WINTER 1995 / Volume Six, Issue 4 EDs <2 JACK” KETCHUM GORMAN STEPHEN 5. BRIAN - HODGE KING | PETER DAVID MORRELL CROWTHER DAN KEITH SIMMONS MINNION | | ie) 744 70"78335 0 | Joe R. Lansdate My Dead Dog, Bobby Other Signed Lansdale Books Available through Cobblestone Books Novels Comics Mucho Mojo — $19.95 Creature Features [New Story] — $7.50 By Bizarre Hands — $25.00 Dead in the West #1 — $7.50 Drive In 1— $25.00 Jonah Hex #1 [Ltd. Platinum] — $60.00 Drive In 2 — $25.00 Jonah Hex #1 — $10.00 Act of Love — $25.00 Jonah Hex #4 — $7.50 The West that Was Jonah Hex #5 — $7.50 — $25.00 Unsigned [But Available] Magazines Dead in the West Space & Time #63 — $25.00 [Valley of the Swastika] — $12.00 Novella Eldrich Tales #10 [Original “Dead in the West, Part 4”] — $10.00 Terrors on the High Skies — Contact $12.00 Cobblestone Books, 5111 College Oak Drive, Sacramento, CA 95841 (916) 332-3347 Where They Are Hid by Tim Powers Mr. Stanwell has a knack for fixing things. Every year he jumps back in time to do a little repair work. He has prevented the bomb, Korea, Vietnam, even Nixon. He’s always trying to make the world a better place. Keith Bondier has a problem; the fabric of his world is slowly unraveling. His black-outs are getting worse and his hallucinations are blending with reality. Or are they? Time is overlapping... Now even Mr. Stanwell is hallucinating and the rip in time is mending unevenly. This is an original publication and the only edition of this story eExquisitely printed on Mohawk Vellum and Curtis Flannele eBook and handmade slipcase bound in Japanese fabricse eImported Italian Fabriano Ingres endleavese eIllustrated and signed by the authore eLimited to 350 numbered copiese A unique 26 copy lettered edition is also available— please inquire. Release Date: December 7, 1995 Payment must accompany P.O. Box 633 all orders. Add $5.00 for the Lynbrook, New York 11563 first book and $1.00 for each additional book. FICTION CEMETERY DANCE MAGAZINE Volume Six, Issue Four Winter 1995 EDITOR/PUBLISHER THE RIFLE Jack Ketchum Richard T. Chizmar EATER Peter Crowther ASSOCIATE EDITOR WHEN THE SILENCE GETS TOO LOUD Brian Hodge Kara L. Tipton GARDEN OF EDEN Al Sarrantonio EDITORIAL ASSISTANT ANIMAL RITES Jay R. Bonansinga Mindy Jarusek Adam Fusco THE DUNGEON RENEWAL PLAN David Niall Wilson 103 GET OFF MY CLOUD J. Charles Caruso 124 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Tyson Blue Edward Bryant Matthew J. Costello DEPARTMENTS Ed Gorman Charles L. Grant Joe R. Lansdale Thomas F. Monteleone Bob Morrish WORDS FROM THE EDITOR Richard T. Chizmar Kathryn Ptacek RAMBLINGS FROM THE DARK Charles L. Grant Paul Sammon David E. Webb MOTHERS AND FATHERS ITALIAN ASSOCIATION Douglas E. Winter Thomas F. Monteleone A CONVERSATION WITH DAVID MORRELL GRAPHICS EDITOR Mark Graham Alfred Klosterman NIGHT LETTERS Douglas E. Winter CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS NIGHTMARE ALLEY Matthew J. Costello Keith Minnion A CONVERSATION WITH DAN SIMMONS COVER ARTIST Trey R. Barker Keith Minnion ROUGH CUTS Paul Sammon ISSN # BOOK REVIEWS Ed Bryant 1047-7675 A CONVERSATION WITH ED GORMAN Richard Anderson COPYRIGHT © 1995 by Richard T. SPOTLIGHT ON PUBLISHING Bob Morrish Chizmar. All rights revert to contribu- (Featuring Blue Moon Books) tor upon publication. All inquiries should be addressed to Cemetery Dance, ANTHOLOGY ATTIC Kathryn Ptacek 100 P.O. Box 858, Edgewood, Maryland 21040. No response without SASE. NEEDFUL KINGS & OTHER THINGS Tyson Blue 110 Advertising rates available. Discount TRANSCRIPT OF STEPHEN KING’S Q & A SESSIONS rates available for bulk and standing Tyson Blue 115 retail orders. Please note: the opin- ions expressed within are not necessar- MOMMY REVIEW Gary A. Braunbeck 129 ily those of the publisher. CD REVIEWS Reviewers 133 2 CEMETERY DANCE WORDS FROM THE EDITOR RICHARD T. CHIZMAR CEMETERY DANCE #22 — Welcome back to another issue one week short of reaching the six month mark (of having of Cemetery Dance, the magazine of dark mystery, suspense, normal blood markers). and horror. If you have picked us up from a book or specialty I’m back. store and are reading us for the first time . . . we hope you And, I’m delighted and proud to report, Cemetery Dance enjoy this issue enough to subscribe or keep an eye out for is back, tool the Spring Issue, due in retail stores by the end of March. * * * * A heartfelt “thank you” to each and every reader who Brand new publication schedule: took the time to send along their well-wishes. Over the past (Ship Dates) year, I have received dozens and dozens of cards, get well gifts, prayer and mass cards, inspirational books and tapes Spring Issue: March 15 ... you name it, I got it. I heard from folks who had cancer Summer Issue: June 15 and beat it, from people who knew others with the disease Fall Issue: September 15 (some who made it and some who didn’t), and from readers Winter Issue: December 15 who just felt compelled to write in and express their thoughts. All were anxious to see the magazine back in print, but all * * were very clear in saying: “Don’t come back too soon. Don’t Most long-time readers of Cemetery Dance know that this rush it.” issue — issue #22 — is the first to be published in over a year. Words cannot even begin to describe the strength I Issue #21 was the Summer 1994 edition, released late last drew from these communications, but I want each and every August. Up to that point, we had published 21 issues of the one of you to know this: I truly felt (and continue to feel) magazine, right on schedule, a feat spanning six years. So blessed to have so many people thinking of me and praying what caused the hiatus? for me. You told me that Cemetery Dance has touched your In case you don’t know the story, here it is: In Septem- lives, made you feel as though I were part of your family. ber of last year, I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors Well, I promise you that you all have touched my life in a way caught it early and, after two operations (small one in that I'll never, ever forget and I'll always consider you a September, major one in October), I was considered in member of my family. remission with a one percent chance of recurrence. When * * you're dealing with the “Big C” you just don’t get better odds. So we put out the good word and planned for the return Due to my illness and the resulting delay in publishing, of Cemetery Dance in the Winter. some of the information/reviews in this jumbo issue — the Good thing I don’t gamble. biggest ever at 144 pages! —are slightly dated. We take a lot Wouldn’t you know it — that one percent came back of pride in being able to deliver timely news, reviews, and and bit me right in the you-know-what. And it was hungry. interviews in each issue, and all future issues will continue to The cancer returned in mid-March with a vengeance. In my reflect this policy. lungs, liver, stomach, lymph nodes. The odds had dropped drastically — to 50%. * * A flip of a coin. That’s all for now. It’s time to enjoy the issue. And We immediately began a very intense program of please remember that Ingram Periodicals is Cemetery Dance’s chemotherapy (a twelve weeker), and after six weeks, my newsstand distributor. If you frequent a chain store — yes, blood markers had returned to normal and I was on my way any chain store — or an independent book or comic store, back. We thought of returning to the magazine late in the please ask the manager to carry Cemetery Dance. Thanks — Summer, but knowing the toll that chemo takes on body and we appreciate the help! soul, we decided to wait until the Winter Issue before coming Now turn down the lights, flip the page, take my hand, back. and start the dance... As of the day I am writing this — mid-November —I am CEMETERY DANCE 3 The Ultimate Fantasy? We can make YOU (or anyone you choose) the Hero or Heroine in a great 25-30 page story of Horror, Fantasy, Adventure or Passionate Romance! With our custom story selection: YOU CHOOSE the Hero’s (Heroine’s) Name.. Hair & Eye Color.. Hometown.. and MORE! We have starring roles available for males, females and couples in our stories. Our fine selection has also recently been expanded to offer both our regular adult versions AND Special Youth Versions (for Heros & Heroines ages 10-15). Imagine the thrill when you read about YOURSELF.. a friend.. or a lover.. ...Being romanced in a terrifying, yet tempting, relationship with a vampire... ...Being squeezed to death in the powerful coils of a cruel snakewoman... ... Struggling against the magical and seductive charms of a lecherous demon... ...Matched in deadly hand-to-hand combat with a vicious swinetroll... ...On a secluded tropical island, and in the company of a passionate satyr... AND... We have more NEW stories in development! ...All these possibilities...and MORE for only $12. So... What are you waiting for? This is YOUR CHANCE to live out a fantasy! For our FREE & COMPLETE information pack of details, Write/Call: BOOTSTRAP-CD P.O. Box 184 Manasquan, NJ 08736-0184 (908) 295-7981 E-mail: [email protected] THE RIFLE JACK KETCHUM JACK KETCHUM is probably best known as the Which meant that Danny had also stolen it. author of the cult horror classic, The Off Season. But They'd visited his farm the weekend before last. more recent blockbusters such as Joyride, Red, Only She was struck again by how empty the house seemed Child, and Stranglehold have earned him the tagline now that her mother was gone and had sat in the of “horror’s fastest rising star.” Ketchum’s last ap- kitchen with her father drinking cup after cup of black pearance in Cemetery Dance (“The Box” from issue coffee, knowing how starved for conversation he was #20) won the 1994 Bram Stoker Award for Best Short now. So that Danny was on his own most of the day. Story. Through the big bay window she saw him go into the barn where her father kept his two remaining horses. A little later noticed him walking through the field of She found the rifle standing on its stock in the long dry grass toward the woods and stream beyond. back of his cluttered closet. And then she’d forgotten all about him until what must Unexpected as a snake in there. have been over an hour had passed and he came Not that he’d made very much attempt to hide it. slamming in through the screen door with a big box It was leaning in the corner behind the twenty-pound turtle in his hand, Danny all excited until she told him fiberglass bow and the quiver of target arrows his to put it back by the stream where he’d found it, that father had bought him for Christmas — over her objec- they weren’t taking a turtle all the way back to Con- tions. His winter jacket hung in front of it. She’d necticut with them and that was that. moved the jacket aside. And there it was. Her father kept his newer guns behind glass on a He’d complained in the past about her going in rack in the living room. his closet and for a long time she’d obliged him. The older ones, the ones he never used anymore, Privacy, she knew, was important to a ten-year-old — it were stacked in the workshop of the cellar. was especially important to Danny. But when you She examined the stock. It was scratched and noticed dustballs rolling out from under the door pitted. Her sinuses were giving her hell this summer somebody was going to have to get in there and clean and she could barely smell a thing but she sniffed it and obviously it wasn’t going to be him. anyway. It smelled of earth and mold. It was her She was only planning to vacuum. father’s, all right. She sniffed again, the scent of old Now this. gun oil on her hands. Probably he hadn’t used it in She reached around behind her and turned off years. the Electrolux. For a moment she just knelt there It would be months before her father noticed it staring at the rifle in the heavy summer silence. was missing. If then. A slim black barrel lurking in the shadows. She threw the bolt. Inside a brass shell casing A secret, she thought. gleamed. Yet another. ; She felt a sudden mix of shock and fury. She reached inside and grasped the cool metal. My god. Drew it out into the light. He’d loaded the goddamn thing. The rifle was an old bolt-action .22. Her brother Her father would never have left it loaded. That had owned one very much like it when he was fifteen meant that Danny had searched around the basement — took it down to the VFW target range on Saturdays for shells as well. And found some. How many more did for a while. Then he discovered girls. he have? Where were they? Danny was only ten. She resisted the urge to go tearing through his Where in god’s name had he got it? drawers, rummaging through his closet. Richard wouldn’t have bought it for him. Not That could wait. even her ex-husband was fool enough to think for one What she needed to do now was find him and minute that she’d allow a weapon in the house. No, it confront him. One more confrontation. More and had tobe... more as he got older. ... her father’s. She wondered how he’d explain this away. CEMETERY DANCE 5 It was not going to be like stealing Milky Ways The path belonged to the boys. Billy Berendt, from the Pathmark Store. Danny, Charlie Haas and the others. She never came It was not going to be like the fire he and Billy back this way. Hardly ever. Only when she was calling Berendt had set, yet denied they'd set, in the field him for supper and he was late and didn’t answer — behind the Catholic Church last year. even then she rarely had to venture this far. The path He couldn’t lie his goddamn way out of this one. was only two feet wide at most through thick, waist- Couldn’t say that he’d meant to pay for the candy high brush, dry brown grass and briars as tall as she bars but didn’t because he got to looking at the comic was. A path the width of a boy’s body — not the width books and forgot they were in his pocket. He couldn’t of her’s. She was glad of the jeans — already studded claim that the two eyewitnesses — kids from the with burrs —and unhappy with the short-sleeve blouse. rougher part of town who'd seen Billy and Danny go A thorn bush scored two thin lines of blood along her into the field and then come out running and laughing upper arm. She used the barrel of the rifle to part just before smoke appeared on the horizon — had it in another. for him. She heard the stream rushing over its rocky bed The rifle was concrete. The bullet even more so. through a line of trees to her left. The path split ahead They did not lend themselves to easy explanation. of her. She took it to the right, away from the stream. It was not going to be like the jackknife from All these woods would one day be developed, Nowhere: or the brand-new Sega-Genesis computer bulldozed into oblivion. But in the three years they’d game from Nowhere or the Bic cigarette lighters that lived here that hadn’t happened yet — and Danny was kept cropping up which he’d always found on the street. getting to the age where soon it wouldn’t matter. In What a lucky kid. the meantime the woods and stream were part of the She was angry. She was scared. reason she’d wanted the place for him. Angry and scared enough so that her hands were Nature, she believed, was a teacher. She’d grown shaking as she removed the shell from the breech and up on a farm and thought that most of what she knew put it in her jeans pocket. She felt a by-now all-too-fa- about life she’d glimpsed there first and then had come miliar access of what could only be called grief, a to understand more fully later. Birth, death, sex, the feeling that even though her son was only ten she’d renewal of the land, its fragility and its power, the chaos already lost him somehow, as though there were some- inside the order, the changes in people that came with thing in him she could no longer touch or speak to and the change of seasons. The impacability of the natural for which mourning was easily as justifiable and as world and how important it was simply to accept that. appropriate as her father’s grief over the loss of her She wanted all this for Danny. mother. What she’d had. And what now sustained her. She knew it was important to push that feeling She knew that many women would have been aside. To let the anger flow freely instead. She needed bitter about a broken marriage that they hadn’t chosen the anger. Otherwise too much love and loss, too to end. But she wasn’t. Not really. Unhappy, yes, of much sympathy and — let’s face it — too much plain course — but there had never really been any bitter- old-fashioned self-pity would only weaken her. ness. Love, she thought, was a contract you signed Tough love, she thought. That’s what’s left. knowing that someday the signatures might fade. She’d tried the shrinks. Tried the counsellors. Richard had fallen out of love with her and in love with She’d tried to understand him. someone else. A simple change of seasons. Hard as Taking things away from him, privilages — the winter, but bearable and somehow even under- computer, TV, the movies — was the only thing that standable. It was no longer necessary to the scheme of seemed to work anymore. things that people mate for life. Reality was what it was Not even that sometimes. and couldn’t be changed by her own distress in the face Well, they’re all going out the window today. Every- of it. She thought Richard’s choice of second partners thing. was one he someday might live to regret. But that was She slid the black bolt of the rifle back into his affair. She’d let him go. position and marched on out of the room. She knew And she might have been bitter about Danny too. where to find him. Instead she simply kept plugging away. Though the At the clubhouse. boy was far from easy. He’d never been easy. But since the breakup four years ago he always seemed, if not The grass in her back yard tickled her ankles. It actually in trouble, always on the verge of it. Sliding was time to cut the lawn again. Humidity made the grades. Clowning, fighting in class. Bad language stock of the rifle feel sticky in her hand. She slid around the girls at school. Once he’d been caught between the two pine trees in back of the lawn out onto throwing stones at Charlie Haas on the playground. the well-worn path into the woods. 6 CEMETERY DANCE And of course there were the stealing and brushfire friended them — though for some reason they all incidents. seemed to like him well enough and were eager to get Beyond paying child-support his father was no him out to play even though they were exluded from help at all. Richard thought it was all typical boy the clubhouse and were probably jealous that Danny’d behavior. It would pass, he said. She’d never been a discovered it first. For some reason that didn’t seem boy and it was possible he was right. to matter. Maybe the place imparted status of some But Richard didn’t have to live with him. kind. She didn’t know. Boys, she thought. Didn’t have to endure the tantrums when he All she knew was that he spent a lot of time here. didn’t get his way or the hostile silences. More than she’d have liked. She felt exhausted by him sometimes. She’d bought him a battery-powered lantern. Not What more could a kid get into? much light got in through the doors, he said. A He could get into firearms, obviously. step-ladder for going up and down. Toys and books At age ten. and games would disappear and then reappear in his Great. Just great. room as well as mason jars from the kitchen and She wondered how he’d smuggled it home in the hammers and boxes of nails from the toolbox so she first place and then remembered the blanket she kept knew he was bringing them out here and then return- in back of the station wagon. He could have hidden a ing them according to some private agenda. box of dynamite back there and she’d never have She never pried. known it. But now she was going to have to take all this away Very cute, Danny. Very sneaky. Very neat. from him too for a while. Her arms felt sticky with sweat, itchy from the She leaned on the rifle, catching her breath be- pollen and dust in the air and the warm brush of leaves. fore starting in on the remaining trek up the slope of She could barely breathe for all the damn pollen. the hill. She heard bees buzzing in the grass beside But she was nearly there now. her. She could see its location in the distance to the Her sinuses were killing her. right of the path, up a hill through a tall thin stand of Warm wind ruffled her hair. She steeled herself birch. for what was to come and headed on. His clubhouse. His personal sanctuary. The doors had weathered considerably since last Aside from the occasional visit from Billy Ber- she’d seen them. They could seriously use another endt, inviolate to the world. paint job. She saw that the combination lock was gone. Until today. That meant he had it with him. He was inside. Once, perhaps a hundred years ago, there had “Danny.” been a house here but it had long since burned to the No answer. She listened. No movement either. ground — leaving only the root cellar — and whoever “Danny. I know you’re in there.” the owners were they’d never rebuilt it. He’d taken She reached down for the doorhandles and rat- her up to look at it, all excited, shortly after they moved tled the doors. in and he first discovered it. At that time it was nothing “Come out here. Now.” but a hole in the ground five feet by eight feet wide She was starting to get seriously angry again. and four feet deep, overgrown with weeds. But he’d Good, she thought. You damn well should be angry. cleared the weeds to expose the fieldstone walls and “I said now. Did you hear me?” raw earth floor within and, with her permission, “You’re not supposed to be here.” begged a pair of old double doors from her father’s “What?” barn, and he and Richard had spent one uncommonly “I said you’re not supposed to be here. You never ambitious afternoon painting the two doors greenand come out here.” sinking hinges into the walls and then attaching the “Well that’s too bad because I’m here now. Do I doors so that they covered the hole and could be have to kick these doors apart or what?” secured together by a combination padlock from the She heard a click and the rattle of glass and then outside and a simple hook and eye from the inside. steps on the ladder. She heard him unfasten the hook Total privacy. and the door creaked open. He called it his clubhouse. He slid through the doors, out of the dark below, His private little gathering of one. and let the doors fall shut behind him. There was She had always thought it was kind of sad. Possi- something furtive about him. Something she didn’t bly not even good for him. like. He knelt and took the padlock out of his pocket. But Danny had always been a loner. She guessed “Leave it,” she said. “Stand up. Look at me.” that was his nature. He always seemed to tolerate the He did as he was told. And saw the rifle. Glanced other neighborhood boys more than he actually be- at it once and then turned away. CEMETERY DANCE 7