Terrors by B. Pronzini, M. Bishop, D. Etchison, and D. Drake

Let's check out four more stories from Playboy Paperbacks's 1982 anthology Terrors, edited by Charles L. Grant, who, at the time Terrors was published, was living in the very milieu in which a young MPorcius grew up, that stretch of Northern New Jersey that lies along Route 80.

"Night Freight" by Bill Pronzini (1967)

Here's a story by Barry Malzberg's friend and collaborator Bill Pronzini that appeared first in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and would go on to be the title story of a 2000 collection of Pronzini tales.

"Night Freight" is a competent little shocker story about riding the rails that clocks in at about seven pages.  A guy with a suitcase jumps aboard a box car in Southern California.  As the train rumbles northward, we learn all about his failed marriage--his wife didn't want to leave her hometown but our dude had a good job offer in Cali, so off they went.  The wife was miserable in the Golden State, they fought, she left him, got a divorce.  Our dude was brokenhearted--he really loved this chick--and went a little crazy, quitting his job and searching all over until he found his ex-wife.

When the train stops for water or something, two veteran tramps hop in the box car.  These two knights of the road try to overpower our dude and steal his suitcase, which they figure is full of warm clothes--the train is approaching chilly country, after all, and these two bums could certainly use some cozy duds that some other guy paid for!  Then comes our shock ending.  In the struggle the suitcase gets opened and it is revealed that our dude is carrying around the disassembled corpse of his beloved ex-wife, whom he slew when she refused to get back together with him. 

Acceptable.

"Darktree, Darktide" by Michael Bishop (1971)

Here's a horror story by critically-acclaimed Michael Bishop.  "Darktree, Darktide" first appeared in F&SF in the year of my birth and has only ever appeared in book form here in Terrors, so I think we can call this a Michael Bishop "deep cut."

I like to be the rebel or reactionary who disagrees with the critics and bucks trends, but "Darktree, Darktide" is my favorite story so far from Terrors--it is well-written, offers good images and metaphors, addresses themes of particular interest to me and incorporates elements that resonant peculiarly with me.  I guess Bishop deserves the critics' encomiums.

Eight-year-old Jon Dahlquist is the son of a wealthy family.  A worn-out old woman, Chloe, moves in with the Dahlquists--she is not a blood relative, but in some vague way is connected to Jon's family, and in fact begins to eclipse Jon as the center of his parents' attention.  She sleeps in young Jon's room for six nights because the room that is to be hers is unfinished, telling him strange stories he has trouble recalling, but which have an effect on his psyche.  Chloe's presence works changes in his parents' characters as well; for example, Jon's father begins to revere old things, getting rid of their car to buy an older car, one that he says "has tradition behind it," and moving the family into an older house. 

Over seven pages Bishop lays out the clues and sustains a mood that lets us know that Chloe is some kind of witch or soul-sucking vampire who feeds on the energy of others.  After her initial stay in the Dahlquist house, Chloe, terminally ill, is sent to Darktree Sanatorium.  She resides there for nearly two years, during which time Jon and his parents regularly visit her--disgustingly, at these visits bedridden Chloe insists on embracing Jon in her hideous gnarled purple hands, kissing him passionately on the mouth.  Yuck!  In the final scene of the story Chloe the sorceress or whatever she is, through one of her sickeningly erotic kisses, switches bodies with ten-year-old Jon, so that he finds himself in her dying husk of a body, watching through her filmy eyes his own healthy young form walking away with his smiling parents, who have traded their son in for an older model with a long history behind it.

This story integrates classic supernatural/SF elements--parasitic longevity techniques and body switching--with our all-too-natural fears of death, worries our parents will betray or abandon us, and revulsion at the smell and touch of the aged.  Quite good, well worth seeking out (you can read it at the internet archive at the link above.)  I'm a little surprised it hasn't appeared in more of the many horror anthologies that are being published all the time.

"Today's Special" by Dennis Etchison (1972)

"Today's Special" first appeared in Cavalier, and would go on to be included in Etchison collections and some anthologies, including 100 Menacing Little Murder Stories.  I was dismayed to find it a joke story about the kind of comic stereotype European immigrants you might find in an old sitcom.  I guess this sort of irreverent material is appropriate for a skin rag, though.

Business is lousy at the neighborhood butcher shop owned by Lou Avratin and his wife Rachel.  We learn why when Mrs. Teola, a friend of thirteen years who demands to be called Mrs. Taylor because her husband Manny changed their name to Taylor because he thought it would be better for business, refuses to buy anything and, when pressed, exclaims, "You get Luttfisk back, then maybe we talk meat.  That Luttfisk, he knows meat!"  Rachel nags Lou to get his former partner, Luttfisk, back, even though the man tried to rob Lou.  Exasperated, Lou appears to agree...and then he wreaks a terrible revenge!

Lou hires the best butcher in the county, a master of the blade who is also a hitman!  Etchison gives us a comic scene of this well-dressed, well-coiffed gent, who is known as "The White Collar Butcher," meticulously preparing his razor sharp tools and his chopping block.  Then we cut to the final scene of the story, in which all the women in the neighborhood line up at the door of the Avartin shop early in the morning in eager response to the huge banner Lou has hung in the window that reads "LUTTFISK IS BACK!"  When Lou opens up the shop the women look in the refrigerated case to see the many pieces of the flawlessly butchered body of Luttfisk.

I consider this sort of thing a waste of time.

"Smokie Joe" by David Drake (1977)

"Smokie Joe" first saw print in the second of Michel Parry's two Devil's Kisses anthologies, which Parry edited under the pseudonym Linda Lovecraft, in keeping with their theme of "erotic horror." As you can see on the cover, the boys down in marketing at Corgi also came up with the idea of leveraging the fact that Corgi was the publisher of the British paperback edition of The Exorcist. More Devil's Kisses ran into considerable legal trouble in Great Britain; read all about this contemptible incident of government suppression of freedom of speech and of the press in this blogpost, which includes extensive quotes from Parry and Drake.  "Smokie Joe" would later be included in various Drake collections.

I've enjoyed some of Drake's horror short stories in the past, but "Smokie Joe" is just not very good, a boring organized crime story written in a clunky style and full of lame metaphors ("The trio scuttled down the steps, their eyes darting about the street like lizards' tongues.")  I guess Drake's primary aim with the story is to shock and disgust the reader--the most memorable parts of its twelve pages are descriptions of injuries inflicted by firearms and explosives and descriptions of severely diseased penises.

The plot:  An Irish-American crime boss, Tom Mullen, is in some kind of war with another boss, Tullio, and enlists three men of violence, Angelo, Nick, and their leader Smokie Joe, to help him.  Mullen's outfit is relatively tame, their income based on the numbers game, but under the influence of Smokie Joe and his crew extreme anti-social policies are undertaken--Tullio is defeated by detonating Claymore anti-personnel mines at his church that kill over a dozen people, Mullen's accountant is murdered so Joe can take over the gang's finances, and Joe shifts the gang's operations over to heroin-dealing and prostitution.  Mullen's new brothel caters to the most violent and depraved of clients, for example, those who want to watch a huge black man with a diseased penis whip and rape a drugged girl.  Smokie Joe has bribed and blackmailed all the local politicians, so these outrageous atrocities are not subject to prosecution.

As the story ends we learn that Smokie Joe has contrived for Mullen's son to contract the same penis affliction that that oversized African-American man is suffering, and when Tom in a rage tries to murder Smokie Joe it becomes even more obvious that Smokie Joe is no ordinary criminal mastermind, but the Devil himself.

I am predisposed to skepticism towards stories about organized crime and stories about the Devil, so "Smokie Joe" was already facing an uphill battle trying to win me over, and it fails spectacularly, not only because it is poorly written, but because it comes off as a parody of a story that is striving to be as offensive as possible.  Maybe "Smokie Joe" is a big goof that Drake deliberately wrote poorly as some kind of satire?  Maybe Michel Parry commissioned Drake to provide a story that would emphasize over-the-top exploitative elements?  Whatever Drake is doing here, I don't like it; gotta give "Smokie Joe" a spirited thumbs down.  This is far worse than Steve Rasnic Tem's "The Poor" or Dennis Etchison's "Today's Special," neither of which I liked but both of which are clearly sincere efforts to achieve an artistic vision--"Smokie Joe" in sad contrast just feels cynical and shoddy, and I'm surprised Grant saw fit to include it.

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The Bishop is obviously the stand out here.

That's enough late 20th-century horror for a while; it's mid-century science fiction in our next episode!  Stay tuned!