a train, and we went to Scotland. My dad stayed in London to collaborate with Peter Straub on drinking a case of beer.
Only there were torrential the-end-is-nigh rains, and the roads to the ancient loch washed out. We got halfway there and had to turn back. And that is my first childhood memory—the rain sluicing across the windshield, a flood rushing crosswise across the blacktop, orange cones blocking our path. And later I remember the shiver of awe that rolled over me when I spotted the blackened Gothic spoke of the Walter Scott Monument, stabbing at the low, swollen clouds.
Decades later—on the road with Jon Weir for that same Horns book tour—I glimpsed the Scott Monument and it all came rushing back to me, the whole futile quest to reach Loch Ness. How odd that even as a six-year-old, I was fixated on monsters.
I mused on my memories of that attempted family trip to Loch Ness for days and by the end of the tour had come up with a story I was never going to write, about some kids finding Nessie’s washed-up corpse. I didn’t dare try it—I could do the kids, and I could do the beast, but I wasn’t sure I could write convincingly about Scotland.
America has a few lake monsters of its own, however. The most famous is Champ, a plesiosaur rumored to paddle about Lake Champlain. At some point I came across an apparently true news item from the mid-1930s, about a ferry striking a half-submerged lake creature, colliding hard enough to damage the boat. In an instant I had an explanation for the death of the monster, and a way to transplant my story to the United States, where I felt I was on stronger footing as a writer. I already had a first draft when I was invited to contribute to Shadow Show, and so I seasoned it with a bit more Bradbury to show my appreciation for a writer whose work did so much to help me find my own voice.
Sometimes life really is like a novel; the earlier scenes foreshadow what’s to come and certain motifs make regular appearances. A long time ago, in a different century, I spent a week with Tom Savini on the set of Creepshow and got my first inkling of what I might want to be when I grew up. Here in 2019, Creepshow is returning as a TV show on a streaming horror network by the name of Shudder. Tom Savini’s protégé, Greg Nicotero, is the driving creative force behind the show, and “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” is one of the stories they decided to bring to life. And would you believe Savini himself is directing? Keep an eye out for it.
FAUN
This story, on the other hand, is a pretty conscious descendant of Bradbury’s “The Sound of Thunder.” In stories of Oz, Narnia, and Wonderland, the little door to topsy-turvy land is always discovered by a child who needs something: to learn the value of home, or to serve a cause bigger than herself, or to avoid creepy old fellas like Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, what might happen if an enchanted portal were found by someone with a more mercantile heart and a lot less moral fiber.
There’s a debt here to C. S. Lewis, but the tale also owes a lot to the work of Lawrence Block. Block has something of a knack for the savage final twist. When he asked me to contribute a story to an anthology he was putting together, At Home in the Dark, I knew I wanted to write something that would reflect his values and instincts. Hopefully “Faun” does. What a pleasure to have read and enjoyed Larry for so many years and to now get to trade e-mails with him!
LATE RETURNS
I hate the idea of dying when I’m only halfway through a book.
ALL I CARE ABOUT IS YOU
One of these days, I’ll learn how to write a story with a happy ending.
I’ve written a lot in this collection about creative parents and the power of influence. Nietzsche had a fine saying, however: One repays a teacher badly by remaining always a student. “All I Care About Is You” is, I think, its own thing, with its own rhythms and ideas and emotional texture. It appeared in The Weight of Words, an anthology of stories inspired by the protean art of Dave McKean, but, as with “Silver Water,” I already had