Full Throttle - Joe Hill Page 0,198
with our dad. They wrote a whole novel, Sleeping Beauties, a big, brawling, Dickensian story of wonder and suspense and ideas. That one comes across less like one rocket and more like a whole salvo of ballistic missiles. Check it out.
YOU ARE RELEASED
Did someone say something about launching the missiles?
My dad has always been a nervous, white-knuckle flier, and in 2018 he jointly edited a collection of stories about terror in the high skies (his copilot was horror and fantasy critic Bev Vincent). I fly quite a bit myself—I enjoy it, although I didn’t always—and on one transatlantic trip I looked out my window and imagined the cloudscape suddenly punctured by dozens of rocket contrails. When my father asked if I wanted to contribute something to Flight or Fright, this idea was already well developed.
“You Are Released” is, I suppose, my attempt to write a David Mitchell story. Mitchell is the author of Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and over the last decade I’ve sort of fallen in love with his sentences—which float and dip and soar like kites—and with his gift for kaleidoscopic narratives that quickly shift from one time and place and perspective to another. I learned a lot about the business of being a pilot from a book called Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker, who is himself a bit David Mitchellian in tone. It was Vanhoenacker who drew attention to the rather poignant phrase “you are released,” which is what traffic control always says to an aircraft as it crosses out of their airspace.
My thanks to retired airline pilot Bruce Black for talking me through proper procedure in the cockpit. His granular attention to detail made this a much better story. Usual caveat, however: any technical errors are mine and mine alone.
This may be a peculiar thing to say about a story that concerns the end of the world, but I wanna thank Bev and my dad for giving me a reason to write this one—it made me happy.
There wouldn’t be a Full Throttle if not for the support, generosity, and kindness of the editors who first published nine of the stories herein: Christopher Conlon, Bill Schafer, Sam Weller, Mort Castle, Lawrence Block, Peter Crowther, Christopher Golden, Tyler Cabot, David Granger, and Bev Vincent. Jennifer Brehl, my editor at William Morrow, read, edited, and greatly improved each of these stories. A story in these pages was specifically written for Jim Orr—I am grateful to him for allowing me to share it with a wider audience and should add that the story in question wouldn’t exist at all if not for Jim’s generous contribution to the Pixel Project, an organization dedicated to reducing violence against women (see: thepixelproject).
Jen Brehl works with some of the best in publishing, many of whom went all out to craft and support the release of this book: Tavia Kowalchuk, Eliza Rosenberry, Rachel Meyers, William Ruoto, Alan Dingman, Aryana Hendrawan, Nate Lanman, and Suzanne Mitchell. Publisher Liate Stehlik makes it all happen. I am particularly grateful to copyeditor Maureen Sugden, who has unsnarled my grammatical catastrophes in every book, going all the way back to Heart-Shaped Box. I’m equally thankful for the team that works with Jen’s UK counterpart, editor Marcus Gipps. My thanks to them as well: Craig Leyenaar, Brendan Durkin, Paul Hussey, Paul Stark, Rabab Adams, Nick May, Jennifer McMenemy, and Virginia Woolstencroft—I owe you. The novelist Myke Cole looked over a couple stories here to make sure that when I wrote about guns I did so with a modicum of accuracy. If I fucked up, don’t blame him.
I am so grateful to Vincenzo Natali for all his hard work to bring In the Tall Grass to the screen—and to Rand Holsten, who cut his way through the high weeds of Hollywood to make the deal happen in the first place. Thanks as well to Greg Nicotero and his team for including “Lake Champlain” in the first upcoming season of Creepshow.
My friend Sean Daily has been my screen agent for about a decade now and has worked up a really silly number of film and TV deals on my behalf, for everything from eight-hundred-page novels to thousand-word blog posts. My thanks to him for representing the stories in this book.
The oldest pieces in Full Throttle were agented by my longtime friend, the late Michael Choate. The more recent fiction has been shopped about by Laurel Choate, who keeps the business end of my life in good running order. My love and thanks to both.
How much do I owe to all the booksellers who have said such kind things about my stories and done so much to connect my books with a wide audience? My deepest thanks to every bookslinger who finds joy in connecting readers with stories. Your work matters and is a pure good.
And hey—how ’bout a little thanks for you, the reader? You could’ve been surfing Twitter, or staring at YouTube, or thumbing the shit out of a PlayStation controller, but you decided to read a book instead. I’m grateful to you for letting me share a little space in your head. I hope you had some fun. I’m already looking forward to next time.
The happiness of my days is the result of a collaborative effort with some of the most thoughtful and loving people I know: my parents, my sister, my brother and his family. I especially want to thank my three sons, Ethan, Aidan, and Ryan, for their humor and kindness and for their patience with their often distracted father. Finally, my thanks to Gillian, for marrying me and letting me have a place in her life and at her side. I love you so much. When we’re together, I always feel like a king.
Joe Hill
Exeter, New Hampshire
The Witching Season, 2018
About the Author
JOE HILL has written screenplays, novels, comics, and many short stories, including this one.
A LITTLE SORROW
A man named Atkinson—as lonely as a castaway and as empty as a cupboard—found his way to a dank curio shop at the end of a nameless alley. He asked the shopkeep if he had something for the pain.
The shopkeep put his hand on a sickly child, with dark rings under his colorless eyes. “I can sell you a small persistent sorrow. Guaranteed for life, very little upkeep, and utterly faithful. This one has a faint odor of mothballs. Otherwise? Mint.”
They soon agreed on a price, and Atkinson sank to one knee so the Little Sorrow could climb on his back, where it would remain for the rest of his natural life. The small child whispered that Atkinson was no good; his life had been for nothing; his mother had felt disgust for him from the first moment Atkinson fastened onto her breast. The child told him this with great solemnity and quiet conviction.
Atkinson staggered as he rose to his feet, felt a pinch in the small of his back, the weight already making him ache with fatigue. He inhaled deeply (a dizzying reek of mothballs) and let out a great sigh of effort—and relief.
“Company at last,” he said, and he carried the whispering child out with him, feeling much lighter than when he had come in.
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