A Writer''s Tale

  Business as usual.

  But it annoyed me more than usual.

  Savage is a book that should’ve gotten noticed. It should’ve been published in a big way.

  If a book like Savage gets ignored, what does it take? It takes a shrug, that’s what. And a turning of the back.

  In spite of the book’s commercial failure in the United States, I know that it is successful as a work of art.

  To my own way of thinking, I somehow managed to “pull it off.” It turned out to be everything I’d hoped it might be.

  People have called it “a masterpiece.”

  People have compared it to a novel by Dickens. People have said that it’s the book I’ll be remembered for.

  A lot of people love it, and so do I.

  A GOOD, SECRET PLACE

  Near the end of June, 1991, the Horror Writers of America held its annual convention in Redondo Beach, California. One night during the weekend, I was approached by John Scoleri. I knew John from his activities at the B. Dalton bookstore in Santa Clara, where he’d been a real promoter of horror fiction and had even published a newsletter, Scars, in which he reviewed new horror releases and their covers. I’d first met John after he invited me to a book signing for Night Visions VII.

  At the 1991 HWA meeting, John came up to me and introduced his friend, Peter Enfantino. Along with Robert Morrish, they were involved in publishing the magazine, The Scream Factory, and their small press had already produced a couple of limited edition hardcovers. They asked if I would consider letting them publish a collection of my short fiction.

  I liked these guys. Perhaps more important, Ann liked them.

  She is my career-guard, warning me away from people and projects that rub her the wrong way. Instead of suggesting I should have nothing to do with John and Peter, she thought I ought to pursue the situation.

  As we discussed the possibilities, the guys assured me that they would be very flexible about the terms of the contract and the content of the book.

  We very quickly hit upon the idea of putting together an assortment of old and new stories. My “Author’s Note” explains it:

  This book contains every adult short story of mine that was sold and published from the start of my career through “Bleeder” in 1989. Eleven of the fifteen early stories have never been anthologized, and until now were available only in old copies of the magazines in which they originally appeared…

  They comprise about half of this volume. The other half is made up of previously unpublished stories. The new ones are not from “the trunk.” They were all written in the fall of 1991, especially for this collection.

  At the time I was approached by John and Peter, I was in the midst of writing Savage. I continued with Savage and finished it on September 6, 1991. On September 10, I began to write original’ short fiction for the collection.

  Between that date and October 20, I wrote five new stories.

  It was a great experience. I felt completely free to write about whatever suited my fancy.

  (Most often, stories are ‘written “to order,” and must fit into the theme of a magazine or anthology.) These could be about anything.

  I considered it an opportunity to write novellas as well as short stories, so the five tales added up to a fair chunk of material. “The Good Deed” was 39 pages long, “Joyce” was 29 pages, “Stickman” was 27, “The Mask” was 34, and “A Good, Secret Place,” the title story, was 42 pages in length.

  They represent, in my opinion, some of the best short fiction I have ever written.

  We asked my friend, fellow writer Ed Gorman, to provide an introduction for the collection. He came through with a wonderful piece.

  We asked my friend, Larry Mori, to prepare artwork for the book. I’d been introduced to Larry by Joan Parsons when we visited the Dark Carnival book store during our trip to the Bay Area for the Night Visions VII signing arranged by John Scoleri. (It all ties together.) Larry specializes in creating very bizarre and mysterious collages. He did several terrific pieces for A Good, Secret Place. He also provided suggestions about the design of the book.

  In 1993, it was published by Deadline Press (John, Peter and Bob). It consisted of 574 individually signed and numbered copies and 26 individually signed and lettered copies.

  Every copy was signed by me, Ed Gorman and Larry Mori.

  Thanks to the imagination and persistence of Bob Morrish, each of the 26 lettered copies was bound in leather and came with a built-in lock. They looked like diaries. I thought this was extremely cool, since the title of the book was A Good, Secret Place. Both editions sold out, and copies are now rare.

  A Good, Secret Place was nominated (short-listed) for a Bram Stoker award for excellence in the “collection” category for 1993. The awards banquet took place in Las Vegas during the first weekend in June, 1994. While I was at the banquet not winning the award (it went to Ramsey Campbell), Peter Enfantino sat beside me and his wife Margaret was downstairs winning a ton of money at the slot machines.

  Because of my great experiences in connection with A Good, Secret Place, I was eager to work again with John, Peter and Bob.

  And the book you now hold is the result.

  ENDLESS NIGHT

  Apparently, I was “at loose ends” after finishing Savage.

  I wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. So instead of embarking on a new novel, I wrote all the original material for my short story collection, A Good, Secret Place. I wrote several other short stories, had a false start on a novel entitled, The Caller, then started work on Quake. After spending about four months on Quake, I gave it up. I felt overwhelmed by it. So I wrote my novella, Wilds. Then, on May 6, 1992, instead of returning to Quake, I started writing a novel called Sleep Over.

  I wanted needed? to write a fast-paced, straightforward book with non-stop action. I wanted to write another Midnight’s Lair, another One Rainy Night.

  But I had trouble coming up with a suitable plot.

  Then one afternoon, Ann and I were watching a rental video on our VCR. It was called, Tower of Evil, and had something to do with murders at a lighthouse.

  While I am watching television shows and movies (or doing most anything else, for that matter), my mind often wanders. It did so during Tower of Evil. A scene in the movie set me to thinking how neat it would be to take the big finale of a horror story (after all, that’s when most of the cool really stuff happens) and start a story with it.

  Instead of building up to the awful, bloody climax, why not begin with it.

  And keep on going from there.

  The climax just goes on and on…for the whole book!

  To me, it seemed like a brilliant idea.

  (Naturally, I do understand that a climax is not actually a climax if it happens at the start. I use the term simply to get across the idea that the effect I wanted to create would be like the climax of a book or movie in its intensity.)

  It is the concept that led to Endless Night.

  After coming up with the general idea of what I hoped to achieve, I needed the particulars. In particular, what would happen during the big opening scene?

  I wanted it to be really scary.

  So I sat down and asked myself, “What’s the scariest situation I can possibly imagine?”

  A babysitter being interrupted on the job by a madman is about the most creepy situation I can imagine. She’s a teenaged girl in a strange house late at night, has nobody to depend upon for help, and someone is coming for her. Yikes!… But there are great, classic movies covering that territory.

  I wondered what other set of circumstances might lead to feelings of vulnerability similar to those created by the babysitter scenerio.

  And I came up with an alternative that seemed perfect.

  Suppose a teenaged girl is having an “overnighter” at the house of her best friend? In the middle of the night, intruders break in. They butcher everyone in the house. Everyone except the girl, who hides, then risks her life to save h
er friend’s brother. The girl and boy run outside, the killers in hot pursuit.

  Exactly what I was looking for.

  When I wrote the book, I started with the girl being awakened late at night by the noise of breaking glass. I then kept the opening sequence going for 87 manuscript pages of frenzied, terrifying action.

  I’d experimented with this technique somewhat in my novella, Wilds, which is told in the form of a journal. I wrote Wilds immediately before embarking on Endless Night, so the Simon tapes seem to be an extension of my experiments with the technique. I soon would take the “real time telling” all the way in Island.

  A couple of characters in Endless Night are fictional portraits based on real life.

  Jody’s father was inspired by an L.A.P.D. officer I observed during the course of a televised trial. I came to admire his guts and integrity.

  A little white dog that attacks Simon was inspired by Bogart Harb, who lives with us when its owners, Sally and Murray, leave town on trips. My Deadline Press short story collection, A Good, Secret Place, was dedicated to Sally, Murray, and Bogart.

  I finished writing Endless Night on December 2, 1992 and sent a copy to Bob Tanner.

  Headline published it in 1993, and Book Club Associates bought 12,000 copies. It was also bought for publication in Italy and Spain.

  Endless Night has not been published in the United States.

  As of this writing, the Headline paperback edition is in its 7th printing.

  While I would not recommend any of my books to squeamish or prudish readers, I have to say that Endless Night is more extreme than most. It contains some of the most vicious and disgusting material I’ve ever written.

  But it also contains the story of a gutsy girl named Jody who risks her life to save her friend’s brother a boy she hardly knows.

  And it tells of her smart, courageous father (an L.A.P.D. officer) who will do anything to keep his daughter from harm.

  Jody and her father have a very sweet relationship something that you’ll rarely find in books and movies. For some reason, teenagers are most often portrayed as egocentric jerks and their parents are insensitive louts who never understand them. If a father does appear to be sensitive and understanding toward his daughter, it turns out that he’s molesting her in secret. Not so in Endless Night. Like so many people you find in real life, Jody and her father are simply good, caring people.

  Going up against a perverted, sadistic killer.

  IN THE DARK

  Endless Night took care of my urge to write a straight-forward, lightning-fast story. After finishing it, I was ready to settle down and develop something more complex.

  I’d pretty much given up on ever finishing Quake.

  I embarked on MOG on February 15, 1993. MOG was short for Master of Games.

  The basic idea of the plot was simple.

  A small-town librarian finds an envelope with her name on it. Inside is a fifty-dollar bill and a note that reads:

  Dear Jane,

  Come and play with me. For further instructions, look homeward, angel. You’ll be glad you did.

  Warmest Regards,

  MOG (Master of Games)

  Mystified but curious, Jane searches out the library’s copy of the Thomas Wolfe novel, Look Homeward, Angel. Inside, she finds another envelope. This one contains a hundred dollars, and another note. The note gives her more instructions.

  And so it starts.

  Each time she deciphers the instructions, goes to the required place and finds the next envelope, the amount of money doubles.

  Very soon, we’re talking real money.

  Jane finds herself getting into some very bizarre and dangerous situations, but she keeps accepting the challenges, keeps pushing the limit. She likes the money. Also, however, she is caught up in the game. She hopes to find out, sooner or later, what it’s all about.

  Though the basic idea of the plot seemed fairly simple, I saw that it had some real potential.

  It was exactly what I wanted.

  An adventure story. A treasure hunt. A deep mystery. And plenty of room for suspense, scares, and horror.

  Also, it was “infinitely expandable.” There was no built-in limit to the number of adventures Jane might experience. So I would have no trouble writing my minimum 600 pages.

  Not only could I expand the story to my heart’s content, but it had an “open” format.

  MOG could send Jane just about anywhere. The possibilities were staggering.

  In interviews, I have often said and written that being a horror writer does not have to be limiting. The horror category (and probably any other fiction category) is pretty much an empty bag. You can throw in whatever you want. Sure, you’re under an obligation to scare your readers now and then but that’s about it. In addition to creeping them out, you have opportunities to make them laugh, make them weep, make them think. You can write about “love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” (Faulkner) You can write about “the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.” (Hemingway)

  In fact, you have to write about such matters if you’re going to be any good.

  An “open” format such as I had with In the Dark (and with Blood Games in the “Belmore Girls” chapters), makes it especially easy to explore all sorts of possibilities. It is rather as if the novel’s plot structure provides empty spaces that can be filled by a wide variety of short stories.

  In the case of In the Dark, the stories were about Jane’s adventures each time she went hunting for the next envelope.

  I had a great time coming up with those adventures.

  In a sense, I was MOG.

  In a very real sense.

  I was controlling Jane. I was assigning the tasks, pulling the strings.

  But MOG is also a character in the book. And I think he gives it a depth that can’t be found in many (or any?) of my other novels.

  Who is MOG? Why is he playing this game with Jane? How does he come and go (and sometimes carve messages on her skin) without being seen? Is he a demented man getting his kicks by toying with her? Is he a phantom, a demon, a monster? Is he God? All of the above? None of the above?

  And then there is Jane.

  What are her real motivations? And how far will she go?

  Even as I wrote In the Dark, I realized that I was dealing with a major subject and that my book was obviously operating on more than one level of meaning.

  I didn’t set out to write a “deep” book, but I let the story go where it had to go. Stories do have a certain internal integrity. They take you naturally into certain directions. If you force a story out of its natural direction, you risk ruining it. In the Dark needed to be following a certain path. I was tempted to drag it the other way and give it a pat ending, explaining all about MOG and tying up the loose ends. But I felt that the pat ending would destroy the whole thing. So I let the story have its way.

  As a result, In the Dark ends up being a statement and asking questions about the nature of life.

  Why do we do what we do?

  Are strings being pulled?

  If so, by who or what?

  Do we have free will?

  What the heck is going on?

  The ending of In the Dark leaves some of my readers in the dark.

  Some are confused.

  Others think I “blew it.”

  Still others figure it out or figure something out.

  I finished writing MOG on July 20, 1993.

  Headline gave it a nice push. They even had a contest for booksellers and handed out lovely black matchbooks embossed in gold with the book’s title. Matches. Get it?

  In the Dark was a World Book club selection and appeared on U.K. paperback bestseller lists.

  It was published in Taiwan.

  It has never been published in the United States.

  QUAKE

  I’ve experienced numerous earthquakes big enough to rattle my nerves
, and three extremely nasty quakes during which I half-expected to be killed.

  But the idea for Quake came to me in the wake of the Whittier shaker that occurred on October 1, 1987. At that time, I was still employed at the Law Offices of Hughes & Crandall.

  (This was during the period of writing Funland.) Due to the nature of my work, I was allowed to keep very unusual hours.

  Monday through Friday, I got up every morning at 4:30, drove through the dark streets from my home in West Los Angeles to the law offices in Glendale (about thirty miles away), and started work at about 5:00 a.m. I would do my eight hours and leave the office at 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. With this schedule, I was able to avoid most of L.A.‘s nightmarish traffic congestion.

  PLUS I got home early enough to work on my novel for a couple of hours every afternoon.

  And I’d be home each day when Kelly returned from school. It was a great schedule though getting out of bed in the morning was tough.

  Because of my great but oddball schedule, I was completely alone in the law offices at 7:45 a.m. when the earthquake struck. I was on the second floor of the building, and the epicenter was in Whittier, quite nearby. I thought the building was about to come down.

  With the floor rolling like a stormy ocean (or so it seemed), I ran through the office and down the stairway and made it outside at about the time the quake ended.

  My only concern, then, was getting home to Ann and Kelly.

  For all I knew, the quake might’ve been worse in the area where we lived. For all I knew, our house might’ve come down on them.

  They were thirty miles away on the other side of the Hollywood Hills and I had to get home fast.

  My car was in the office building’s subterranean parking lot. The lot had an electrically operated gate. Fortunately, the area hadn’t lost its electrical power. The gate was operational, so I was able to get my car away and drive home as fast as I could.