Jeff Gelb: Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

"Nocturne" copyright (c) 1991 by John L. Byrne.

"The Tub" copyright (c) 1991 by Richard Laymon.

"The Picture of Health" copyright (c) 1991 by Ray Garton.

"Change of Life" copyright (c) 1991 by Chet Williamson.

"Demonlover" copyright (c) 1991 by Nancy A. Collins.

"Confession" copyright (c) 1991 by Kurt Busiek.

"Wolf in the Memory" copyright (c) 1991 by Stephen Gresham.

"To Have and to Hold" copyright (c) 1991 by Gary Brandner.

"Cruising" copyright (c) 1991 by Lisa W. Cantrell.

"Dream on Me" copyright (c) 1991 by Mick Garris.

"DeVice" copyright (c) 1991 by Stephen Gallagher.

"The Best" copyright (c) 1991 by Paul Dale Anderson.

"Something Extra" copyright (c) 1991 by J. N. Williamson and James Kisner.

"Juice" copyright (c) 1991 by Kiel Stuart.

"Surprise" copyright (c) 1991 by Rex Miller.

"Rococo" copyright (c) 1991 by Graham Masterton.

"Dear Diary" copyright (c) 1991 by Elsa Rutherford.

"The Splicer" copyright (c) 1991 by Don D'Ammassa.

"A Hard Man Is Good to Find" copyright (c) 1991 by R. Patrick Gates.

"Bedroom Eyes" copyright (c) 1991 by Michael Newton.

"Atrocities" copyright (c) 1991 by Lucy Taylor.

"Pearldoll" copyright (c) 1991 by John Shirley.

"The Kind Men Like" copyright (c) 1991 by Karl Edward Wagner.

"The Braille Encyclopaedia" copyright (c) 1991 by Grant Morrison.

Success is, in itself, a kind of horror.

When Hot Blood proved a winner, we decided the only way to make the next volume better was for it to be an anthology of all new stories. The idea was exciting, but we knew it would be quite a challenge. It had been simple to put together twenty-four tales of hardcore horror for the first edition because we had the entire history of short horror fiction to choose from, as well as a dozen fine new contributions. Could we find twenty-four equally stunning new tales of dread and debauchery? The thought was chilling.

The call went out to the cream of the crop of today's horror writers and our fears were quickly proven unfounded. We were deluged with new tales that met our primary requirement: that sex be the driving force in each story without being pornographic.

But our second horror lurked in piecing together Hotter Blood : Now we found we had to turn down excellent stories by name authors whose work, for a myriad of reasons, did not meet our needs for this volume. There is a lot of talent out there — enough to ensure equally great future collections.

You're sure to notice an intentional slant toward horror's new voices in Hotter Blood . These are the names we will be reading throughout the next decade and beyond, the authors whose works will top bestseller lists as King and Koontz have done for the past many years. These are the rising stars on the horror horizon, and their work deserves as wide an audience as we, as fans, have granted their horrific godfathers. In Hotter Blood , we are proud to give horror's new blood (so to speak) the exposure it is due (and, in some cases, overdue).

You never know where you'll find tomorrow's horror stars. Grant Morrison and John Byrne are already familiar names to hundreds of thousands of rabid fans as leading comic book writers. Morrison wrote the multimillion-dollar-success Batman graphic novel "Arkham Asylum," while Byrne revamped the Superman legend during his groundbreaking tenure on that title. We are extremely pleased to present the first published short prose fiction works of both gentlemen in Hotter Blood .

We were proud to see most of the original stories from the first Hot Blood collection nominated for various short fiction awards in the horror and science fiction communities. We're certain history will repeat itself with this collection.

Have we whetted your appetite for shivers and sex? Good! We meant to. After all, we already know how good this collection is. Now it's time for you to share our excitement, as you step into the world of Hotter Blood .

Just one warning: Get set for a new breed of horror!

Jeff Gelb

Michael Garrett

January 1991

M onday brought the first miracle, as Edelman boarded the elevator, bound for the lobby. The doors opened and there she was, leaning against the rear wall. He almost fainted, seeing her in person for the first time. He thought for a moment she might be one of the terribly real flights of fantasy, his curse for so many years before therapy subdued them.

She wore cutoffs and a modest halter top, feet in ragged sneakers, chestnut hair spilling in wild disarray from a bright orange headband. No makeup, but Edelman recognized her immediately. He'd first seen that face on Cosmopolitan and Vogue covers nearly three years ago. One wall of his three-room apartment was a shrine to those dark eyes, pouting lips. His fantasies — especially his darker fantasies — were filled with her.

" 'Morning," she said as Edelman stepped into the car. Her mouth was not so pouty without lipstick. Her teeth were bright, her smile genuine.

"Good morning," Edelman said, managing to keep his breakfast down. His heart thundered so hard he expected her to hear it in the confined space of the elevator.

They rode down to the lobby without further words. Edelman stepped back to let her out. She smiled again, said "See y'round," strode away with a purposeful, almost manly gait.

Edelman wandered after her, his knees weak, his heart still pounding. Rachel McNichol! In his building! At this hour, in those clothes, it seemed unlikely she was only visiting. It was barely eight o'clock, shadows still long on 75th Street, when Edelman stepped out into the August heat.

Rachel McNichol! He remembered the first time he'd learned her name. He'd seen her in catalogs piled up by the mailboxes in the lobby anteroom; fashion catalogs displaying beautiful, anonymous women. Long, firm bodies; proud, haughty faces. The kinds of faces Edelman always had that terrible love/hate thing about. Faces, bodies he craved, that were always beyond his reach, lofty and aloof. Mocking him, he sometimes thought, with their perfect beauty, their unattainability.

In their midst one dark-eyed, dark-haired goddess who stood out from the rest, seizing his heart and mind in a way he'd not experienced since the days of sneaking Playboy magazines into his mother's house, dreaming after airbrushed gatefold fantasies. Imagining the things he might do to them, given the opportunity. They had names, though; the catalogs' models were never identified.

Then, one day, passing the news vendor's kiosk in the 28th Street station — long gone with the renovations — he saw her face on the cover of Vogue . Heavily made up, after the fashion of the magazine that year, but he recognized the chin, the pout. He bought the magazine, found inside two dozen pages with her face. On the contents page he also found her name: Rachel McNichol.

Three issues later she was featured on the cover again, again four months after that. The next month, though she was not on the cover, Edelman bought the issue anyway, in the hope there might be interior pages — particularly lingerie ads — featuring her perfect face and lithe, athletic form. He was rewarded with a short article about her — a single-page feature on a fast rising star in the modeling firmament.