Strangers

THE STRANGERS © 2005 by Mort Castle

INTRODUCTION © 2005 by Marc Paoletti

Dust Jacket illustration © 2005 by Erik Wilson

This digital edition © 2011 Overlook Connection Press

Overlook Connection Press

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Book Design & Typesetting:

David G. Barnett

Fat Cat Graphic Design

http://www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

— | — | —

INTRODUCTION

I first met Mort Castle years ago at a poker game hosted by a mutual friend, back when my knowledge of horror fiction was limited to paperbacks that featured villains who sucked blood, bayed at the moon or wielded butcher knives. That night, he graciously offered me a copy of THE STRANGERS and I accepted it without expectation. I assumed the book would be like countless others I’d read in the genre.

So much for judging a book by its cover.
What I found instead was a complex story with a type of villain I’d never seen before.

Enter Michael Louden, a middle-class husband and father with a nice home and good job. He, like so many of us, looks forward to what the future may bring. Except that Michael’s vision of a better future doesn’t include his wife and two young daughters
;
it depends on their deaths. Michael is a Stranger waiting for the Time of the Strangers when he and others like him will purge society of “normals.” Until then, he must hide his true nature and do what he can to fit in.

I’m not spoiling anything: you’ll discover this in the first few pages. What makes the story so uniquely satisfying (and downright creepy) is that much of it is told from Michael’s point of view. We’re made privy to every depraved, duplicitous thought as he mows the lawn, drives his kids to school, makes love to his wife.

Few authors of horror choose this approach, and for good reason. Force your readers to spend too much time in the head of your least likeable character—particularly in a genre whose villains tend toward the extreme—and you risk losing them. But there’s more at play here than mere shock value.

THE STRANGERS offers one of the most unsettling and true representations of evil that you’re likely to experience in a horror novel. That is, evil not as some easily-identifiable creature skulking in the shadows, but as a ubiquitous intangible that may dwell quietly within the people you least suspect—your neighbor, your best friend, your spouse—and remain undetected until it’s too late.

It’s interesting to note that this book was first released in 1984, a year when people in this country were more than a little preoccupied with xenophobia. Threats to our way of life were often represented as foreign by the media. Yet, in this book, the threat exists in our own homes. Michael is a worm at the very core of our family unit, willing to kill to bring about a version of the American Dream more insidious and destructive than any alternative political system.

As the story unfolds, Mort doesn’t allay our fears by explaining away Michael’s behavior as spiritual possession, or revealing that Michael is actually some alien doppelganger hatched from a pod. Michael is evil simply because he was born that way, a product of God-only-knows what in our genes or environment that allows him—and thousands of others—to effortlessly and remorselessly pull off his masquerade, day after day. Worse, his brand of evil is able to persist because the rest of us refuse to accept its existence.

But it does exist. And with THE STRANGERS, Mort explores this disturbing and unexplainable aspect of human nature in a way that transcends the genre.
Marc Paoletti

Los Angeles, California

2000

— | — | —

Marc Paoletti was one of the “new wave” of horror writers featured in the groundbreaking YOUNG BLOOD anthology, edited by the late Mike Baker. He’s written and created comics, short stories, and
internet
dramas. After a career in motion pictures as a pyrotechnician (“You’re paid to blow up things”) on films like Terminator II, and a stint as a senior adverstising copywriter, Paoletti is no longer deferring his dream: he is pursuing a masters degree in fiction writing at Columbia College in Chicago and working on a novel.

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PROLOGUE

IT WAS a quarter to one in the morning. The Buick Regal’s headlights picked out the beach ball-sized puffs of summer fog that hovered over the winding road skirting the forest preserve. After a sweltering day, the temperature had descended to the mid-’70s, but because of the humidity, the automobile’s air-conditioning was running on high, the steady
whoosh
masking the sound of the engine.

Without turning his head to look at his companion, the middle-aged man behind the wheel said, “Did you find the day splendidly dull?”

“Dull? A new products exhibition?” The younger man’s words were flat, polished smooth by sarcasm. “Please, we got to see the latest, up-to-the-minute advances in janitorial supplies. Floor finishes, deodorant blocks for urinals, corn brooms… That’s what I call exciting.”

The driver laughed metallically, precise snippets of sound. “You have marvelous enthusiasm.”

“Well gee, Boss, golly! I’m a guy who’s got so damned much to be enthused about. I have my slice of the American pie.
A wonderful wife, two adorable kids, and a tract home.
Then to add to my abundant good fortune, there’s what
you’ve
done for
me, the raise and promotion
. National sales manager, that always was my goal, and I guarantee you, I’ll give 110 percent to Superior Chemical. I sincerely mean that sincerely.’’

The driver nodded. The light of the dashboard’s instruments turned his silver hair green and seemed to define a flesh-masked angularity beneath his round, good-natured face. He said, “It’s people like you who make this country what it is.”

“No… It’s people like
us
.”

Both men laughed quietly, and then the younger slipped down a bit in the seat, stretching his legs. He loosened his tie and leaned back his head. The man’s sandy hair had begun the receding trek upward on his brow and there were suggestions of crowsfeet-to-come at the corners of his eyes, but he looked no older than his thirty-five years. His face was blandly American, hinting at no identifiable ethnic background. He was not quite handsome and nowhere near homely. If you’d met him once, twice, you were more likely to recall his name than his appearance.

With no trace of humor he said, “Does the waiting ever get to you?”

“Of course.” the driver answered. “Often and I have been waiting considerably longer than you.’’

“Sure, I know, but sometimes I get so my nerves are sticking out a half-inch. You wait and you wait and you think there’ll never be an end to it…”

“There will be.”

“…And you want to rip off the mask, let them all see the
real
smile behind the fake…”

“And become a newspaper headline for three days?” interrupted the driver. “And then a jail cell?
One of their mental asylums?
Death?”

The younger man sighed. “Yes, that’s what happens.”

“No.” The correction was quiet but forceful. “That’s what happens to those who are not clever or cunning—
and
to those who can no longer be patient.”

“So we wait.”

“Indeed, and we ease our tensions and frustrations as best we can.” The driver’s full lips twitched in a smile. “You might spend more time performing the conjugal act with your wonderful wife, perhaps create still another adorable child.”

“ ‘No more Adorables,’ says the Wonderful. She has an itch to develop a new identity. She’s tuning to the liberated woman concept a mere ten years after the rest of the nation.”

“We do have companionship,” the driver said. “And of course we’re always ready to take advantage of whatever amusements fate and circumstance send our way…” His voice trailed off as he lifted his foot from the’ gas. The Buick slowed and the younger man sat up, alert. The driver said, “Seems to be a problem.”

Ahead, just before a sharp curve, a Ford with a raised hood was on the left hand shoulder, a man peering at the engine, turning his head when the Buick’s headlights spotlighted him.

The Buick stopped on the opposite shoulder. The driver did not switch off the motor. He searched under the front seat with his hands, bringing out a heavy, rubber-insulated, night watchman’s flashlight. “If you’ll open the glove compartment…”