Read Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories Online
Authors: Clive Barker,Neil Gaiman,Ramsey Campbell,Kevin Lucia,Mercedes M. Yardley,Paul Tremblay,Damien Angelica Walters,Richard Thomas
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Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories
CRYSTAL LAKE PUBLISHING
The Final Cut
by Jasper Bark
Blackwater Val
by William Gorman
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by Kevin Lucia
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by Patrick Rutigliano
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by Jonathan Winn
Flowers in a Dumpster
by Mark Allan Gunnells
The Dark at the End of the Tunnel
by Taylor Grant
Tribulations
by Richard Thomas
Writers On Writing: An Author’s Guide
Eden Underground: Poetry of Darkness
by Alessandro Manzetti
Modern Mythmakers: 35 Interviews with Horror & Science Fiction Writers and Filmmakers
by Michael McCarty
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Copyright 2016 Crystal Lake Publishing
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All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-945174-26-1
Cover Design:
Caitlin Hackett
https://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com.
Interior Artwork:
Luke Spooner
Interior Layout:
Lori Michelle
Proofread by:
Lisa Childs, Guy Medley,
Paula Limbaugh, Robert Teun
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS
The Morning After Was Filled with Bone
Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave
Arbeit Macht Frei
The Problem of Susan
Dominion
Water Thy Bones
A Haunted House is a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken
On the Other Side of the Door, Everything Changes
Repent
Coming to Grief
Cards for His Spokes, Coins for His Fare
Cellar’s Dog
When We All Meet at the Ofrenda
Hey, Little Sister
The One You Live With
The Place of Revelation
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All stories are original to this anthology, except the following, used with permission:
“The Problem of Susan,” © 2004 Neil Gaiman. First published in
Flights.
“
Coming to Grief,” © 1988 Clive Barker. First published in
Prime Evil
.
“The Place of Revelation,” © 2003 Ramsey Campbell. First published in
13 Horrors: A Devil’s Dozen Stories Celebrating 13 Years Of The World Horror Convention.
Doug Murano:
To Rocco, Eva, Luca and Baby Girl: You’ll find the beauty if you decide to look for it.
I hope you do.
D. Alexander Ward:
To my wife, my daughter, and my family, who honor me with their love and support.
FOREWORD
Many years ago—in the May 1996 issue of
Locus
, to be exact—genre critic extraordinaire, Edward Bryant, wrote the following about my first short story collection,
Midnight Promises
:
“Chizmar certainly believes in—and explores with painful, honest, dead reckoning—human suffering, pain, and occasional transcendence. And that’s why he’s well worth the reading.”
I promise you . . . I don’t open this brief foreword with Bryant’s words of praise in an effort to boost my own ego, nor to establish an immediate sense of credibility.
In fact, many readers may argue that the above sliver of a review doesn’t even fall into the category of “praise.” It’s more an understanding on Bryant’s part, a kind and thoughtful understanding of the engine that drives me as a writer and editor and human being.
And that’s my point here, folks, in relation to Bryant’s insightful observation and the fine volume of stories you now hold in your hands.
Two simple, yet powerful words:
I understand.
***
I’ve written about it before—in essays, and introductions to my own work and the work of others. Most of us writers and editors have done so once we’ve reached a certain rung in our career ladders; it’s practically a rite of passage:
What internal vision drives us as artists and entertainers; how and why do we see the things we see, things others inevitably catch only corner-of-the-eye glimpses of or miss altogether; and perhaps my all-time favorite: my God, wouldn’t you rather sit down and write about something happy and filled with golden rays of sunshine?
My response—and the responses of many of my peers—has always been straightforward and bluntly honest:
what makes you think I have a choice?
Seriously.
It’s just how I
see
the world around me, how I see it and
feel
it.
I’m a pretty cheerful guy, living an extremely fortunate life, but when it comes to my writing and enjoying the fictional work of others, I tend to ignore the sunshine and explore the dark shadows and dirty corners instead.
I guess it’s just where I feel the most at home, and where my vision is the sharpest.
Take this little exercise for example:
You might stop at a traffic light and glimpse an old man standing on a street corner with a wrinkled paper bag in his hand and think:
aww, how sweet, the old guy’s off to the park to feed the pigeons or eat his lunch by the lake.
I might see something entirely different.
Poor old guy looks sad. Lost. Lonely. Maybe even desperate. I bet his wife died recently. He’s unshaven. His pants and shirt are filthy. Is that dirty laundry in the bag and he’s on his way across town to the laundry mat . . . or something more sinister? Is that a stain seeping along the bottom of the bag? A scarlet stain?
Yes, sir, that’s exactly how I might see it, folks—and as I noted above: what makes you think I have a choice?
There is beauty all around us, and there is horror all around us. Sometimes, it’s impossible to tell the difference.
I
see
what I see, and I
feel
what I feel.
I don’t really have much of a choice.
I believe it’s that way for most of us writers.
I would bet anything it’s that way for Stephanie M. Wytovich, whose exquisitely-crafted poem opens
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories
.
She writes: “You took everything I had left, but there in that skeletal smile, I’ve never been more beautiful, even after all the horrible things that I’d done.”—and all I can do is nod my head in silent agreement.
She understands
.
***
The editors of
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories
are Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward.
I’ve never met either gentleman, nor spoken with them on the telephone.
I don’t know if they are young (although I’m betting they are based on their endless enthusiasm, passion, and work ethic) or middle-aged or elderly (like my old man on the sidewalk with the paper bag in his hand).
I don’t know if they are married or single, patriarchs or childless, slender or burly, tattooed or pierced, Democrat or Republican.
I don’t even know what the “D” stands for in Mr. Ward’s byline.
None of this matters a bit to me.
What
does
matter is this: Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward have assembled a veritable feast for all discerning readers of dark fiction.
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories
thrilled me and chilled me—and made me
think
about the world around me—in ways not many other anthologies have ever been able to accomplish (which is why I agreed to shoehorn the writing of this foreword into an already overflowing work schedule).
There is darkness and terror and heartbreak to be found in these pages, but also redemption and hope and wisdom. It’s a fragile balance, and one to be greatly admired. Every detail, from the careful selection of these fifteen stories and one poem to the thoughtful order in which they appear, is spot on and designed for a finer reading experience.
I could write something about each and every story in the book. I liked them all that much. But I won’t. I will leave the amazements—and the terrors—for each of you to experience firsthand. Alone. In the dark.
Instead, I’ll tease you about the innovative horrors to be found in Paul Tremblay’s “A Haunted House is a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken” and Ramsey Campbell’s “The Place of Revelation.”
I’ll promise you wonder and heartbreak in tales such as Clive Barker’s “Coming to Grief” and John F.D. Taff’s “Cards for His Spokes, Coins for His Fare,” in which Taff successfully channels both Ray Bradbury and Stephen King to weave a splendid dark fantasy all his own.
Finally, I’ll hint at the unimaginable shocks waiting for you in Lisa Mannetti’s “Arbeit Macht Frei” and even the darkest of love stories in Brian Kirk’s “Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave” and Kevin Lucia’s “When We All Meet at the Ofrenda” and Maria Alexander’s “Hey, Little Sister.”
Take my advice: read the stories in the order in which they appear. Take your time to savor them. Think about them. Heal from them.
I don’t know a whole lot about Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward, but I do know this: they’ve done the horror genre a great service with this book. Readers and writers, alike.
Murano and Ward see a different world than most people see; they
understand
—and I can offer them no higher compliment.
Richard Chizmar
April 12, 2016
THE MORNING AFTER WAS FILLED WITH BONE
Stephanie M. Wytovich
My bed held an imprint that I wasn’t ready to sleep with
so I stood in front of my bathroom mirror
applied my favorite shade of red lipstick to my teeth,
teeth that were locked in a permanent smile that held
nothing but words shaped by broken liquor bottles and empty ashtrays,