Magic Terror (47 page)
Daily, I assume the honored place assigned me. Ceremonious vestments assure that my patchwork scars remain unseen. The lucite box and its relics are interred deep within the sacred ground beneath the Temple where I must one day join my predecessors—some bony fragments of Graham Leeson reside there, too, mingled with Marguerite’s more numerous specks and nuggets. Eye patch elegantly in place, I lean forward upon the malacca cane and, while flourishing the stump of my right hand as if in demonstration, with my ruined tongue whisper what I know none shall understand, the homily beginning,
It only . . .
To this I append in silent exhalation the two words concluding that little book brought to my attention by an agreeable murderer and purchased at the great grand station long ago, these:
Ah, humanity!
“A POWERFUL GATHERING OF SUSPENSE AND HORROR STORIES.”
—
The Denver Post
“Compelling . . .
Magic Terror
is bliss for readers whose love of the eerie doesn’t preclude a taste for literary elegance. . . . [Straub] is one of the few fin-de-siècle writers whose stories can stand alongside works by twentieth-century masters of the macabre such as King, Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson, and Edith Wharton.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“There is no safety in this literate and much praised cluster of stories. It’s beautifully written stuff that breaks into the place where you live, breaching all psychologically installed security systems. . . . And although we desire to read it for many reasons, the truest one is that Peter Straub writes with compassion. He gets the link between modern horror and classic tragedy.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“The protagonist of each of these stories has had a horrible, frightening life. Yet, the compassion you feel for them doesn’t keep your skin from crawling as you descend deeper and deeper into their terrible, twisted minds.”
—
The New York Post
“MASTERFUL . . . HIS PLOTS ARE AS FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS AS THEY ARE OF SHOCKS AND CHILLS.”
—
Baton Rouge Magazine
“As in all of Straub’s works, the stories here are carefully crafted. This is a book lovers of horror fiction won’t want to miss.”
—
Rocky Mountain News
“In subtle images, Peter Straub brings back forgotten childhood nightmares. His seven short stories in
Magic Terror
eat away slowly at the unsuspecting reader. . . . His terror lurks in the cries for help hidden inside victims’ minds. . . . Readers think about Straub’s endings long after they put his books down.”
—
The Freelance Star
(Fredericksburg, VA)
“The most shocking fiction collection in years creates a brilliant kaleidoscope of psychological shadow worlds. The terrain of these extraordinary stories is marked by brutality, heartbreak, despair, wonder, and an unexpected humor that allows empathy to flourish in the most unlikely circumstances.”
—
The Third Alternative
magazine
“The most magical thing about
Magic Terror
is its sheer bloodcurdling range. . . . No two of the seven remotely resembling each other except in the brilliance of the invention and the writing, and in Straub’s power to spook you out of your wits.”
—D
ONALD
H
ARINGTON
, author of
When Angels Rest
“SUPERB . . .
[A] BRILLIANT, HAUNTING COLLECTION . . .
The magic is in Straub’s polished writing, the terrors are in the tales. Nobody does it better.”
—
The Post and Courier
(South Carolina)
“With a literary genius that vibrates between dark and light, fantasy and reality, horror and humor, Straub is a dedicated storyteller who dives into our emotional well again and again. . . . [Straub has] an extraordinary gift for commingling a wide range of raw emotions in his stories. . . .
Magic Terror
is as complex a collection as you’re likely to encounter.”
—
Bookreporter.com
“Harrowingly rendered . . . Straub effortlessly plumbs the hearts and minds of a range of well-developed characters. . . . Mixing stark realism with black comedy, and reverberating with echoes of Conrad, Melville, and the Brothers Grimm, these excursions to the dark side of life set a high standard for the literature of contemporary magic.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Seven wonderful tales . . . Compelling and scary.”
—D
ONALD
W
ESTLAKE
, Author of
The Hook
and
The Ax
Also by Peter Straub
NOVELS
MR. X
THE HELLFIRE CLUB
THE THROAT
MRS. GOD
MYSTERY
KOKO
THE TALISMAN
(with Stephen King)
FLOATING DRAGON
SHADOWLAND
GHOST STORY
IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW
JULIA
UNDER VENUS
MARRIAGES
BLACK HOUSE
(with Stephen King)
POETRY
OPEN AIR
LEESON PARK & BELSIZE SQUARE
COLLECTIONS
WILD ANIMALS
HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS
PETER STRAUB’S GHOSTS
(editor)
Books published by The Ballantine Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Fawcett Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2000 by Peter Straub
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Georges Borchardt, Inc., for permission to reprint six lines from “Down by the Station, Early in the Morning,” from
A Wave
, by John Ashbery (New York: Viking, 1984). Copyright © 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the author.
All of the pieces in this work have been previously published: “Ashputtle” was originally published in
Black Thorn, White Rose
, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (William Morrow, 1994); “Isn’t It Romantic?” was originally published in
Murder on the Run
, by the Adams Round Table (Berkley, 1998); “The Ghost Village” was originally published in
The Mists from Beyond
,
edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (ROC, 1993); “Porkpie Hat” was originally published in
Murder for Halloween
,
edited by Michele Slung and Roland Hartman (Mysterious Press, 1994); “Bunny Is Good Bread” was originally published, under the title “Fee,” in
Borderlands 4
, edited by Elizabeth E. Monteleone and Thomas F. Monteleone (Borderlands Press, 1994); “Hunger, an Introduction” was originally published in
Ghosts
, edited by Peter Straub (Borderlands Press, 1995); and “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff” was originally published in
Murder for Revenge
, edited by Otto Penzler (Delacorte Press, 1998).
Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.
First Fawcett Edition: September 2001
eISBN: 978-0-375-50576-8
v3.0