Robert Duperre - The Gate 2 - 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

Daniel Pyle:As the eldest of five brothers, I was rarely alone as a child. In some ways, this was great—I usually had a playmate if I wanted one, and all those little bros made it much easier to gang up on our parents…Brussels sprouts for dinner? We don’t think so—but there were times when I wished they’d all go away for a while so I could get a few measly minutes of peace and quiet. Think Home Alone. In Missouri. With a smaller house.

When Rob told me that one of the themes of this anthology was going to be isolation, I decided to play around with the idea of siblings and alone time. I wanted to write about older siblings. Maybe because my brothers and I are grown up now—or as grown up as we’re ever going to get—or maybe because I didn’t like the idea of killing off a kid on page one of my story (page three would have been fine). I also wanted to add a twist, which I won’t give away here in case you’re one of those weirdos who reads the notes before the stories. In the end, I was very happy with how it turned out. In fact, I think this might be my best story yet. It’s my favorite anyway, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Michael Crane:This story started with an image in my head of an old woman knocking on her neighbor’s door, screaming about zombies. I thought it’d be fun to have a character that clearly wasn’t right in the head, although I knew that she wouldn’t be the main character, nor would the story only be about her. It was just a starting point for me. I learned more about the characters as I continued to write, not exactly sure where it would all lead. That’s when writing is the most exciting for me. When your characters take you on a journey where you’re not sure how it’ll all play out in the end.

Steven Pirie:In Does Laura like Elephants? , I wanted to explore the relationships between four characters, two couples who had essentially been cheating on each other, with one of the characters, Laura, set in her own, distant, stroke-induced twilight world. This dysfunctional setup gave me a character who was there, yet at the same time was lost, and I wondered how that would add to the dynamics of the four of them. Laura could not speak or interact meaningfully, so I gave her an occult-like relationship both within herself and with Don, her lover. I was keen to inject humour, as I believe that’s what folk would turn to for respite in such a situation. Of course, I have exaggerated it somewhat for effect. What emerged is a story that has hidden depths and is one of my favourites.

Robert J. Duperre:The inspiration for 39 Days actually came from a short story I read a while back, Sweepers by Leslianne Wilder. It was a great—albeit very short—tale about rising oceans and people trapped in a skyscraper. Though I loved the story, I couldn’t help but think the tale could have been stretched out, made more personal.

So when Dan Pyle contacted me hoping I could write a story for his Unnatural Disasters anthology, I took the same basic premise, changed it around to make it my own, and focused on the people involved instead of the events themselves. What came out on the other side is probably the best short story I’ve ever written…or at least my own personal favorite.

K. Allen Wood:When I set out to write “The Candle Eaters,” I wanted to do something with Halloween as the backdrop. I’d long had the idea for the story, and when another small-press magazine announced they were putting out a Halloween issue, I had the perfect reason to finally write it.

I had four months to get it done. Plenty of time. However, before I knew it, those four months had dwindled to just three weeks.

The first version I wrote was extremely dark, featured characters with few redeeming qualities, and had an ending full of death and destruction. This was not the story that had been in my head for so long.

With no time for a rewrite, I submitted it anyway—and was promptly rejected.

What I did accomplish with that first version, I think, was come up with some original elements within the oft-used Halloween motif. Specifically the “candle eaters,” which of course are a riff on the old-time tradition of using hollowed-out turnips or pumpkins to ward off evil spirits.

When Rob e-mailed asking if I’d like to send him something for The Gate 2 , I said I would. When he said the theme would be “isolation and despair,” I immediately thought of this story.

On the surface, the story included here isn’t drastically different from that first version, but after a few rewrites I think it accomplishes what I’d initially envisioned so long ago, which was a story fundamentally about faith and hope without being overly sentimental.

(I also managed to sneak in a reference to one of my favorite bands, The Dead Milkmen.)

Ultimately, I just hope “The Candle Eaters” is a good, entertaining story.

Mercedes M. Yardley:The invitation to this anthology came about at a particularly difficult time. My husband and I were delighted to discover that we were expecting triplets (surprise!) but ended up losing two of our little girls. The third is happy and healthy. Writing was a struggle and Robby D. and his artist, Jesse Young, were kind enough to pitch a few ideas to help get my creative juices flowing. One idea was a girl who was alone on an island.

This struck me. A lonely girl seemed like such a beautiful thing to play with. I created a horrifying yet feasible scenario where a little girl was left alone except for the unwanted company of her abductor. The only other individual to talk to is a rather strange friend called Black Mary. The eventual arrival of the littlest Red Mary spurs the girl into action. Are the Marys figments of the girl’s mind brought on by her abuse and isolation? Are they ghosts from the man’s previous victims? That’s not for me to tell you.

Perhaps her mind is creating companionship. Perhaps she is haunted. It would seem that I am haunted, as well.

David McAfee:This is the third installment in my series of short stories dealing with a very talkative serial killer. The other two can be found in my two short story collections: The Lake and 17 Other Stories, and Devil Music and 18 Other Stories. Like the previous entries in the series, I hope Exhibit C is brutal, creepy, and disturbingly entertaining to those who read it.

Joel Arnold: The Canoe started with a vision I had of a canoe that keeps appearing mysteriously at the dock of a cabin in the deep north woods of Minnesota no matter how many times the cabin’s owner releases it back into the current of the river. I decided to have the characters be a father and son of Cambodian decent; the father living with memories of the terrors of Pol Pot’s regime, while the son just wants to fit into American society. I peer-tutored Cambodian kids when I was in high school at a time when these kids still remembered living under Pol Pot’s rule, and ever since then I have been fascinated by their stories of survival in such harsh and nightmarish conditions. But as their children who didn’t experience that nightmare first-hand grow up in American society, those experiences are only stories their parents and grandparents may or may not tell them. And being kids, they often just want to fit in with their American peers. I wanted to write about this dynamic between father and son; how the father wants to protect his son, while the son just wants to find his own group of peers. While the canoe in the story at first serves as a way for the father and son to bond, it later becomes something that keeps the father and son apart.