Sometimes I see melon tears on the horizon. Tonight, they’re a smear on the
darkness. Leaves are falling. A big moon is rising, laying a silver carpet
on the crisp autumn field. The trees and towers of Toronto rise in the
night, granting me that illusory feeling of loneliness. I use the word
illusory because all human feelings are little more than that. There isn't a
kernel of reality in others than we can touch, and we don't have a definite
core ourselves. It all shifts like mist, yet I do agree that occasionally
faces form and touch, and some part of the world is shared.
We
really are ghosts; we can be nothing more, and if ghosts are what we fear,
then we fear ourselves.
As the
host of this convention - Halloweencon Toronto – I’m a man who has written
about ghosts, and one of my key guests specializes in ghosts. Of course, the
difference is that my tales have never been completed. It's a sort of
writer's block that never lets me end a story. My manuscripts remain like
ancient scrolls, having lost detail that will never be recovered.
I do
admire Sam Allan because he did finish his tales, and they are the best
around. I invited him because of his talent, but his demands were so
disappointing. Would the wine and partying flow freely, and just between two
lovers of dark fantasy, would I provide him with cocaine and a lover for the
weekend? It certainly is true that the stories are beautiful, and the flesh
is spotted with corruption.
Ghost
stories are often told by firelight, and now, as I light the kindling, I can
tell you how they end. They end in fright and death. But that is nothing to
fear because death cannot be real. Like all else, it too is an illusion and
a ghost. Sam Allan said that, and I quoted it to him just before I shot him
with his own antique pistol.
He had
no last words. Sam died quickly, like the characters in his tales, leaving
the reader the sole right to speculate on the meaning of his death. He
certainly was frightened as I held the gun and told him why he would die, so
call this one a scary story - for him.
Flames
lick up, and if you were here, you would see Sam Allan as I see him. Though
you might not recognize him. I have hung him from an oak bough, holding his
spirit here to wander. He wears my manuscript around his neck because he is
the final chapter. San once said that Halloween without a ghost story is not
Halloween, and now we have our tale through my manuscript and San, and we
have perfection.
+++
Vance
Kingsley is another talent I invited to Halloweencon Toronto, and he was
very hard to get. My news briefs on the many goodies of the convention had
little influence on him. It was only when I notified him that our panel had
selected him for a special award for accomplishment and perseverance that he
agreed to attend.
For
many years, Vance was known for starting the "old shouldn't it be called
dark fantasy and not horror" debate at conventions. And I don't suppose
writers can ever resolve that question when publishers seem to name the
genre. No matter what you tell them, they'll use the name they think will
sell the work.
Vance
arrived from the airport in a limousine, a striking man with a classic mouth
that properly belonged on a statue, and gray eyes that bore into me with the
power of a Satan child. After introductions, we sat in my backyard,
discussing convention events while the LSD I put in his drink took effect.
Once it did, I overpowered him and tied him to a totem I keep. I killed him
with two hundred feathered pins, tossing them in to puncture him from his
feet up, the last two going through his eyes to his brain. With each toss, I
asked him, "Is it horror or is it dark fantasy?" Too bad his replies were
never more than curses, agonized moaning, and babble. Now he hangs here in
stiff beauty on his special bough, and the attached manuscript remains
incomplete. I really don't know if it is horror or dark fantasy.
+++
Ricky
Layton is probably one of the sweetest guys around. He bubbles with warmth
and inspiration. In less than half an hour, I felt like I'd been his friend
for years. His knowledge of the field is tremendous, and he is one of those
people who can sit down and quickly write an excellent fright novel. He's a
big jump from other writers. We tear our hair out and can never finish the
work.
I
suppose my best memory of Ricky would be the knack he had of spinning
intellectual rings around me without making me feel inferior. It's a
wonderful thing in a world of people who all want to be one up on you. His
bad reputation has always been very undeserved. If you haven't heard, Ricky
is the novelist the censorship lobby always attacks, mainly because of the
imitative killings that follow after his books are published.
Ricky
can't be blamed for that, though his usually upbeat expression melts to
sadness when he speaks of it. It really is a freedom-of-expression thing for
Ricky. He maintains that he never glamorized suicide. Depression has been a
condition he's suffered all of his life. A fight to stay alive. “Damn kids,”
Ricky said, as I drove him out to the field, “they imitate every killing I
write about. What option do I have? It isn't horror fiction if there are no
victims of the evil forces.”
Poor
guy, he’d got himself into a state, and his eyes seemed to well with
confusion when I parked, handed him a pistol, and told him to take a walk in
the field.
He did
take that walk, but he didn't walk back. Guess it was the depression and
finding Sam and Vance hanging there. Ricky shot himself, and perhaps we
shouldn't let the news get out. We wouldn't want people to imitate him,
would we?
+++
Remember Sandy Smitherman's famous voodoo tale where a movie director has
his cuts to an author's work come back on him. Sandy did well with that
story. But he didn't do me a good turn on the story I sent him. In my
submission to his Bag of Shining Bones anthology, I asked him to end the
story, as I couldn’t complete it. Instead of help, I was cut to pieces bit
by bit. It took months to get a one-sentence rejection and seven more
letters for a proper explanation. All I wanted was a proper review of my
tale, and he told me not to submit again. Then, when I read the anthology, I
noticed that every single writer published in it was a big name and had
attended a recent convention with Sandy.
That
whole anthology was a lie. These guys claim they are publishing new talent
when they are really just making deals at conventions with name writers. And
of course, editors like Smitherman appear in the Free Speech rags to launch
lofty attacks on all forms of censorship. The one point not mentioned is
that editors cut and censor more material than anyone else. They pimp for
publishers; they grab all the top posts and jobs, and use them as a
springboard to get ahead. The little guys are bled to death.
When
Smitherman arrived at my house, I thought I had blasted into the past. He
looked so much like a beatnik. But a sophisticated one with a
holier-than-thou attitude. His attendance at the convention I had simply
bought, money being his prime mover. Blood and money, the blood coming into
play when I got him to the field, stripped and switched him with Hickory. It
was a painful, numbing death - a lot of screaming as I worked him over with
the branch. Of course, I waited while the welts and cuts rose, then I opened
the largest of them with my hunting knife and watched as he shivered and
bled to death.
He
begged for his life as I had begged him to help me with my story. Begging
did not work for either of us.
+++
The
only person to arrive unannounced and uninvited to the convention was an
official for a literary union, and he was a big beach-boy type of guy with a
mat of blond hair and a California tan. And get this, his face was painted
like a Goth. He had his first book of stories with him, and I could identify
with that, though his tales were all steaming organ and gore tales written
in a nerdy first-person style. During breakfast with him, I remained silent,
listening as he talked about union stuff. Then I took him out hunting in the
field, and when I was the right distance from him, I gut-shot him with a
crossbow. It was a barbed arrow, and he was such a big guy that he remained
standing with his hands on the shaft. Coming to his aid, I seized the bolt
and yanked it out. And there were the old steaming organs, blood, and slimy
blue-pink tissue. There has to be more to a story than this, I said as he
collapsed and died. And on the union issue, I've always hated unions, and
that includes unions for writers. The first reason is that they aren't real
unions, the second being that nearly all writers in the world are poor
because of them. They're all too weak. They all sell out. They've created a
world where a few top novelists make all of the money and the rest of us
starve. If it were possible, I would kill them all, along with every
publisher in the industry, and write a new chapter to the Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Getting one was better than none. I feel much better now.
Reviewers and critics, three of them showed, and I won't tell you what I did
to them. Just be satisfied that it was another gore story with elements of
the gross out, involving piano wire, spinning blades, and a nail gun. Get to
them before they get to you is my motto when it comes to reviewers.
+++
I
didn't invite or kill any publishers. In supernatural or horror fiction,
they’re nearly all Americans, they’re crooks and bums, and everyone knows
it. Let's just say their reputation has saved them. The last two were
teachers, or should I say writers who teach. Nearly all writers teach; you
would think there wasn't another job a writer could do.
No more
classes, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. That's what I said to
Janice Elwood just before I opened fire on her with a Uzi. She was an
amazingly tough sort of person, continuing to live with a strange scream
frozen on her face as the bullets sent blood, skin, and bone spurting up
like rain.
Her
friend Candy I saved for last. And of course, you all know the lovely Candy.
The most admired woman at all conventions. She always takes the awards and
has more awards than any other writer. And included in that raft of bronze,
silver, plastic, and glass is my Halloweencon award. A special design, it
has true beauty, and in appearance, it is a small head painted with a gasp
of terror. The hair stands up in a thousand sharp points, and those points
were well received by Candy as I shoved them down her screaming throat.
+++
So now,
the star guests have all arrived at Halloweencon Toronto, and only the
convention itself remains. It’s too bad the larger audience will never find
more than empty rooms. They’ll arrive at the hotel, only to find that there
isn't a convention. I never arranged the one advertised in the flyers and
text posts, though I did arrange gasoline bombs and fire.
Drunks,
drugs, costumed fools, and the disarray of a convention; it’s best to put an
end to it all. Call me a Gothic sort of guy, because the real convention is
being held out here, where the moon silvers the leaves and a haunted house
creaks in the darkness.
This is
a private mini-convention and my first reading.
Inspiration. I’ve completed nearly all of the tales in my first book, which
I’ve tentatively titled Halloween Convention Report. And I’ve used my cell
phone to invite a select group to this special Halloween reading. They
should be arriving soon. Imagine their excitement and mine. Imagine the
thrills and chills when I fire up the lights in the pumpkins and draw back
the curtain of darkness shielding the boughs.
The
masters will look on as they swing from the boughs, and the night and the
audience will be at my command.
The
End.
Halloween Convention Report