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    The Best of Richard Matheson
    The Best of Richard Matheson
    The Best of Richard Matheson
    Ebook527 pages7 hours

    The Best of Richard Matheson

    By Richard Matheson and Victor LaValle

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    The definitive collection of terrifying stories by "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century" (Ray Bradbury), edited by award-winning author Victor LaValle

    Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his sixteen Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950, virtually every major writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy has fallen under his influence, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, and Joe Hill, as well as filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. Matheson revolutionized horror by taking it out of Gothic castles and strange cosmos and setting it in the darkened streets and suburbs we recognize as our own. He infused tales of the fantastic and supernormal with dark explorations of human nature, delving deep into the universal dread of feeling alone and threatened in a dangerous world. The Best of Richard Matheson brings together his greatest hits as chosen by Victor LaValle, an expert on horror fiction and one of its brightest talents, marking the first major overview of Matheson's legendary career.

    "[Matheson is] the author who influenced me most as a writer." -Stephen King

    "Richard Matheson's ironic and iconic imagination created seminal science-fiction stories . . . For me, he is in the same category as Bradbury and Asimov." -Steven Spielberg

    "He was a giant, and YOU KNOW HIS STORIES, even if you think you don't." -Neil Gaiman

    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateOct 10, 2017
    ISBN9781101993668
    The Best of Richard Matheson
    Author

    Richard Matheson

    Richard Matheson was one of the great writers of modern science fiction and fantasy. A New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter, his novels included I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man and many others. Stephen King called Matheson 'the author who influenced me the most as a writer'. A Grand Master of Horror and past winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, He also won multiple other awards including the Edgar, the Hugo, the Spur, and the Writer's Guild awards. Richard Matheson passed away in June 2013.

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    • 3/5
      It's difficult to accurately surmise what this collection of stories is lacking but I will do my best. Richard Matheson is a hit or miss writer but unfortunately the selections do little to showcase his unique authorship. Many stories either run on for too long with thin concepts, or alternatively are short with intriguing ideas behind them but leave you wanting more. Very few hit the mark where there is a satisfying pay-off and most of those are the better known pieces adapted for screenplays. I wouldn't personally recommend this anthology.

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    The Best of Richard Matheson - Richard Matheson

    Cover for The Best of Richard Matheson

    PENGUIN CLASSICS

    THE BEST OF RICHARD MATHESON

    RICHARD MATHESON (1926–2013) is the New York Times best-selling author of I Am Legend, Hell House, Somewhere in Time, The Incredible Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, and What Dreams May Come, among other books. He was named a Grand Master of Horror by the World Horror Convention, and received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also won the Edgar, the Spur, and the Writer’s Guild awards. In 2010, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. In addition to his novels, Matheson wrote screenplays, as well as sixteen Twilight Zone episodes, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, based on his short story.

    VICTOR LAVALLE is the award-winning author of four novels, The Changeling, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, and The Devil in Silver, and a collection of short stories, Slapboxing with Jesus. Big Machine was the winner of an American Book Award and the Shirley Jackson Award in 2010, and was selected as one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches writing at Columbia University.

    PENGUIN BOOKS

    An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

    penguinrandomhouse.com

    Copyright © 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1980, 2006, 2008 by RXR, Inc.

    Introduction copyright © 2017 by Victor LaValle

    Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

    Here constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

    Names: Matheson, Richard, 1926–2013, author. | LaValle, Victor D., 1972– editor.

    Title: The best of Richard Matheson / edited with an introduction by Victor LaValle.

    Description: New York: Penguin Books, 2017. | Series: Penguin classics

    Identifiers: LCCN 2017016393 (print) | LCCN 2017016915 (ebook) | ISBN 781101993668 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143130178 (paperback)

    Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Short Stories. | FICTION / Horror. | FICTION / Fantasy / Short Stories.

    Classification: LCC PS3563.A8355 (ebook) | LCC PS3563.A8355 A6 2017 (print) |

    DDC 813/.54—dc23

    LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016393

    Cover art: Daniel Danger

    btb_ppg_c0_r1

    Contents

    About the Author

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Introduction by VICTOR LAVALLE

    THE BEST OF RICHARD MATHESON

    Born of Man and Woman

    Prey

    Witch War

    Shipshape Home

    Blood Son

    Where There’s a Will (written with Richard Christian Matheson)

    Dying Room Only

    Counterfeit Bills

    Death Ship

    Dance of the Dead

    Man with a Club

    Button, Button

    Duel

    Day of Reckoning

    The Prisoner

    Dress of White Silk

    Haircut

    Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

    The Funeral

    Third from the Sun

    The Last Day

    Long Distance Call

    Deus ex Machina

    One for the Books

    Now Die in It

    The Conqueror

    The Holiday Man

    No Such Thing as a Vampire

    Big Surprise

    A Visit to Santa Claus

    Finger Prints

    Mute

    Shock Wave

    Story Credits

    Introduction

    1

    I’ve been asked to write an introduction to these stories by Richard Matheson—The Best of Richard Matheson—at least according to me. I had the enviable task of reading nearly every story he’s ever written and selecting the thirty-three tales included here. This turned out to be like stepping into a time machine, transported back to the age when I started reading him. I was fourteen. The year was 1986. My introduction to his fiction, his short novel I Am Legend, was one of the first books that made me run up to my friends and tackle them so they’d all check it out, too. If you haven’t read it (what the hell is wrong with you?), it manages to be a work of science fiction, a vampire story, a progenitor of the biological plague apocalyptic novel, and also an excellent thriller. All that in about 160 pages. I had to find out more. I dove into The Shrinking Man (the film added Incredible) and Hell House and wow. I wish I had a more sophisticated way to describe my reaction to the seismic effect of Richard Matheson on my young mind, but wow gets at the raw, awestruck nature of the thing. And then I came to find out the man had written short stories. I tracked them down with gusto, with glee. And with time I began to relate to the man’s writing in a way that seemed damn near mystical.

    I want to explain exactly what I mean by that. There’s a lot I need to say about Matheson, and the importance of his fiction, the reasons why this collection is so vital and worthwhile, but I can’t get to that directly. I will go there eventually. But first I have to tell you about my Matheson moment. I don’t mean that I met the man. I mean I stepped into a story he could’ve written. I have to tell you about Cedric and his mother.

    2

    My mother made good when I turned fourteen. At least that’s how she saw it when she moved us out of an apartment in one part of Queens and took us to a house she’d bought in another. The woman emigrated from Uganda in her twenties and now, in her forties, she’d worked like a machine to stop renting and start owning. From a two-bedroom to a two-story home, damn right my mother felt proud. Me, my sister, and my grandmother were the grateful tagalongs.

    We moved in over the summer and when September rolled around I started going to school. The local public school was Springfield Gardens High, and just before I arrived the place had been outfitted with the newest, latest technology: metal detectors. And with good reason. This was 1986, the Crack Era, and as old news reports will tell you some people had a propensity to shoot guns wildly in places where teens gathered. My mother took one look at the school where she was meant to send her child and she made changes posthaste. This woman was not about to have her kid ushered through those contraptions every morning before heading to homeroom. More to the point, she didn’t want to get some phone call about how I’d been caught by Stray Bullet Syndrome while standing around outside. She found a private school out on Long Island and before I could say where the hell is Nassau County she’d gotten me enrolled on a scholarship. My mom was no joke.

    My mom also wasn’t a car owner. She got to work and back by taking a bus to the Long Island Rail Road and the train into Manhattan. Suffice to say there weren’t any such choices at Woodmere Academy. People either got dropped off by their parents (Mercedes, BMW, Audi) or they took a school bus. Mom enrolled me in the pickup service and every morning, around 7:45, I’d go out and stand on the corner of 229th Street and 145th Avenue and there I’d wait for one of those long yellow buses to pick me up.

    I waited in front of a single-family home with yellow aluminum siding. One morning, maybe around November or December, when the chill weather set in heavy, the front window of that house slipped up and a kid my age stuck his head out the window and called to me.

    Aye, he called. Cheese bus.

    I turned, baffled. He had an enormous round head and close haircut. This gave him a kind of Charlie Brown look. A brown Charlie Brown. He wore a white tank top. He was, by no definition, a skinny kid. In fact, me and him might’ve been body doubles.

    Cheese Bus, he said again, and I realized he’d given me a nickname. Before I could speak he reached one meaty hand out of the window and waved me away.

    Go stand down the block, he said. Your bus is fucking up my vibe.

    You don’t own the sidewalk, I said. Citing basic property law was the best I could do.

    You sound like a herb, he said. Cheese, are you a herb?

    Well how come you’re not getting ready for school? I said. What kind of kid treats cutting school like an insult? This one. And with that I cemented my herb status.

    I would try to help you, he said. But I can’t even guess where I’d start.

    I walked up to the chain link fencing at the edge of his parents’ property and leaned my elbows on it so that I was posed just like him.

    Seriously though, I said. You’re skipping?

    He thought about this a little bit. He sighed and said, I’ve got company coming over.

    Like, you’re having a party?

    Party for two, he said, then he looked to his left and pointed, discreetly, with one finger.

    When I looked up I saw two things: my bus—the cheese bus—chugging toward me; and a girl, fourteen, moving down the block with much more grace. This would turn out to be Lianne, Cedric’s sweetheart since seventh grade. They kissed sweetly when she reached him. He led her inside without even saying good-bye.

    After that me and Cedric talked each morning. He’d lean out the window and gab with me before the bus showed up. I made nice, but not because I found him so charming. I’ll admit I had ulterior motives. New in the neighborhood and being bused to a school miles away. How was I going to meet anyone? I wanted a girlfriend, too. Couldn’t Lianne call in a friend for me?

    3

    It turned out to be surprisingly easy to cut school. Just don’t be on the corner when the bus shows up. After two minutes the driver simply drove on. Meanwhile I’d been tucked inside Cedric’s house, peeking out through the blinds like some secret agent at risk of having his cover blown. The bus left, then Cedric tapped me on the shoulder and said, Stop hiding.

    Easy to do when two young women knocked at the front door. Cedric went to let them in and I stood there in the living room feeling quite sure I’d ascended to some higher plane of existence. Or was about to. He opened the door and kissed Lianne, then stepped aside so she and her friend Tasha could slip in. The front door fed right into the living room where I stood. The living room fed right into the kitchen. Apparently there were two bedrooms elsewhere—Cedric’s and his mom’s. When I’d asked him if I could use hers—in case things went well with Tasha—he patted me on the arm and said, Don’t get ahead of yourself.

    Now let me cut in with a message from me as a grown man, as a father. It is absolutely insane that four fourteen-year-olds were sneaking off to get intimate in the middle of the day; I can’t pretend it wasn’t. But at the time it felt wonderfully sane.

    Anyway, I’m standing there and Tasha and Lianne are coming through the doorway and then I heard it, a sound in the kitchen. Knocking. Not all that loud, but I was close to the kitchen and getting closer. By that I mean that Tasha and Lianne were taking off their coats and I ran away. Later I told Cedric I went to get them water, but there’s no other way to say it: I fled.

    As soon as I entered the kitchen the knocking stopped. I figured it might be their boiler kicking in. It was winter after all. I knew I’d run away though so I came up with the water idea and went scrounging for cups. This led me on a chase through the cupboards as, in the other room, Cedric called for me. And then I reached their pantry door. This style of one-family home had a separate little pantry, about the size of a small walk-in closet. I found the door there and, still hunting for glasses, I tried the handle and found it locked. Then Cedric walked into the kitchen.

    Cheese, he said. You making me look bad.

    When he said it he didn’t sound playful. He’d convinced his girlfriend to bring someone with her and then his boy had gone and run into the kitchen. But I also wondered if that was really the reason he seemed unhappy with me. He peeked at the pantry door then back to me.

    Cups is over here, he said, taking four down from a cupboard by the sink. Then he rushed me out of the kitchen.

    He put on a movie. I definitely don’t remember what it was. He closed the blinds so the living room went dim. Lianne leaned into him. Tasha and I hardly spoke. She was as nervous as me.

    At some point Cedric went to the bathroom and left us alone in the living room. Lianne patted the cushion beside her and Tasha hopped over, the pair whispering and I sat there alone. Hadn’t even sipped my water once. And then I heard it—that knocking—coming from the kitchen again. I didn’t hesitate. Maybe I felt stupid sitting alone. I walked in there and went quiet.

    The knocking, low and insistent, came from the other side of that pantry door. I checked for Cedric but he wasn’t around. I tried the door but found it locked. Meanwhile the knocking kept on, regular if weak. It damn sure wasn’t the boiler.

    I whispered, Who is it?

    When I spoke the knocking stopped. I mean instantly. What followed next was a scratching sound. Claws on the floor. I even thought I heard something panting softly.

    A dog.

    Cedric had a dog and he locked it up when company came over.

    I got to my feet and laughed at myself and now thought only of how I would not fuck things up with Tasha, who—it turned out—was exactly as geeky as me. All I had to do was finally speak to her and find out. We finished the movie together in the living room, all four of us. By the time it was over even me and Tasha were kissing. At some point she mentioned a smell in the room. I almost laughed because I knew it was just the funk of four teenagers fucking around. But she persisted. It was worse than that. Could there be something going rotten in the fridge? In the walls? Maybe there was a mutt somewhere in the house, an animal that had had an accident.

    Cedric hardly pulled away from Lianne’s lips. He answered her casually, thoughtlessly. He said, My mother would never let me have a dog.

    I remember hearing those words and going utterly numb.

    4

    Which brings us to Richard Matheson.

    If you’ve picked up this gorgeous book (don’t you love that cover?) then you’ve probably already got a passing knowledge of the man. But just because you may have heard of him, read him, watched the countless shows and movies that he wrote or inspired, that doesn’t mean you may have thought so much about his meaning in the history of the genres of science fiction and fantasy, horror and thrillers. Why bother hashing over all that when you could just dive into the tales themselves? A fine point. The best argument for stopping here and skipping ahead. I wouldn’t blame you. Actually, I’d encourage such a thing.

    I find it interesting to note that Matheson was the son of two Norwegian immigrants. I like to think on that because he is, to my mind, such an American writer, and it’s always good to be reminded that for almost all of us that means, at some point, our people came from elsewhere and landed here. There’s so much journeying in Matheson’s writing—across time and space, across the threshold between life and death, across town to get to work on time (though of course you’ll never get there safely)—as I read through all the stories I wondered how much the journeys of his parents meant to Matheson, the young man. It might be that as the son of a more recent immigrant my mother’s course—her bravery, her drive—informs so much of what I imagine, what I write.

    If nothing else he’s written about how his parents came from Norway and found each other, then circled the wagons around family, fearful of the outside world and clinging to each other. Inside the walls sat a young, bookish Richard Matheson. They kept him close but his mind roamed.

    We should get The Twilight Zone out of the way now. Yes, Richard Matheson wrote some of the most beloved and enduring episodes of that classic show. Let’s rattle off just a few: Third from the Sun, Death Ship, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. You’ve seen them and loved them. You’ve sat down with some friend during a Twilight Zone marathon and giddily anticipated when one of them would play. But before they were on your screen they were in magazines, collected in books. I know this seems almost silly to say, but they were all stories first. And what’s so remarkable, when you read them, is to see how perfect they were right from the start. The clarity of the language, the promise of a pleasing mystery, the mounting tension of the confrontation—the revelation—to come, and the cool satisfaction of seeing Matheson pull off this magic again and again and again (and again). Matheson regularly did the patient work of illustrating an ordinary existence only to have it smash directly into the monstrous, and this becomes the moment of a person’s greatest test. Sometimes they triumph, sometimes they fail, but Matheson knew that in a way the pushing is the point. The stress and anxiety, the drama and fear, that’s when humanity truly gets to understand itself, understand the world.

    Matheson began his writing career with short stories. He worked that form for twenty years, and all were published between 1950 and 1970, a Golden Age for Matheson’s fiction and also for the world of science fiction and fantasy magazines. He started with short stories and an industry existed to support him. Such an idea can seem like fantasy these days. But the pairing was auspicious. These genres were reaching a wider readership, so they’d better have some good content. And Richard Matheson was there. In many ways he was inventing the template that generations of writers would copy.

    The problem with being a pioneer is that you often die out before your settlement thrives. You’re in the ground for years before the village becomes a town; decades before the town becomes a city. Matheson, thankfully, got to see countless kinds of success. It’s always nice to be able to say a writer enjoyed the fruits of his labor. How rare is that? Let’s celebrate it.

    But the other issue with being a pioneer is that the generations who come later may forget the ground you tilled, the innovations you brought into being. You hear Matheson’s name on the lips of so many greats, from Stephen King to Joe Hill. (A little family joke I just couldn’t resist.) But he deserves to be spoken of by so many more. His stories became the bedrock of many genres: thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, so essential it’s almost impossible to really grasp how much he accomplished. How many people take a moment to give thanks for the sidewalks and highways? Yet most of us couldn’t get anywhere without them.

    The other reason this may be the case is that Matheson had such an effortless, clear writing style. He threw the reader into the story and made very little attempt to force attention on himself as Author. This is great for stories, but not so good for getting credit. Writing is like life: too often we praise the show-offs, the ones who wink at us when they toss out some abstruse word. Many tend to think of this as artistry, but I’m less inclined. Or maybe I only mean to highlight the grace, and confidence, of a writer like Richard Matheson. Clarity can be artistry as well. It implies confidence, too. You won’t notice much of what he’s doing the first time you tear through these stories, but on your second pass you should take your time.

    His central concern is survival. What threatens your existence? Even more important, what will you do to get through? Think of the man in Nightmare at 20,000 Feet who risks popping open the emergency window of an airplane at cruising altitude so he can fire a gun at the being he’s seen tearing at the plane’s engine. He’s nearly sucked out into the night sky, but he must do something. He, and the other passengers, must survive. The ordinary meets the monstrous and every life is at risk.

    But let’s not only talk of the classic stories, the ones you no doubt know; they’re worth the price of admission alone, but Matheson has so much more here to offer. There’s my personal favorite find, a story called Witch War. Matheson plays out the idea of a conquering army powered only by the occult abilities of a handful of teenage girls. In between decimating the opposing army they talk smack about one another, they mock and joke, by the end they even revel in the fear they cause to the men they’re meant to defend. It’s a subtle and stunning little tale and it shows off another aspect of Matheson’s talent: he can be wickedly funny.

    Then there’s Dance of the Dead. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but it’s straight up disturbing. It’s a kind of postapocalyptic undead tale that also predates, even anticipates, the reprobates of A Clockwork Orange. (It was also made into a deeply troubling and memorable episode in the Masters of Horror anthology series, written by Matheson’s son, Richard Christian Matheson, and directed by Tobe Hooper.) Where Richard Matheson often had his stories come out on the side of safety or triumph, this one has no time for such treacle. This one wants to hurt you. And it, too, is a product of the same singularly gifted mind.

    The depth and variety of the man’s imagination seem nearly unparalleled. His influence exists even for those who have never read him. He’s in the DNA of too many other writers to count. When you enjoy science fiction and fantasy today, when you read modern horror, you are still reading Richard Matheson.

    5

    The next morning I decided not to skip school. This also had to do with the fact that Tasha—with whom I was now smitten—told me she couldn’t cut twice in one week. So I showed up at my bus stop right around 7:45, and sure enough the cheese bus turned the corner a few blocks west, right on time. But then Cedric’s living room window opened and he leaned out looking as blasé as always. Yet again he had on my Champion sweatshirt, one of many articles of clothing I’d lent him, never to be returned. He leaned on his elbows and watched me quietly for about the count of three.

    All right then, he said, keeping direct eye contact. You want to see?

    Did I? In that moment I didn’t really know.

    Cedric opened the front door. I walked into the house with my head down, my curiosity tinged with dread.

    The living room looked like it hadn’t been cleaned—or even occupied—since me and Tasha had been there yesterday. The couch cushions still in disarray. Cedric walked ahead of me. He entered the kitchen and I hesitated.

    Well? he called out.

    I moved toward the kitchen, but I can’t say it was my choice. I felt compelled to take a step. Pulled in, drawn closer. As I moved I heard the pantry door’s lock click and a faint groan as it swung open. At the same time I smelled it again, what Tasha had been talking about the day before. A kind of rot so strong I experienced it as a wave of heat that made my eyes flutter. And still I stepped through the threshold and entered the kitchen.

    This is my mom, Cedric said.

    There’s a look to ships that have sunk to the bottom of the ocean and remained there for decades. When they’re brought to the surface they’re scaly with barnacles and orange with rust. They look vulnerable and indestructible, simultaneously. A sunken ship, now risen, Cedric’s mother seemed much the same.

    As I said, it was the Crack Era and I recognized what had torpedoed this woman. I tried to greet her but there wasn’t time. Cedric’s mother came at me, her hands dug into my coat pockets, she yanked my book bag off from where it dangled on one shoulder and, right in front of me, she unzipped it and tossed everything out on the floor.

    Ma! Cedric shouted, but he didn’t try to stop her. He’d never looked so young.

    Each of us must’ve outweighed Cedric’s mother by two hundred pounds but I knew I didn’t have the strength to challenge her. She tossed through my things and sucked her teeth and both us boys just watched her.

    Ma, Cedric said again, but much softer this time. Please, Ma.

    Then she turned and leapt at him, her own child, and sent him flying backward. He went to the ground. She climbed right up onto his chest, that’s how I remember it. She pulled at the sweatshirt, my sweatshirt, and I heard the fabric tear. I went down on a knee and tossed everything back into the bag and that’s when Cedric cried out, I swear I thought it was an infant wailing from another room. When I looked up she’d torn open his sweatshirt and her hands dug at his flesh. I saw blood. I thought she might devour him right there.

    And there I’d finally reached my Matheson moment. The ordinary was over. The monstrous was here. I wish I could say I helped him, but I didn’t. I picked up my bag and I scurried backward. If someone was going to survive, better it be me. Even today I can still hear him whispering, pleading, that same single word. Ma. Ma.

    I got to the living room and crawled to the front door. I opened it and pulled the door shut behind me. I stopped skipping school after that. I told Tasha about what happened and, bless her, she believed me. But when I went back to the house, knocking for what seemed like hours, Cedric didn’t answer. I’d never seen a place look so lifeless. Lianne told Tasha she couldn’t reach him. She’d call the house, but the phone only rang and rang. I never saw him pop his head out his front window ever again.

    Obviously I’ve turned this history into a story, my homage to Richard Matheson, to my old friend Cedric, and even to his mom. While some of this tale is indeed fiction, there really was a monster living in that house.

    Which brings me back, one last time, to Richard Matheson. What did this son of Norwegian immigrants, who spent the majority of his life writing in California, know about the Crack Era nightmares of a black boy from Queens? On the surface I’d say nothing. Superficially he and I could hardly seem further apart. But then why, when I wrote out what happened between me and Cedric and his mother, did I hear the echoes of so many of Matheson’s tales? I’m not talking about the plot points but the essence. The fight for survival, the monstrous breaking in on the ordinary, no one holds the sole rights to such real estate. But Richard Matheson tilled the soil long before me and, likely, long before you, too. He even built a house in which so many of us still dwell. All hail the architect! Now come on inside.

    VICTOR LAVALLE

    BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN

    X—This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch.

    This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. I didnt like it.

    Mother is a pretty I know. In my bed place with cold walls around I have a paper things that was behind the furnace. It says on it SCREENSTARS. I see in the pictures faces like of mother and father. Father says they are pretty. Once he said it.

    And also mother he said. Mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you he said and didn’t have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldnt reach. Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. Thats how I saw the water falling from upstairs.

    —

    XX—This day it had goldness in the upstairs. As I know when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I look at it the cellar is red.

    I think this was church. They leave the upstairs. The big machine swallows them and rolls out past and is gone. In the back part is the little mother. She is much small than me. I am I can see out the little window all I like.

    In this day when it got dark I had eat my food and some bugs. I hear laughs upstairs. I like to know why there are laughs for. I took the chain from the wall and wrapped it around me. I walked squish to the stairs. They creak when I walk on them. My legs slip on them because I dont walk on stairs. My feet stick to the wood.

    I went up and opened a door. It was a white palace. White as white jewels that come from upstairs sometime. I went in and stood quiet. I hear the laughing some more. I walk to the sound and look through to the people. More people that I thought was. I thought I should laugh with them.

    Mother came out and pushed the door in. It hit me and hurt. I fell back on the smooth floor and the chain made noise. I cried. She made a hissing noise into her and put her hand on her mouth. Her eyes got big.

    She looked at me. I heard father call. What fell he called. She said a iron board. Come help pick it up she said. He came and said how is that so heavy you need. He saw me and grew big. The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. I spilled some of the drip on the floor from one arm. It was not nice. It made ugly green on the floor.

    Father told me to go to the cellar. I had to go. The light it hurt some now in my eyes. It is not so like that in the cellar.

    Father tied my legs and arms up. He put me on my bed. Upstairs I heard laughing while I was quiet there looking on a black spider that was swinging down to me. I thought what father said. Ohgod he said. And only eight.

    —

    XXX—This day father hit in the chain again before it had light. I have to try pull it out again. He said I was bad to come upstairs. He said never do that again or he would beat me hard. That hurts.

    —

    XXXX—I got the chain from the wall out. Mother was upstairs. I heard little laughs very high. I looked out the window. I saw all little people like the little mother and little fathers too. They are pretty.

    They were making nice noise and jumping around the ground. Their legs was moving hard. They are like mother and father. Mother says all right people look like they do.

    One of the little fathers saw me. He pointed at the window. I let go and slid down the wall in the dark. I curled up as they would not see. I heard their talks by the window and foots running. Upstairs there was a door hitting. I heard the little mother call upstairs. I heard heavy steps and I rushed in my bed place. I hit the chain in the wall and lay down on my front.

    I heard my mother come down. Have you been at the window she said. I heard the anger. Stay away from the window. You have pulled the chain out again.

    She took the stick and hit me with it. I didnt cry. I cant do that. But the drip ran all over the bed. She saw it and twisted away and made a noise. Oh mygodmygod she said why have you done this to me? I heard the stick go bounce on the stone floor. She ran upstairs.

    —

    XXXXX—This day it had water again. When mother was upstairs I heard the little one come slow down the steps. I hidded myself in the coal bin for mother would have anger if the little mother saw me.

    She had a little live thing with her. It walked on the arms and had pointing ears. She said things to it.

    It was all right except the live thing smelled me. It ran up the coal and looked down at me. The hairs stood up. In the throat it made an angry noise. I hissed but it jumped on me.

    I didnt want to hurt it. I got fear because it bit me harder than the rat does. I hurt and the little mother screamed. I grabbed the live thing tight. It made sounds I never heard. I pushed it all together. It was all lumpy and red on the black coal.

    I hid there when mother called. I was afraid of the stick. She left. I crept over the coal with the thing. I hid it under my pillow and rested on it. I put the chain in the wall again.

    —

    X—This is another times. Father chained me tight. I hurt because he beat me. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He ran out of my bed place and locked the door.

    I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once.

    I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me.

    If they try to beat me again Ill hurt them. I will.

    —

    X—

    PREY

    Amelia arrived at her apartment at six-fourteen. Hanging her coat in the hall closet, she carried the small package into the living room and sat on the sofa. She nudged off her shoes while she unwrapped the package on her lap. The wooden box resembled a casket. Amelia raised its lid and smiled. It was the ugliest doll she’d ever seen. Seven inches long and carved from wood, it had a skeletal body and an oversized head. Its expression was maniacally fierce, its pointed teeth completely bared, its glaring eyes protuberant. It clutched an eight-inch spear in its right hand. A length of fine, gold chain was wrapped around its body from the shoulders to the knees. A tiny scroll was wedged between the doll and the inside wall of its box. Amelia picked it up and unrolled it. There was handwriting on it. This is He Who Kills, it began. He is a deadly hunter. Amelia smiled as she read the rest of the words. Arthur would be pleased.

    The thought of Arthur made her turn to look at the telephone on the table beside her. After a while, she sighed and set the wooden box on the sofa. Lifting the telephone to her lap, she picked up the receiver and dialed a number.

    Her mother answered.

    Hello, Mom, Amelia said.

    Haven’t you left yet? her mother asked.

    Amelia steeled herself. Mom, I know it’s Friday night— she started.

    She couldn’t finish. There was silence on the line. Amelia closed her eyes. Mom, please, she thought. She swallowed. There’s this man, she said. His name is Arthur Breslow. He’s a high-school teacher.

    You aren’t coming, her mother said.

    Amelia shivered. It’s his birthday, she said. She opened her eyes and looked at the doll. I sort of promised him we’d . . . spend the evening together.

    Her mother was silent. There aren’t any good movies playing tonight, anyway, Amelia’s mind continued. We could go tomorrow night, she said.

    Her mother was silent.

    Mom?

    Now even Friday night’s too much for you.

    Mom, I see you two, three nights a week.

    "To visit, said her mother. When you have your own room here."

    "Mom, let’s not start on that again," Amelia said. I’m not a child, she thought. Stop treating me as though I were a child!

    How long have you been seeing him? her mother asked.

    A month or so.

    Without telling me, her mother said.

    I had every intention of telling you. Amelia’s head was starting to throb. I will not get a headache, she told herself. She looked at the doll. It seemed to be glaring at her. He’s a nice man, Mom, she said.

    Her mother didn’t speak. Amelia felt her stomach muscles drawing taut. I won’t be able to eat tonight, she thought.

    She was conscious suddenly of huddling over the telephone. She forced herself to sit erect. I’m thirty-three years old, she thought. Reaching out, she lifted the doll from its box. You should see what I’m giving him for his birthday, she said. I found it in a curio shop on Third Avenue. It’s a genuine Zuni fetish doll, extremely rare. Arthur is a buff on anthropology. That’s why I got it for him.

    There was silence on the line. All right, don’t talk, Amelia thought. It’s a hunting fetish, she continued, trying hard to sound untroubled. It’s supposed to have the spirit of a Zuni hunter trapped inside it. There’s a golden chain around it to prevent the spirit from— She couldn’t think of the word; ran a shaking finger over the chain. —escaping, I guess, she said. His name is He Who Kills. You should see his face. She felt warm tears trickling down her cheeks.

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