror” is a bad, bad word. Horror books don’t sell. You hear that all the time. Horror is just gore and exploitation. You hear that, too.

  Often it’s true. Except when it’s not.

  Here’s the thing. Once upon a time “horror” was a nice word that was used to embrace a broad genre of spooky tales ranging from classic ghost stories to vampires to all sorts of creatures that go bump in the nighttime of our imagination. Horror tales didn’t have to be supernatural; of course, Edgar Allan Poe proved that with his psychological thrillers that gouged barbs into our paranoia and private fears. Horror could overlap with other genre–science fiction (you want to tell me Alien wasn’t a horror flick?), speculative fiction (Richard Matheson’s 1954 classic novel I Am Legend, nicely bridged the gap between “what if?” and “what the hell’s that!”), mystery (Robert Bloch nailed that one with Psycho), fantasy (Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos), Fantastique Populaire (Alexandre Dumas brought werewolves into the modern age of fiction with his 1848 story Le Meneur de Loups (The Leader Of Wolves), comedy (start with Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, keep going through Young Frankenstein and put the pedal all the way down with Shaun of the Dead), and even social commentary (Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead).

  Horror has been the framework and vehicle for centuries of great storytelling. Millennia, if you factor in the ancient myths of dragons, Cyclops, revenants, ghouls, mummies, and other beasts going all the way back to The Epic of Gilgamesh–the oldest surviving piece of writing, which is rife with monsters.

  So why is it a bad word?

  The short answer is “marketing.” In 1978 Halloween hit movie houses like a bloody tsunami. Eerie, unnerving, horrific, terrifying. Halloween was everything good horror should be. And it was a horror film. Michael Myers was an unkillable embodiment of evil. Good job John Carpenter. If there had been no sequels and if a lot of folks hadn’t taken an incidental aspect of the movie and build an entire genre on it, the word ‘horror’ might still be safe for polite conversation within the publishing world. But a lot of folks in Hollywood who are not and never have been aficionados of horror or even readers of horror, went on to focus on the big fricking knife that Michael Myers carried and the plot device of his killing several people in inventive ways. The weapon and the method are not core to the story. The unstoppable nature of evil and the struggle between overwhelming threat and the natural impulse to survive are what the movie was all about. Those are tropes of the horror genre. But Hollywood can never be accused grasping the subtleties of theme and structure; hence the Slasher movie genre was born.

  Most of the Slasher flicks–and the natural off-shoots, the Slasher novels—were, as I said, not written by horror writers. They are pre-packaged tripe whose purpose is to tantalize with young flesh and then indulge in ultraviolence that has no thematic value and no artistic flair. They’re mind candy of the least nutritious kind.

  The Slasher films collided with another horror sub-genre –the Serial Killer film. There are good and even great novels and movies about serial killers. Bloch’s Psycho, Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, Jack Ketchum’s Off Season are examples for the sub-genre in print; the film versions of most of these are terrific, and there are horrifying entries like Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. But the genre was truly born out of films like Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and despite their huge fan followings, neither is a horror film. Chainsaw is probably the more debatable of the two since there are real moments of tension; but it’s been spoiled by sequels and remakes that are so overtly exploitive that many viewers have stepped back from the genre in disgust.

  In the late 90s and early 21st Century, we saw the rise of yet another genre that polluted the word horror: torture porn. Films like Hostel, Saw and their many imitators are shock cinema. They’re disturbing to be sure, but perspective makes true horror aficionados wonder at just what is attracting the audiences. The films are sexist and misogynistic in the extreme. The torture seems to be the point of the film rather than an element of a larger and more genuinely frightening tale. The technique appears to be shock rather than suspense.

  Good horror is built on suspense. Shock has it moments, but it isn’t, and should never be, the defining characteristic of the genre.

  Here’s the bottom line. Slasher, Serial Killer and Torture flicks have all been marketed as “horror.” Go to Blockbuster or check Netflix…that’s where they are.

  Discerning audiences, those who enjoy the suspense and subtlety of true horror storytelling were repelled, and they also moved away from all horror because to modern audiences horror equals graphic and relentless violence.

  Horror took it in the back.

  It doesn’t help that many of the most popular authors of horror novels–folks like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, Peter Straub—don’t consider themselves to be horror authors. They prefer to be known as authors of “suspense” or “thrillers” or other more marketable genre labels,

  I can’t blame them. My own horror novels, the Pine Deep Trilogy (Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song and Bad Moon Rising) were released as “supernatural thrillers.” One of my best friends, L. A. Banks sees her vampire and werewolf novels published as “paranormal romances.” The list goes on.

  So, is horror dead?

  Nope.

  The book you’re holding is proof of that.

  Some writers have managed to hold the line against the propagandized war against “horror.” Scott Nicholson’s been at the forefront of that phalanx for years. He writes horror novels. He writes horror short stories. He writes horror. Make no mistake.

  Sure, Scott can spin a mystery or a thriller with the best of them. He’s a true writer and true writers can write in any damn genre they pick. But what sets Scott’s horror fiction apart–or, perhaps, raises it as an example—is that it is horror. It’s subtle, layered, textured, suspenseful and pretty goddamn scary. There are shocks, sure; but you won’t find one cheap shot in this whole collection. There’s blood, too–Scott’s not afraid
of getting his hands dirty when it comes to violence. But those are elements he selects with care from a large toolbox of delicate instruments. Like all true horror writers, Scott is a craftsman who knows how to build a story on character and plot nuance, and then tweak this and twist that so that the story begins to quietly sink its claws into the reader.

  Ashes is a wonderfully creepy, powerful and inventive collection of horror tales that will open doors in your mind–to let things out, and to let things in.

  This is a book of horror tales from someone who understands–and loves—the genre. A lot of folks joke about having to leave the lights on when they read horror. Go ahead, try it. It won’t help. This is a different kind of darkness: older, more devious, and if you’re reading this then the darkness was already there inside you, waiting for a nightmare wizard to set it free.

  —Jonathan Maberry

  Multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of PATIENT ZERO. THE DRAGON FACTORY and ZOMBIE CSU; and co-creator/consulting producer for On The Slab (ABC Disney)

  THE END

  Return to Ashes Table of Contents

  Return to Master Table of Contents

  ###

  HOMECOMING

  The wind cut through the valley like a frozen razor. Black clouds raced from the west, shrouding the setting sun. Leaves skittered over the brown grass. The air smelled of electricity and rust and dried chestnut and things long dead.

  No ghosts flickered among the sagging fence posts outside, no spirits swept over the hay-strewn barnyard. Only earthly shadows moved in the twilight, nothing but swaying trees and nightbirds and loose gates. Charlie Roniger turned from the dark glass of the window.

  “It's gonna come a storm,” he said, drawing the dusty curtains. His wife, Sara, sat in her ragged easy chair and said nothing. She looked deeply into the flames crackling in the fireplace. Her wrinkled hands were folded over the quilt in her lap, hands that had once snapped green beans and wrung out wet sheets and caressed the soft down on a baby's head.

  Charlie studied her face. It was fallen, as if the framework behind it was busted up like an old hatbox. He never thought she'd end up broken. Not the way she'd always been able to show her feelings, to hold the family together, to love the only two men in her life.

  She was too much like that old spring up on the hill, just kept on slow and steady until you came to expect it to run on forever. Then when it dried up, you got mad, even though you had no promise that it would keep running. Even when you knew you had no real right to it. It was a blessing, and blessings weren't made to last. Otherwise, the bad things that God sent along wouldn't get their proper due.

  Charlie reached into the front pocket of his denim overalls and pulled out a plug of tobacco. He twisted off a chaw with his three good teeth. His gums mashed the tobacco until it was moist and pliable. Then, with his tongue, he pushed the wad into the hollow of his jaw.

  He walked to the door, unconsciously checking the lock. On a peg beside his overcoat hung the baseball glove he'd given Johnny for his tenth birthday. The leather had shrunk and cracked from all the years Johnny had lobbed dewy walnuts on the tin roof of the barn, pretending he was catching fly balls off Yankee bats. Johnny had been a southpaw. He'd gotten that from Sara's side of the family.

  Charlie wished he'd had more time to play catch with his son. But the fields always needed his plow, the hay had to be pressed into yellow squares, the hogs squealed for slop, the corn cried for water. The forest gave its trees but demanded in trade hours of stretched muscles and stinging sweat. Even the soil begged for his flesh, whispering to him to lie down and rot and feed the new roots.

  So time went away, the sun rose and fell like a rib cage drawing in deep breaths. And chores and meals and church on Sundays stole the years. Charlie wondered if all you were left with at the end was the memory of all the things you should have said but never could. Things like “I love you.”

  He touched the glove that was as rough and parched as his own skin. He always thought it would be the other way around, with him fading out slow and gaspy and full of pain, while Johnny stood over the bed and tried to get up the nerve to hug him. And Charlie thought he might have been able to say it then, when they were both scared and had nothing to lose. Back when death looked like a one-way road.

  Charlie stooped, his spine popping as he reached into the firebox and grabbed a couple of oak logs with his arthritic fingers. He carried the wood into the living room and tossed them onto the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The reflection of the fire danced in his wife's glassy eyes, red-orange pinpricks on bald onyx. She didn't blink.

  “Fire feels good, don't it, honey?” he said gently, squirting a stream of brown juice into the flames. The liquid hissed and evaporated as he waited for an answer, knowing it wouldn't come. Language had left her alone, even if the dead folks hadn't.

  Outside, the wind picked up. The old two-story house creaked and leaned against the coming gale. A few loose shingles flapped, and the upstairs windows rattled. Blasts of cold air swirled under the front door and the first raindrops spattered the porch.

  He gingerly led Sara up the squeaky stairs to bed and tucked her under the thick blankets. Charlie checked the weather once more, but all he could see was black and his own reflection. He tossed on a back log, spit out his chaw, and locked the door. He went upstairs to wait for them.

  He fell asleep with his arm around Sara, nuzzling into the hard edges of her bones. The howling wind came into his dreams and turned into a familiar moan. He awoke in a sweat and blinked into the blackness around him. Faint blue-white shapes hovered above the bed. He reached for his wife, but felt only the cool sheets in the little hollow of the bed where she should have been.

  She was with them, dancing and waving her frail arms, as she had every night since Johnny had been buried. The translucent wisps flowed over her, caressing her skin and weaving around her worn flannel nightgown. She floated two feet off the ground, embraced by the spirits. They were all locked together in a hoe-down of resurrection.

  As Charlie's eyes adjusted, he could make out the feathery shapes taking form. It was the regulars, the happy hour crowd of the dead set. The ghosts filled the room like joyful clouds. They cavorted like they had time to kill and forever to do it in.

  Familiar faces coalesced among the mists. There was Doris, the school teacher, who had passed on in the winter of '73, now as withered as a forgotten houseplant. Freddie, Charlie's old fishing buddy, was moaning and hooting like an eviscerated owl. He had drowned several years ago and his skin was stretched and pale like a bleached water balloon. Freddie had lost his hat, and Charlie noticed for the first time how large his ears were.

  Colonel Hadley was hovering like a shroud on a coat hanger, wearing his military dress blues even though his ramrod days were over. The town gossip held that Fanny Coffey had run off with a traveling Bible salesman, but she couldn't have made it far on those amputated legs. The Bible salesman had answered a newfound calling to be a sex murderer, an about-face career change that caught Fanny by surprise. Consumptive old Pete Henries fumbled at his chest, aimlessly searching for another of the cigarettes that had nailed his coffin lid shut. The Waters bunch looked on, father and mother and child, still as ashen as they had been on the morning they were found in their garage with the Buick engine running.

  Rhetta Mae Harper was among them, Rhetta Mae who had tried to seduce Charlie when Sara had been so knotted up with pregnancy that she couldn't bear her husband's touch. Sara's womb had taken his seed in late middle age, and the fetus that would be Johnny kept her in constant discomfort. Charlie had tasted Rhetta Mae's temptation and had nearly swallowed, but in the end his love for Sara kept him true. Rhetta Mae had been shot during some drunken, jealous frenzy, her voluptuous figure shredded by number eight buckshot pellets. Charlie found her charms much easier to resist now.

  He kicked off the blankets and rolled out of the old cast-iron bed, the mattress springs and his bones creaking in
harmony. The cold pine floorboards chilled his feet as he walked over to his wife. The ghosts crowded Charlie's face, but he brushed them aside like cobwebs. He put his hand on Sara's arm. She tried feebly to fight him off. She wanted to play with her see-through friends.

  “Johnny isn't here,” Charlie said to Sara. “They won't take you to Johnny.”

  She tried to answer but could only gurgle like an infant. She was finding ecstasy in those icy arms.

  “Now get the hell outta here, you bunch of deadbeats,” Charlie shouted at the ghosts, trembling with chill and outrage. For some reason he didn't understand, they always obeyed him, as if they hadn't a will of their own and took their masters where they found them.

  The ghosts turned to him, blank faces drooping, like children who had been scolded for taking baby chicks out of a nest. They gently lowered Sara and she stood on the wobbly sticks of her legs. The figures flitted into shadows and disappeared.

  The storm had blown over now and a sliver of moonlight spilled across the bedroom. Charlie laid his wife down and tugged the blankets over her. He got in beside her and watched the corners of the room. Johnny's photograph was on the dresser, the portrait grinning in the weak moonlight. Smooth skin and a proud shy smile, those eyes that Sara said were so much like his father's.

  Damn shame about that boy, he thought, as his rage faded like the ghosts had. Sorrow rose from a shallow grave in his heart to take its place.

  They said Johnny had slipped down at the sawmill, his flannel sleeve yanked by the hungry blade that didn't discriminate between limbs of poplar, jack pine, or flesh. The lumber company sent a check and paid for his funeral. It rained the day they lowered Johnny's purple casket into the ground. Rivulets of red streaked the clay as the gravediggers shoveled. Charlie thought it was funny how they threw in that coffin and all that dirt, and the hole still wasn't full. He and Sara watched the rain drill down into the man-sized puddle long after the minister had fled for the shelter of his powder-blue Cadillac.