Aftershock & Others (2 page)

The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed these works below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.

Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.

THE PAST

“Demonsong” (prehistory)

“Aryans and Absinthe” (1923–1924)

Black Wind
(1926–1945)

The Keep
(1941)

Reborn
(February–March 1968)

“Dat Tay Vao” (March 1968)

Jack: Secret Histories
(1983)

YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE

Sibs
(February)

“Faces” (early summer)

The Tomb
(summer)

“The Barrens”
^*
(ends in September)

“A Day in the Life”
^*
(October)

“The Long Way Home”

Legacies
(December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO

Conspiracies
(April) (includes “Home Repairs”)

“Interlude at Duane’s” (April)

All the Rage
(May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)

Hosts
(June)

The Haunted Air
(August)

Gateways
(September)

Crisscross
(November)

Infernal
(December)

YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE

Harbingers
(January)

Bloodline
(April)

By the Sword
(May)

The Touch
(ends in August)

The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium
(ends in September)

“Tenants”
^*
yet-to-be-written Repairman Jack novels

YEAR ZERO

“Pelts”
^*

Reprisal
(ends in February) the last Repairman Jack novel (will end in April)

Nightworld
(starts in May)

Reborn, The Touch,
and
Reprisal
will be back in print before too long. I’m planning a total of sixteen or seventeen Repairman Jack novels (not counting the young adult titles), ending the Secret History with the publication of a heavily revised
Nightworld.

Another award-losing year:
Soft and Others,
my first short fiction collection, lost the Bram Stoker Award to Richard Matheson’s
Collected Stories.
No gripes from me. He’s the greatest. A fair number of my stories never would have been written if my teenage mind hadn’t been warped by his
Shock
collections.

I can’t complain about 1990. I started off writing the
Midnight Mass
novella for Robert McCammon’s
Under the Fang.
This was the first of three “theme” anthologies contracted by the Horror Writers of America to put itself on firmer financial footing. Rick McCammon, Ramsey Campbell, and I were chosen as editors. Rick took the first, a collection of vampire stories with the premise that the vampires have taken over—now what?

I knocked out
Mass
over four weekends while working on
Reprisal.
As I was finishing it Kristine Kathryn Rusch called, asking if I had anything for the Pulphouse novella series she was editing. Since her print run would be less than a thousand, I asked Rick if he had any objection to Pulphouse doing a stand-alone edition. He didn’t. But when Pocket Books (publisher of
Under the Fang
) learned that my story would be technically a reprint by the time
Fang
was published, they demanded I cancel the special edition or they’d cut the story. Well, I’d already given Kris my word, and a deal is a deal. So that’s why
Midnight Mass
didn’t appear in
Under the Fang.
It did go on to become my most reprinted story.

Otherwise
Reprisal
claimed most of my writing time, though editors clamoring for short stories kept interrupting me. In March came Bob Weinberg. I was scheduled to be Guest of Honor at the 1990 World Fantasy Convention and it’s a tradition to include a story by the GoH in the program book. Bob’s wife, Phyllis, loved Repairman Jack so I wrote the “Last Rakosh” and dedicated it to her. (Years later this was blended into the Repairman Jack novel
All the Rage.
)

The Dark Harvest hardcover of
Reborn,
the fourth volume (though chronologically the second) in what I’d eventually call the Adversary Cycle, was published in March, followed a few months later by the Jove mass-market edition with one of the worst covers ever to sully my work: a lolling-tongued demon leering from atop a doorway. Beyond awful. I’d complained about it but no one was listening. The advance orders to this sequel to
The Keep
were excellent, so where’s the problem?

Right. Where
was
the problem? Reviews were excellent and the book was optioned for a theatrical film within months of publication. Things looked good. I’d been wrong about retitling
The Tomb,
so maybe I was wrong about this. (But I wasn’t. That cover was going to come back to haunt me.)

In April Richard Chizmar requested a story for an anthology called
Cold Blood.
I turned to Jack again. The working title was “Domestic Problem” but I ended up calling it “Home Repairs.” (This was folded into the RJ novel
Conspiracies.
)

Then in May Joe Lansdale called looking for a dark suspense story—no supernatural—for
Dark at Heart,
an anthology he was editing with his wife, Karen. He wanted something like “Slasher.” Back to Jack for “The Long Way Home.” (It’s available for download at amazon.com in their Amazon Shorts section.)

About this time I got to work on my first editing gig:
Freak Show,
the second of the aforementioned HWA anthologies.

I wanted
Freak Show
to be more unified than
Fang.
So…to all who asked (and to those I particularly wanted in the anthology) I sent out three pages of guidelines outlining the background of the show and how my connecting story would run, plus the general circular route the show would take around the country.

I asked for regionalism—write about places you lived so the tastes and tangs of the settings would be authentic. I also asked for a description of the freak and a loose outline of the story—necessary to avoid duplication of characters, locations (I didn’t want multiple stories in Chicago or L.A.), and plotlines. A bit of work, yes, but you were pretty much guaranteed that I’d buy the piece if I approved your proposal. Some writers found this approach too restrictive; others blasted off and came up with great stories.

After the synopses were set, I began tying them together; I also circulated descriptions of all the freaks to the contributors to encourage cross-fertilization (a passing mention of this or that freak in other stories).

Need I say it turned out to be a
lot
of work? It took a year of my life and, as time went on, increasingly interfered with my own writing projects.

But here in 1990 I was oblivious to what I’d let myself in for. In June I finished revising
Reprisal
and set off on a research trip to Hawaii to gather sights and sounds and locations for the Maui sections of
Nightworld.
I wrote some of them on the spot while they were fresh. (Yeah, I know—tough work. But no sacrifice is too great for my craft.)

Careerwise, the high points of 1990 had to be the election of my first novel
Healer
to the Prometheus Hall of Fame, and being Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention.

Byron Preiss called asking for a contribution to one of his three “Ultimate” books. I had my choice of
The Ultimate Dracula
,
The Ultimate Werewolf,
or
The Ultimate Frankenstein.
I’d already done a long vampire story earlier in the year (the novella
Midnight Mass
) and had never found werewolves all that interesting, so I chose Frankie. My challenge was to come up with something fresh on the monster in the allotted 3,500 to 5,000 words. Another restriction was that the story had to be based on the movie version, not Mary Shelley’s original. (Thus the reference to the monster’s creator as Henry rather than Victor.)

As is my custom, I inverted expectations, turned tropes on their heads, and came up with an angle that delighted me. As I wrote the first line of “Dreams,” I already knew the last. It is also, you will note, a nice little exercise in dramatic irony.

The nightmare again.

I almost dread falling asleep. Always the same, and yet never quite the same. The events differ dream to dream, yet always I am in a stranger’s body, a huge, monstrous, patchwork contraption that reels through the darkness in such ungainly fashion. It’s always dark in the dream, for I seem to be a creature of the night, forever in hiding.

And I can’t remember my name.

The recent dreams are well formed. My head has cleared in them. So unlike the early dreams, which I can barely remember. Those are no more than a montage of blurred images now—a lightning-drenched laboratory, a whip-wielding hunchback,
fear,
a stone-walled cell, chains,
loneliness,
a little girl drowning among floating blossoms, a woman in a wedding gown, townsfolk with torches, fire, a burning windmill,
pain, rage, PAIN!

But I’m all right now. Scarred but healing. And my mind is clear. The pain from the fire burned away the mists. I remember things from dream to dream, and more and more bits and pieces from long ago.

But what is my name?

I know I must stay out of sight. I don’t want to be burned again. That’s why I spend the daylight hours hiding here in the loft of this abandoned stable on the outskirts of Goldstadt. I sleep most of the day. But at night I wander. Always into town. Always to the area around the Goldstadt Medical College. I seem to be attracted to the medical college. The reason rests here in my brain, but it scampers beyond my grasp whenever I reach for it. One day I’ll catch it and then I’ll know.

So many unanswered questions in these dreams. But aren’t dreams supposed to be that way? Don’t they pose more questions than they answer?

My belly is full now. I broke into a pastry shop and gorged myself on the unsold sweets left over from yesterday, and now I’m wandering the back alleys, drinking from rain barrels, peering from the shadows into the lighted windows I pass. I feel a warm resonance within when I see a family together by a fire. Once I must have had a life like that. But the warmth warps into rage if I watch too long, because I know such a scene will never be mine again.

I know it’s only a dream. But the rage is so real.

As I pass the rear of a tavern, the side door opens and two men step out. I stumble farther back into the shadows, wanting to run but knowing I’d make a terrible racket. No one must see me. No one must know I’m alive. So I stay perfectly still, waiting for them to leave.

That’s when I hear the voice. The deep, delicious voice of a handsome young man with curly blond hair and fresh clear skin. I know this without seeing him. I even know his name.

Karl.

I lean to my right and peer down the alley. My heart leaps at the sight of him. It’s not
my
heart; it’s the huge, ponderous heart of a stranger, but it responds nonetheless, thudding madly in my chest. I listen to his clear, rich laughter as he waves good-bye to his friend and strolls away toward the street.

Karl.

Why do I know him?

I follow. I know it’s dangerous but I must. But I don’t go down the alley after him. Instead I lumber along in the back alleys, splattering through puddles, scattering rats, dodging stinking piles of trash as I keep pace with him, catching sight of his golden-haired form between buildings as he strides along.

He’s not heading for home. Somewhere in my head I know where he lives and he’s headed in the wrong direction. I follow him to a cottage at the north end of Goldstadt, watch him knock, watch a raven-haired beauty open the door and leap into his arms, watch them disappear inside. I know her too.

Maria.

The rage spewing up in me is nearly as uncontainable as it is unexplainable. It’s all I can do to keep myself from bursting through that door and tearing them both apart.

Why? What are these emotions? Who are these people? And why do I know their names and not my own?

I cool. I wait. But Karl doesn’t reappear. The sky lightens and still no Karl. I must leave before I am seen. As I head back toward the stable that has become my nest, my rage is gone, replaced by a cold black despair. Before I climb to the loft I pause to relieve myself. As I lower my heavy, crudely stitched pants I pray that it will be different this dream, but there it is—that long, thick, slack member hanging between my legs. It repulses me. I try to relieve myself without touching it.

I am a woman. Why do these dreams place me in the body of a man?

Awake again.

I’ve spent the day talking, laughing, discussing the wisdom of the ages. Such a relief to be back to reality, back in my own body—young, lithe, smaller, smoother, with slim legs, dainty fingers, and firm, compact breasts. So good to be a woman again.

But my waking hours aren’t completely free from confusion. I’m not sure where I am. I do know that it’s warm and beautiful. Grassy knolls flow green through the golden sunshine toward the majestic amethyst-hued mountains that tower in the distance. Sweet little hummingbirds dart about in the hazy spring air.

And at least when I’m awake I know my name: Eva. Eva Rucker.

I just wish I knew why I was here. Don’t misunderstand. I love it here. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Friendly people wandering the hills, wise men stopping by to discuss the great philosophies of the ages. It’s like the Elysian fields I read about in Greek mythology, except I’m alive and this is all real. I simply don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.

I have a sense that I was brought here as compensation for an unpleasantness in my past. I seem to remember some recent ugliness in which I was unwittingly involved, unjustly accused, something so darkly traumatic that my mind shies from the memory of it. But the wrong was righted and I’ve been sent here to recuperate.

I think of Karl and how he became part of my dream last night. Karl…so handsome, so brilliant, so dashing. I haven’t thought of him since I arrived here. How could I forget the man I love?

A cloud passes across the sun as my thoughts darken with the memory of the dream-Karl in the dream-Maria’s arms. Maria is Karl’s sister! They would
never!

How perverse these nightmares! I shouldn’t let them upset me.

The sun reemerges as I push the memory away. It’s wonderful here. I never want to leave. But I’m tired now. The golden wine I had with dinner has made me drowsy. I’ll just lie back and rest my eyes for a moment…

Oh, no! The dream
again!

I’m in that horrid body, stumbling through the night. Can’t I close my eyes even for a few seconds without falling into this nightmare? I want to scream, to burst from this cocoon of dream and return to my golden fields. But the nightmare tightens its steely grip and I lurch on.

I stop at a schoolhouse. I’m hungry but there’s something more important than food inside. I break down the door and enter the single classroom with its rows of tiny desks. I rip the top off one desk after the other and carry it to the shafts of moonlight pouring through the windows until I find the paper and pencil I seek. I bring them to the teacher’s desk. I’m too large to seat myself, so I kneel beside the desk and force my huge ungainly fingers to grasp the pencil and write.

I know this is a dream, but still I feel compelled to let the dream-Karl know that even though my body has metamorphosed into this huge ungainly monstrosity, his Eva still cares for him.

After many tries, I manage a legible note:

KARL

I LOVE YOU

YOUR EVA

I fold the sheet and take it with me. At Karl’s uncle’s house—where Karl lives—I slip it under the door. Then I stand back in the shadows and wait. And as I wait, I remember more and more about Karl.

We met near the University of Goldstadt where he was a student at the medical college. That was in my real life. I assume he remains a student in my dreams. I so wanted to attend the university but the Regents wouldn’t hear of it. They were scandalized by my application. No women in the College of Arts and Sciences, and especially in the medical college.
Especially
not a poor farm girl.

So I’d hide in the rear of the lecture halls and listen to Dr. Waldman’s lectures on anatomy and physiology. Karl found me there but kept my secret and let me stay. I fell in love with him immediately. I remember that. I remember all our secret meetings, in fields, in lofts. He’d teach me what he learned in class. And then he’d teach me other things. We became lovers. I’d never given myself to any man before. Karl was the first, and I swear he’ll be the only one. I don’t remember how we became separated. I—

Here he comes. Oh, look at him! I want to run to him but I couldn’t bear for him to see me like this. What torture this nightmare is!

I watch him enter his uncle’s house, see him light the candles in the entry-way. I move closer as he picks up my note and reads it. But no loving smile lights his features. Instead, his face blanches and he totters back against the wall. Then he’s out the door and running, flying through the streets, my note clutched in his hand. I follow him as best I can but he outdistances me. No matter. I know the route. I sense where he’s going.

When I arrive at Maria’s house he’s already inside. I lurch to a lighted window and peer within. Karl stands in the center of the room, his eyes wild, the ruddy color still gone from his cheeks. Maria has her arms around his waist. She’s smiling as she comforts him.

“—only a joke,” she says. “Can’t you see that, my love? Someone’s trying to play a trick on you!”

“Then it’s a damn good trick!” Karl holds my note before her eyes. “This is how she always signed her notes—‘Your Eva.’ No one else knew that. Not even you. And I burned all those letters.”

Maria laughs. “So what are you telling me? That Eva wrote you this note? That’s certainly not her handwriting.”

“True, but—”

“Eva is dead, my love.”

The words strike like hammer blows to my brain. I want to shout that I’m here, alive, transformed into this creature. But I keep silent. I have no workable voice. And after all, this is only a dream. I must keep telling myself that.

Only a dream.

Nothing here is true and therefore none of it matters.

Yet I find a horrid fascination in it.

“They hung her,” Maria is saying. “I know because I went and watched. You couldn’t stomach it but I went to see for myself.” Her smile fades as an ugly light grows in her eyes. “They
hung
her, Karl. Hung her till she stopped kicking and swung limp in the breeze. Then they cut her down and took her off to the medical college just as she requested. The noble little thing: Wanted her body donated to science. Well, by now she’s in a thousand little pieces.”

“I know.” Karl’s color is returning, but his flush seems more a shade of guilt than good health. “I saw her brain, Maria. Eva’s brain! Dr. Waldman kept it in a glass jar on one of the lab tables as an example of an abnormal brain.
‘Dysfunctio Cerebri’
his label said, right next to a supposedly normal brain. I had to sit there during all his lectures and stare at it, knowing the whole time who it had belonged to, and that it was not abnormal in the least.”

“It should have been labeled a ‘stupid’ brain.” Maria laughs. “She believed you loved her. She thought I was your sister. She believed everything we told her, and so she wound up taking the blame for your uncle’s murder. As a result, you’re rich and you don’t ever have to think about her again. She’s gone.”

“Her brain’s gone too. I was so glad when pranksters stole it and I no longer had to look at it.”

“Now you can look at me.”

Maria steps back and unbuttons her blouse, baring her breasts. As Karl locks her in an embrace, I reel away from the window, sobbing, retching, running blindly for the stables I call home.

Awake again.

Back in my Elysian fields, but still I cannot shake off the effects of the nightmare. The dream-Maria’s words have roused memories in my waking mind. They are partly true.

How could I have forgotten?

There was a murder. Karl’s rich uncle. And I was accused. I remember now…remember that night. I was supposed to meet Karl at the house. He was going to introduce me to his uncle and bring our love out into the open at last. But when I got there, the door was open and a portly old man lay on the floor, bleeding, dying. I tried to help him but he had lost too much blood. Then the Burgomeister’s men arrived and found me with the slain man’s blood on my hands and the knife that had killed him at my feet.

And Karl was nowhere to be found.

I never saw Karl again. He never came to visit me. Never answered my notes. In fact, his barrister came to the jail and told me to stop writing to Karl—that Karl didn’t know who I was and wanted nothing to do with the murderer of his uncle.

No one believed that I knew Karl. No one but his sister Maria had ever seen us together, and Maria said I was a complete stranger. I remember the final shock when I was told that Maria wasn’t his sister at all.

After that the heart went out of me. I gave up. I lost the will to defend myself. I let them do with me as they wished. My only request was that my body be given to the medical college. That was my private joke on the regents—I would be attending the university after all.

I remember walking to the gallows. I remember the rope going around my neck. After that…

…I was here. So I must have been saved from execution. If only I could remember how. No matter. It will come. What does matter is that since arriving here my life has been a succession of one blissful day after another. Perfect…

Except for the dreams.

But now clouds gather over my Elysian fields as I remember Karl’s betrayal. I’d thought he avoided me in order to protect his family name, but the dream-Maria’s words have not only awakened my memory, they’ve shed new light on all the things that happened to me after that night I went to Karl’s uncle’s house.

The clouds darken and thunder rumbles through the distant mountain passes as my anger and suspicion grow. I don’t know if Karl lied and betrayed me as the dream-Maria said, and I don’t know if he was the one who killed his uncle, but I do know that he deserted me in my hour of most dire need. And for that I will never forgive him.