Fear Itself Read online

  JOYCE CAROL OATES.

  REX MILLER.

  GRAHAM MASTERTON.

  NANCY A. COLLINS.

  RICK HAUTALA.

  THOMAS F. MONTELEONE.

  These and 15 other authors leave you

  nothing to fear but …

  Fear Itself

  Other Books by Jeff Gelb

  NOVELS

  Specters*

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Shock Rock

  Shock Rock 2

  THE HOT BLOOD SERIES

  Hot Blood (Co-edited with Lonn Friend)

  Hotter Blood* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Hottest Blood* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Deadly After Dark* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Seeds of Evil* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Stranger by Night* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Fear the Fever* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Kiss and Kill* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Crimes of Passion* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Hot Blood X (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Fatal Attractions* (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Strange Bedfellows (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  Dark Passions (Co-edited with Michael Garrett)

  DARK DELICACIES (Co-edited with Del Howison)

  Dark Delicacies

  Dark Delicacies II

  Dark Delicacies III: Haunted

  *Available as an ebook from Jabberwocky Literary Agency

  Introduction copyright © 1995 by Jeff Gelb.

  All rights reserved.

  “Victims,” © by Scott Urban

  “Here There Be Spyders,” © by Graham Watkins

  “Shatter,” © by Tia Travis

  “Once Upon A Darkness,” © by Stephen Gresham

  “Home Again,” © by Jeff Gelb

  “Sewercide,” © by Rex Miller

  “Unfinished Business,” © by Michael Garrett

  “War And Peace,” © by John Shirley

  “The Merry-Go-Round Man,” © by Gary Brandner

  “Food For The Beast,” © by Paul Kupperberg

  “Mommy,” © by Max Allan Collins

  “The Gray Madonna,” © by Graham Masterton

  “The Highway,” © by Edo van Belkom

  “Avenue X,” © by Nancy A. Collins

  “Perfect Witness,” © by Rick Hautala

  “Pyre,” © by Th. Metzger

  “Home for the Holidays,” © by Elsa Rutherford

  “Time Enough To Sleep,” © by Thomas F. Monteleone

  “The Powers Of Darkness,” © by Richard Lee Byers

  “Snakes,” © by Dallas Mayr

  “---” © by Ontario Review Inc.

  Cover art by John Fisk.

  Published as an ebook by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. in May 2011.

  Fear Itself is dedicated to a lifelong best friend, James Crawford, who has always shared and encouraged my interest in various fearsome things.

  And for their belief and help in this project, my sincere thanks to Terry Gladstone, Joshua Bilmes, Michael Garrett, John Silbersack, Betsy Mitchell, and Mick Garris.

  Contents

  Introduction—Jeff Gelb

  Victims—Scott Urban

  Here There Be Spyders—Graham Watkins

  Shatter—Tia Travis

  Once Upon A Darkness—Stephen Gresham

  Home Again—Jeff Gelb

  Sewercide—Rex Miller

  Unfinished Business—Michael Garrett

  War And Peace—John Shirley

  The Merry Go-Round Man—Gary Brandner

  Food For The Beast—Paul Kupperberg

  Mommy—Max Allan Collins

  The Gray Madonna—Graham Masterton

  The Highway—Edo van Belkom

  Avenue X—Nancy A Collins

  Perfect Witness—Rick Hautala

  Pyre—Th. Metzger

  Home For The Holidays—Elsa Rutherford

  Time Enough To Sleep—Thomas F. Monteleone

  The Powers Of Darkness—Richard Lee Byers

  Snakes—Jack Ketchum

  —Joyce Carol Oates

  Story Backgrounds

  Author Biographies

  Introduction

  What is your ultimate fear?

  A salute, but first, an admission.

  I’ve edited horror anthologies for the better part of a decade, since the first Hot Blood book took shape. I’ve worked with hundreds of brilliant writers (contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, there is no dearth of talent or imagination in modern horror fiction). Ask horror writers to come up with a story combining sex and horror, and their creative juices start flowing. Same for rock and horror. Give horror writers just about any topic and watch them go.

  But I’ve often wondered, as I’ve read those hundreds of stories over the years, what these writers are truly afraid of. They do a convincing job of frightening readers given any topic. But what phobia makes their hair stand on end? The one fear that awakens them in the middle of the night, sweating, insecure, less an adult than a child again, feeling lost and alone in an uncaring universe.

  I knew that if I could convince horror writers to expose their own personal deepest fears in the guise of a horror story, I’d get a very special, truly frightening collection of terror tales. Not stories of werewolves, witches and vampires. That’s grist for a different anthology’s mill. When I put out the call for stories that became Fear Itself, I asked writers to do something quite different, quite brave: to admit their greatest fears to their greatest fans. Then, to write a story surrounding that fear, the one story they never felt they could write, let alone find a home for.

  You think it’s easy facing your worst fear? Just try it sometime. Can you even admit it to yourself, let alone an audience of strangers? It’s pretty damned hard. I know, because I didn’t face my own fear until this book was two weeks away from deadline. Finally, my subconscious fought its way to the surface and showed me a way to shape my greatest fear into a scary yet satisfying story. The experience of writing about it has been the toughest challenge of my professional writing career, but as I suspected, cathartic as well. It hasn’t erased the fear—but it has lessened its terrifying hold on my subconscious.

  Writing my story for Fear Itself has given me an incredible respect for all the writers who agreed to do work for this collection. I know how hard this was for you, and you have my infinite respect and appreciation. After readers devour this book, you’ll have theirs as well. And I hope the writing was cathartic for you, too.

  So I salute the brave crew of Fear Itself, who somehow overcame their own personal nightmares and elected to share them with you. More than professionals, they are pioneers who allowed their skills to take them down life’s darkest unexplored roads.

  A word of warning: Fear Itself ups the usual horror anthology fear quotient exponentially, because its stories were written from a place in a writer’s psyche that short-circuits rational thought. They are stories of true, visceral fears you will experience with all your known senses and more. Fears calculated to elicit responses beyond your worst nightmares.

  You may never know what truly frightens you—and with whom you share that fear—until you read Fear Itself. I dare you to face it. And afterward?

  Pleasant screams.

  Jeff Gelb

  Victims

  Scott H. Urban

  Before …

  I brought my head up off the pillow with a start. Had I heard a clatter in another part of the house? Or was it just an echo from a dream? I knew it wouldn’t do any good to ask Maureen—if the Indy 500 were run at night, she could have slept soundly in the pits.

  More than likely it was Heather. I still wasn’t use
d to having my daughter, now a freshman in college, home for spring break. She liked to sit up late after Maureen had gone to bed, watching rented movies on the VCR. Although I tried to watch a few of them with her I could never follow the plotlines, and eventually I would retreat to the bedroom, shaking my head, while she cradled a mug of coffee and laughed to herself.

  Still, tonight I couldn’t detect the telltale murmur of the TV turned low, and it wasn’t like Heather to drop something in the kitchen. I got out of bed and, after stepping into a pair of underpants, went to the door. I put my hand on the knob and was turning it when I heard—or thought I heard—a man’s voice.

  What the hell? I wondered. She wouldn’t have invited a boyfriend here this late—would she?

  With my daughter growing up and away, I couldn’t be certain anymore. Yet something made me withdraw my hand and cross to my closet. I opened the door and reached inside. Leaning against the corner formed by the edge of the door jamb and the interior wall was a mächete. I had put it there some years ago after a neighbor’s house was robbed. Usually I didn’t think about the long-bladed weapon being there. It was never in the way. Even when I was selecting my clothes in the morning it was out of sight. Maureen was adamant about not keeping a gun in the house, so this was a compromise that made me happy.

  With my fingers wrapped around the mächete’s handle, I went back to the door and held my breath for a moment. Was that another voice I heard? Or was the depth of the night itself making me hear things?

  Like so many other things that night, what happened next would have been—under drastically different circumstances—amusing. If I could have been outside myself, perhaps watching the drama played out on a movie or television screen, I might have laughed, even knowing it was wrong to do so. It would have seemed like a pratfall, timed by experienced comedians.

  I started to turn the doorknob.

  Then a shove from the opposite side wrenched it out of my hand. There was no time for me to pull back. The edge of the door caught me just above my right eye, smacking my forehead. I think I grunted in surprise and sudden pain. The mächete fell from my hand. I landed backwards on my ass, thinking Heather had just caught me a good one.

  Someone’s hand, came around the corner and slapped the light switch. I turned my head to shield my eyes from the sudden brilliance. Through my distorting tears, I saw two men—strangers—standing in the doorway to my bedroom. A black man had his hand over Heather’s mouth. His right hand held a gun to her head. A narrow-faced white man held his gun in a two-handed grip, poised directly between the abruptly-awakened Maureen and myself.

  “All right! No one moves! No one fuckin’ breathes unless I say so!”

  Now …

  I’m thirty minutes late getting to Maureen’s house. I had been hoping the security guard would just wave me through the gate, but it was some fresh-faced kid I hadn’t seen before. We had to go through the whole routine: I parked my car beside the hut while he called Maureen, confirming my license and appearance. I sat there, cursing him in my head, even while I understood the necessity for the procedure.

  Look, I wanted to say, I’m not a criminal! I’m a decent guy who wants to see his family—and by the way, I pay your goddamned salary!

  But I didn’t say any of that.

  “Yes ma’am, I’ll be right here,” said the private cop in soothing, carefully modulated tones to my ex-wife. Obstinately refusing to meet my eyes, he hung up and pressed the button to raise the light metal barrier stretched across the road in front of my car.

  This is the fourth time I’ve visited Maureen and Heather at Redfern Estates. Although I helped them select the development, I’m still not comfortable here. I think about all the time and effort that went into planning this enclosed community. I consider what it must cost to keep such an elaborate security system in place.

  Someone, somewhere, is getting rich off the fears of victims.

  “Evenin’, folks. You can call me Fist.” I started to get to my feet, and the white man waved the gun in my direction. “Unh-uh. Don’t move. I like you right where you are for the moment.” He tossed his head back at his companion, still holding Heather. The black man was huge, at least six-feet-six, and muscular. He looked like a piece of the night, come to life. “This is my friend Corey. We’re all gonna spend the night together.”

  “How did you get in here?” Maureen demanded. She was sitting up in bed, holding the top sheet over her emerald-green silk nightgown. I had bought it for her on our anniversary six years ago.

  Fist ignored the question. He pulled two ladder-back chairs away from the far wall and placed them near the foot of the bed. He pointed at Maureen, then to the chair on the left. “You. Here.” Then he pointed at me and the remaining chair. “And you here.”

  “Wait a minute,” I protested. “We don’t have to do it like this.” It was hard for me to find the words. Logic and reasoning weren’t working. They shouldn’t be here … They shouldn’t be here!

  Maureen was easing herself out of bed. I could tell she only had eyes for Heather. My daughter’s features were distorted by the black man’s stranglehold. Fist turned toward me abruptly. “Did I ask you to talk?”

  I held my hands out, offering surrender. “No, look, I just want—”

  Maureen was lowering herself into the ladder-back chair with exaggerated slowness and care.

  “You got a fuckin’ big mouth, asshole!” Fist drew his arm back. But he can’t reach me from over there, I thought.

  He didn’t even try. He slapped Maureen across the face. Her head snapped to the side. When she brought it up there was a flushed scarlet bruise on her cheek and a trickle of blood running from the comer of her mouth. She didn’t cry out. I saw her lower lip tremble, but she didn’t cry out.

  “You son-of-a …” I started up from the floor, determined to choke the life from this intruder.

  “I wouldn’t!” I heard the black man’s voice for the first time. It was so unbelievably low I felt it resonate in my chest. He tightened his grasp, drawing Heather up. Her feet came off the floor. Corey poked the muzzle of his gun into the soft flesh behind her soundlessly-working jaw.

  At the same time Fist brought his right hand up and the barrel of his gun rested squarely against Maureen’s temple. “You don’t learn, do you?” He pointed at the remaining chair with his free hand. “Sit down.”

  I sat in the chair. My arms and legs were trembling so much I thought they would come loose. Fist put the gun down and pulled thin, coarse twine out of a backpack he wore. He began to secure my wife to the chair. Her arms went behind her back. He tied each wrist separately. Then he tied her waist to the seat and her ankles to the chair.

  “Please,” Maureen said as Fist drew the twine so tight I could see her flesh pucker on either side, “please let our daughter go… She doesn’t know where any of our valuables are …”

  Fist replied without looking up from his chore. “You just keep talkin’, you want me to slap the shit outta you again.”

  Fist finished tying up my wife. Then he began to do the same to me. Come on, think! I screamed at myself. What are you gonna do! You can’t let these bastareis hurt your family! Can I reach down and grab his gun and shoot them both before Corey shoots Heather? What are you gonna do?

  In the end I did nothing.

  Fist stood up and took a deep breath. Corey stepped fully into the room for the first time. He took his arm away from Heather’s neck. She wheezed, holding her hands to her throat. Corey shoved her back against the wall. “Stay there,” he said.

  “Now let’s get acquainted.” Fist’s tone was smug, mocking. I wanted to pull out each of his teeth one by one and make him swallow them. “You are?” He pointed at me with his gun.

  I knew I had no choice except to answer. “Daniel Brandis.” My voice sounded small and insignificant, even to me.

  Fist moved the barrel in a circular motion: Go on, go on. “And what do you do?”

  “I’m … an ophthalmol
ogist.”

  “Oh good!” Fist clapped his hands. “I’m sure we’ll see … eye-to-eye on everything!” He began to laugh at his own pun. His laughter was too loud and continued too long. “And your lovely wife?”

  Maureen shook her head from side to side. “Maureen,” I said. What else could I have done? “And that’s Heather,” I added before he could prompt me.

  “And they all lived together in a lovely little house!” Fist chanted in a frenzied, sing-song voice.

  Maureen couldn’t take it anymore. She had been trying to keep still, keep quiet, but it became too much. “Please…. mister … Just leave us here in the bedroom … You and your friend can have anything you want in the house … We won’t say anything, we won’t tell the police … Just take what you want and don’t hurt us …”

  Fist had been facing me, but when Maureen spoke he whirled on her. “You stupid bitch!” he yelled in her face. “You goddamn cunt! You think this is about money?” She squinted against the spit flying from his mouth. “I don’t give a shit about your fuckin’ money!”

  Fist took two steps toward me. He brought his gun-hand back—then he drove it toward my chest. The end of the barrel connected with my solar plexus.

  It was too fast, too sudden. I couldn’t steel myself against it. There was no way for me to back up. Agony exploded from my mid-section. Choking, unable to get any air, I sagged against my bonds. I saw darkness rising in my vision and I almost slipped out of consciousness, but I told myself, No—don’t—if you leave, Maureen and Heather will be alone with them …

  Maureen was screaming, “No! Don’t hurt him!” She wasn’t trying to hold back the tears anymore. “Why are you doing this?” She leaned forward as far as the twine allowed. “Please … we’ll take you to our automatic teller … we’ll take all the money out of our accounts and give it to you … just let us go free …”

  Fist got down on his knees in front of her. “You still don’t get it, do you?” His tone was wounded, as if he were trying to reach a pupil who stubbornly fought against the lesson. “I don’t want your money. I just want to see you squirm, trying to get away from the pain.” He brought his free hand up and ran his fingers through her hair. “If you do something I don’t want you to, I won’t hurt you—I’ll hurt someone else in your family.” Suddenly he wrapped his fingers around her curls and yanked back savagely, causing her to cry out. “And if you scream for me to stop, it’ll just make me want to hurt you worse.”