Night Visions: Hardshell

[dem bones]

Clive Barker (ed.) - Night Visions: Hardshell (Berkley, 1988)

Dean R. Koontz
Miss Attila The Hun
Hardshell
Twilight Of The Dawn

Edward Bryant
Predators
The Baku
Frat Rat Bash
Haunted
Buggage
Doing Colfax

Robert R. McCammon
The Deep End
A Life In The Day Of
Best Friends

Blurb:
NIGHT VISIONS
On the cutting edge of modern terror, this innovative collection features new and excit­ing works by today's master storytellers. The acclaimed Dean R. Koontz, Robert R. McCam­mon and Edward Bryant demonstrate their unique talents in these nerve-shattering tales of the macabre and give new meaning to the word fear. Here is a celebration of all-too- human nightmares, presented by the phenomenal Clive Barker...


Edward Bryant

Predators: Lisa Plackwell, new to the city and homesick, rents her very first apartment. Just her luck that upstairs neighbour, Roger Cross, thinks he's God's gift to woman and refuses to accept otherwise. Cross stalks Lisa for several weeks, finally cornering her in the basement laundry. Constant harassment brings out the beast in her.

Frat Rat Bash: The final day of Hell Week. Scotty Turnbuckle is determined to become a Tau Sigma man, make the family proud. Problem is, Pledgemaster Bonzer has singled him out for especially brutal treatment. A morality tale in the tradition of the EC comics, if nastier. Have read Frat Rat Bash maybe story five/ six times over the years. It invariably makes me think of the Columbine Massacre.

Haunted: Bonnie Keller is visited by the ghost of her murdered hippy lover from campus riot days, the kitchen knife still buried in his gut.

An abundance of pop culture references: Surrealistic Pillow, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hendrix/ Joplin/ Morrison pewter figurines, the Filmore, granny glasses, etc. Danny Clay still wears his favourite, very bloodstained, Jefferson Airplane t-shirt (signed by Grace Slick).

Doing Colfax: Kin and Jeffie cruising Colfax Avenue in a big flash Chevrolet. Jeffie wants a burger, Kin wants to 'do' that cute young hitcher in the short skirt. Burgers can wait.

[dem bones]

The Baku: For several days Robert Maxwell has run the gauntlet of rival protest groups to reach his place of work, the Enerco Tower, Beverley Hills. It is ultimately Maxwell's decision whether a nuclear power station is opened in Southern California. When the hundred thousand ghosts of Nagasaki join the demonstration, a little girl among them gifts him a sinister netsuke for his collection. Sub-plot concerns the blossoming romance between Maxwell's daughter, Connie, and an anti-nuke activist.

Buggage: "Ever since Los Alamos and the Trinity Project, there's been a modern folklore that the radiation's done strange things to the flora and fauna."

Bugs on the rampage in the New Mexico desert. Taking shelter in the attic of an abandoned house, drifter Davey Wendroff is colonised by mutant ants. The insects, communicating telepathically via leader 'Gregor,' assure Davey they wish him no harm - as a gesture of goodwill they even remove a cancerous growth - and for a time he is able to continue unhindered with his life which improves no end. All is well until he meets and falls in love with Lynda. After spending the night at an SF Festival (a Them!, Tarantula, The Giant Gila Monster triple bill), Lynda invites him back to her place for some fun and games in the bedroom ....

Frat Rat Bash, Buggage and Predators are my pick, though they're all good. Bryant's linked author's notes to each story act as a disconcerting framing device.

The Dean R. Koontz content has already been commented upon badly elsewhere on this board

[dem bones]

Robert R. McCammon

The Deep End: A shape-shifting alien monster haunts the public swimming pool at Parnell Park, drowning holidaymakers as the mood takes it. Glenn Calder knows it was responsible for the death of his sixteen-year-old son and won't allow another family to suffer as he has. On the eve of the pool reopening for the season, he breaks in and takes to the black water with a harpoon gun. The alien, disguised as a rubber ring, is waiting for him.

A Life In The Day Of: "Wanna buy a pencil, mister?" Johnny Strickland, rising star of a Manhattan ad company, is determined to reach the top in double quick time. An encounter with a blind, legless old beggar reveals the future, causes Johnny to re-evaluate what's most important to him. Very Frank Capra.

Best Friends: Juvenile Held In Bizarre Triple Slaying. Dr. Jack Shannon accesses the star patient on the Marbury Memorial Hospital Psychiatric Ward. Tim Clausen, self-confessed Demon-raiser, allegedly murdered his parents and ten year old sister, decorating the walls with Satanic slogans written in gore. How could this slight teenager possibly have the strength to tear three people to pieces with his bare hands? Easy, says the kid in the straitjacket. His 'best friends' Adolf, Frog, and Mother did all the hard work. Would you like to meet them?

Liked The Deep End best. Best Friends begins well but, I don't know, overdoes the special FX or something. Violent as they are, the demon's don't convince.