Thomas F. Monteleone (ed.) - Borderlands 4 (1994)

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This was the last of the Borderlands' original run in the '90s, although to date there have been another three volumes. Certainly a strong one as far as I've read; the Wu, Crowther, Strasser, Greenberg & Campbell stories are all top notch, and the Etchison, Connolly, and Spencer stories are also very good. 

A Wind from the South � Dennis Etchison

House of Cool Air � William F. Wu

Morning Terrors � Peter Crowther

Misadventures in the Skin Trade � Don D�Ammassa

Circle of Lias � Lawrence C. Connolly

Watching the Soldiers � Dirk Strasser

One in the A.M. � Rachel Drummond

A Side of the Sea � Ramsey Campbell

Painted Faces � Gerard Daniel Hourner

Monotone � Lawrence Greenberg
The Ocean and All Its Devices - William Browning Spencer

Dead Leaves � James C. Dobbs

From the Mouths of Babes � Bentley Little

The Late Mr. Havel�s Apartment � David Herter

Union Dues � Gary Braunbeck

Earshot � Glenn Isaacson

Fee � Peter Straub

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From the Mouths of Babes - Bentley Little: Selena and Wade Donaldson's son Bobby has been sick. Nothing unusual with that, except he's vomiting up bits and pieces of animals--a rat's head here, a cat's paw there, etc. The horrified parents set out to find the source, which they believe to be Bobby's school--just as they begin to vomit up animal parts themselves. 

Truly demented. It's taken me a while to 'click' with Little's writing and subject matter, but I'm finally getting a handle on it. A lot of it has a surreal or bizarro feel to it, except it's written in straightforward, competent prose without anything fussy. This one feels like Umberto Lenzi ghostwriting a Goosebumps book. 


Dead Leaves - James C. Dobbs: As a kid in Kentucky, John Meaks is fascinated by a dead possum he finds. As a man, with a terminal cancer diagnosis, he returns to the countryside to commit suicide and let his body be taken back into the earth.

That's it, except it's almost 30 pages, which involve a cumbersome subplot about siring a kid that involves much discussion of vasectomies and some boring sex scenes, as well as intermittent paragraphs taken from an embalmer's handbook and a field guide discussing animals that feed on carrion. It doesn't work as a horror story, an 'experimental' tale or even a straightforward 'literary' story. Dobbs' real life--according to the author introduction, he grew up in Kentucky in a shack and became a professional gambler--sounds much more interesting than this slog.

A Wind from the South - Dennis Etchison: Evie Markham is home alone during a hot Santa Ana wind when a strange young woman shows up at the door and invites herself in. The young woman says that she's moving to the neighborhood soon, and asks Evie a number of questions about her son and husband (where exactly are they, by the way?), to Evie's growing unease. As the visit continues, she begins to notice odd slips in her memory and perception. What is going on?

Etchison never quite does it for me, but this is solid enough. It has a Ramsey Campbell sort of 'sanity slippage' thing going on here, but not quite as well. This is apparently an excerpt from Etchison's book California Gothic.

House of Cool Air - William F. Wu: The unnamed protagonist lives a bizarre life of servitude to a wealthy family. Although he goes to school during the school year, he spends most of the day perched naked on a thick wooden post, only brought down as a whipping boy when one of thre three young girls in the family does something bad. These punishments, inevitably, involve his 'marbles' and 'handle.' Occasionally, he sneaks around the house (which rarely ends well for him), but one day he sees a naked young girl just like him trying to escape the family. Intrigued, he sets out to find her. . .

Probably sounds like weird 'dark fantasy' rubbish from the description but this is a great story, gripping and exciting and raising all sorts of questions. Maybe the best story in the collection. 

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Morning Terrors - Peter Crowther: Terry has been suffering from 'morning terrors'--a series of vivid nightmares which, to his dismay, seem to be steadily unfolding. A week ago it was just the bedroom wall looking slimy and wet; then the furniture started disappearing. Now, he's in a bedroom with an orange, pulsating sky outside and a strange shape on the bed where his wife should be. And he's getting steady chest pains. However, Dr. Platt says there's nothing wrong with his heart or his chest at all, except for the minor irritation on Terry's nipples. As for the dreams, he just needs a vacation. But the dream just keeps unfolding. . .

I don't think I've ever read a Crowther story I didn't enjoy, and this is one of the best. Think of this as "Janissaries of Emilion" but with a thoroughly 90s body horror twist. Really unforgettable.

It does, however, have a slightly naff line, perfectly punctuated, which could be its very own short-short horror story: "His hand grabbed for his penis and. . .it wasn't there!"

Circle of Lias - Lawrence C. Connolly: After driving his family across the state for what turns out to be a fruitless job interview, unemployed computer teacher Sam Fric wants nothing more to lie down in his Days Inn bedroom and fall asleep watching Sister Act. Bitchy wife Cloe and whiny daughter Lisa have other plans, though, and send him out into the middle-of-nowhere town of Coal Hollow on a quest for honeybuns. But the journey is odd. First, he encounters fat, garrulous Parker Lewis, who's surprised that Sam isn't part of the "Circle of Lias," the religious group that 'controls their reality' by 'kneading their life loaf and letting it rise.' Then, crossing the highway, Sam almost gets run down by a bakery truck that came out of nowhere. But there's more tricks, and even a treat or two, in store. . .


A little disappointing, this one--while the evocation of a middle-of-nowhere travelers' stop off the highway, with its economy inns and 7-Elevens is spot on, and the Circle of Lias suitably unnerving, it twists one or two times too many to be satisfying. The ending, while good, could be stronger. 

Misadventures in the Skin Trade - Don D'Ammassa: Dougherty treats his body like a temple, keeping rigorous control over his diet and exercise routine. When, despite these efforts, he notices some blemishes and looseness in his skin, he comes to the only logical conclusion: Some miscreant has stolen his perfect skin and replaced it with their own inferior pelt! Dougherty suspects one of his coworkers, and soon zeroes in on Eric Nicholson as prime suspect. Now, all that's left is for Dougherty to retrieve his stolen property. . .

D'Ammassa seems to have been everywhere in the 1990s horror scene, contributing lots of book reviews and short stories to horror magazines and anthologies. This tale isn't very surprising, and it pays off its set ups the way you'd expect, but those payoffs and punchlines are well-executed and leave you with a shudder and a grin.

[andydecker]

Jan 5, 2023 14:18:13 GMT pbsplatter said:

This one feels like Umberto Lenzi ghostwriting a Goosebumps book. 

Hideous Ebook cover, though.

[pbsplatter]

Oh the ebook covers for this are horrible. I have the White Wolf ones from the 1990s with excellent 'edgy' art but I couldn't find a good picture for it (I may have to take my own!)

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

[pbsplatter]

Thanks, Anna. That's much better.

One in the A.M. - Rachel Drummond: You're alone in the house--well, you and the baby, anyway. But you can't sleep, so you decide to spook yourself with an old monster movie. But what's that noise upstairs?

In the author's introduction, Monteleone comments that he got lots of 'short-short' submissions but found many of them overly reliant on a clunky or obvious twist. I'd argue this one is just such an example--it's pointless, predictable, and the 'stinger' doesn't even make much sense. Reads like one of the 'creepypasta' that clutter up the net.

Earshot - Glenn Isaacson: Grossman rants about his obsession with beautiful Linda Greaves to an unresponsive rabbit. Then he gets a page from his secretary.

Another short short, but much better done. Nasty little short with a clever twist (and, happily, the rabbit lives)!

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Watching the Soldiers - Dirk Strasser: Mikhael and Adam live somewhere in Eastern Europe with their parents Elika and Pavl. One day in the skies, Mikhael sees a glorious vision of beautiful, heroic soldiers shining in golden glory headed off to fight at the border. But as the months go on, the visions of the soldiers get less and less glamorous (and lower in the sky), and first Adam, and then Pavl, are taken to join them. And now Mikhael wants to go too. . .

A touching, beautifully written fairy tale of war; it isn't horror but it's certain grim enough.


Painted Faces - Gerard Daniel Houarner: Gene spent his childhood being daubed in make-up and molested by his serial killer father. Now he's a family man who copes with the trauma by visiting dominatrices, although the disappearance of family dog Shamus and other neighborhood animals suggests another, less acceptable coping mechanism. When Gene wakes up in the sex dungeon he's visiting to find Mistress Eve gutted and splattered around, he fears the worst about himself. But the reality is much more depraved than that. 

It's a wretched story, and it only gets worse once the risible twist gets revealed. 

Monotone - Lawrence Greenberg: Linda's relationship with glib yuppie Jim is on the rocks--he can't even be bothered to listen to her about the weird package she's just got in the mail. Said package consists of a growing lump that sings and hums. At first she's concerned, but soon she wouldn't dream of giving it up.

Very similar to Bentley Little's "The Potato" from earlier in the series, but it's well-written and surprisingly moving. 

The Ocean and All Its Devices - William Browning Spencer: George Hume and his family run a seaside hotel on the Carolina coast. Before they can close down for the off-season like the rest of the area, they have one last set of guests. These are the Franklins, consisting of the attractive but taciturn and grave parents and their quieter, slightly 'off' daughter Melissa, who've been making an autumn visit to the hotel for the last eight years. The Franklins make odd visits to the beach that leave hundreds of dead fish in their wake (and rotting ocean vegetation in the halls). So far, so odd, but it's when Greg Franklin is found drowned, tattoos and sigils all over his body, that the Humes get drawn deeper into the mystery around the family and their unsettling daughter. Which proves to be bad news for young Nancy Hume's boyfriend Steve, among others.


Takes a little while to get going, but it all comes together wonderfully in the end. It's chilling, poignant, and more than a little horrific. A gem of the collection (which seems to have been cut from the ebook reissue--in case the horrid artwork wasn't enough of a dissuasion!)

The Long Holiday - William Ellis: An unnamed narrator slaves away on a conveyor belt in an arctic wasteland. Those who falter are whisked away to an unknown fate and replaced with fresh laborers by their overseers--odd humanoid beasts announced by a tinkling of bells. Our hero takes a chance and escapes, but all his efforts do is bring him face to face with the master of the operation. . .


In retrospect it shouldn't have taken me as long to figure it out as it did. A little overwritten, but it's a wicked and clever idea generally well-executed. 

A Side of the Sea - Ramsey Campbell: Ducking the pouring rain after the bathroom stop, our narrator gets on the wrong bus to resume his seaside excursion. No matter, that'll all be sorted out later. But for now, he's trapped on a bus with a variety of eccentrics who insist on playing the most inane and annoying games to pass the time...


This is quintessential Ramsey Campbell for me--on the surface, a single decision (getting on the other bus) leads down a slippery slope of humiliations, misunderstandings and madness. At the same time, there's the lurking concern that something darker has been behind it all, and maybe these odd encounters have been in the post for a while. . . Was pleasantly reminded of The Grin of the Dark by some of the schizoid 'word salad' babbling used by the narrator's fellow passengers. 
 

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Just three more here--two I've been putting off (Braunbeck & Straub) and one I've never heard of.


Here we go:

The Late Mr. Havel's Apartment - David Herter: Rachel Myers lives a relatively solitary life in her apartment; upstairs lives the pleasant elderly Mr. Havel. One day, after Havel dies, her landlady knocks on the door. Would Rachel like to come collect some of her belongings? Rachel, who has never been in the apartment and only spoke with the man once, is shocked to find Havel had the embarrassing identification bracelet her parents bought her for summer camp, the one she'd tossed into Lake Sealth on the second day. And there's a picture of her at camp as well. And other pictures, showing Rachels who never were. And what's with the board game Mr. Havel liked to play every week. Something called "probabilities?"


I've learned in this series that whenever Monteleone's introduction to a story invokes Rod Serling, it's probably not going to be that great. This is no exception; there are some very interesting ideas teased here but nothing ever coheres.

Union Dues - Gary A. Braunbeck: Sheriff Jackson is cleaning up after a riot at the factory between strikers and scabs, when he and his deputy see a dead worker who seems to disintegrate. And at this point, so does the plot of the story.

I'm sorry, maybe that's not fair, but I have really soured on Braunbeck. There are some interesting ideas here about a union that's a cult of the factory, and about workers becoming biomechanical extensions of The Machine, but it's too maudlin, too disjointed, too trying to plumb emotional resonance and hammer the metaphor home. 


That's two done, so now it's just time to face off with Straub. . .

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Fee - Peter Straub: Tells the early life story of Fielding 'Fee' Bandolier, from his unhappy homelife with domineering father Bob and his very, very sick mother to his excursions to the movie theater where he gets molested while watching a Siodmak film, with stops in between to learn the Nazi origins of the Blue Rose. 


This is an absolute tour de force, one that I think demands close and careful re-reading. There's a lot going on, almost too much to drink in with one sitting, but this is Straub in top form, and it almost makes up for naming a character "Fielding Bandolier." 

Although. . .what is it about Straub and kids getting molested in movie theaters? 

Overall verdict--this is a generally good anthology.