Stephen Jones - Dark Terrors 3 - The Gollancz Book of Horror

Although he was never actually our in-house editor (that dubious pleasure belongs to the inimitable Jo Fletcher), through his role as Editorial Director, Richard Evans became our ‘spiritual guide’ when we moved our series of original horror anthologies from Pan Books to Victor Gollancz in 1995.

Born in West Wales in 1950, Richard won a full scholarship to Oxford, where he studied Modern History and where he met his future wife, Ali. They were married in 1979 and had two children, Linnie and Stevie. After earning an MA in Social History at Sussex University, he decided against a career in teaching and entered the publishing industry in 1972 in the copy-writing department at Penguin Books.

Following a short stay at Fontana as a non-fiction editor, he moved to Macdonald/Futura, where he became a fiction editor specializing in science fiction. After moving to Arrow to head up its science fiction line, he returned to Macdonald in 1984 as Editorial Director, where he launched the successful Orbit SF imprint with the help of Senior Editor Toby Roxborough. He quickly became one of Britain’s best-loved and most respected editors, nurturing the careers of such young writers as Paul J. McAuley, Mark Timlin, Mary Gentle, Michael Scott Rohan and many others.

In the late 1980s, Richard moved to Headline for a couple of years, before taking over the prestigious Gollancz science fiction and fantasy list in 1990 when Malcolm Edwards moved to HarperCollins.

A serious illness in 1994 resulted in him taking nearly a year off work, but he made a full recovery and triumphantly returned to Gollancz to launch the Vista mass-market paperback imprint.

During a relaxed lunch the week before he left on a business trip to New York, Richard talked excitedly about our line-up for Dark Terrors 2 (which we had recently delivered). As always, he was positive about the number of newer writers we had included in the book, alongside such established names as Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley. He was also particularly thrilled that we were publishing a new story by Thomas Tessier, whose latest novel Fog Heart he and Jo had just acquired for Gollancz.

Tragically, Richard didn’t live to see the publication of Dark Terrors 2. Upon his return from New York he was hospitalized with pneumonia and died a few days later on May 26th, 1996, at the ridiculously young age of forty-six.

However, his enthusiasm and immaculate taste continue to help shape the series, and we shall endeavour to ensure that it will always live up to his expectations. This latest volume of Dark Terrors is therefore respectfully dedicated to the memory of Richard Evans, an outstanding editor and a fine friend.

Stephen Jones and David Sutton

May, 1997

The cemetery was in the centre of the city. On four sides, it was bounded by gliding streetcars on glistening blue tracks and cars with exhaust fumes and sound. But, once inside the wall, the world was lost. For half a mile in four directions, the cemetery raised midnight trees and headstones that grew from the earth, like pale mushrooms, moist and cold. A gravel path led back into darkness and within the gate stood a Gothic Victorian house with six gables and a cupola. The front porch light showed an old man there alone, not smoking, not reading, not moving, silent. If you took a deep breath, he smelled of the sea, of urine, of papyrus, of kindling, of ivory, and of teak. His false teeth moved his mouth automatically when it wanted to talk. His tiny yellow seed eyes twitched and his poke-hole nostrils thinned as a stranger crunched up the gravel path and set foot on the porch step.

‘Good evening!’ said the stranger, a young man, perhaps twenty.

The old man nodded, but his hands lay quietly on his knees.

‘I saw that sign out front,’ the stranger went on. ‘“Free Dirt”, it said.’

The old man almost nodded.

The stranger tried a smile. ‘Crazy, but that sign caught my eye.’

There was a glass fan over the front door. A light shone through this glass fan, coloured blue, red, yellow, and touched the old man’s face. It seemed not to bother him.

‘I wondered, free dirt? Never struck me you’d have much left over. When you dig a hole and put the coffin in and refill the hole, you haven’t much dirt left, have you? I should think…’ “

The old man leaned forward. It was so unexpected that the stranger pulled his foot off the bottom step.

’You want some?’ said the old man.

‘Why, no, no, I was just curious. Signs like that make you curious.’

‘Set down,’ said the old man.

’Thanks.’ The young man sat uneasily on the steps. ‘You know how it is, you walk around and never think how it is to own a graveyard.’

‘And?’ said the old man.

’I mean, like how much time it takes to dig graves.’

The old man leaned back in his chair. ‘On a cool day, two hours. Hot day, four. Very hot day, six. Very cold day, not cold so it freezes, but real cold, a man can dig a grave in one hour so he can head in for hot chocolate, brandy in the chocolate. Then again you get a good man on a hot day, he’s no better than a bad man in the cold. Might take eight hours to open up, but there’s easy digging soil here. All loam, no rocks.’

‘I’m curious about winter.’

‘In blizzards we got a ice-box mausoleum to stash the dead undelivered mail — until spring and a whole month of shovels and spades.’

’Seeding and planting time, eh?’ The stranger laughed.

‘You might say that.’

‘Don’t you dig in winter anyhow? For special funerals? Special dead?’’

’Some yards got a hose-shovel contraption. Pump hot water through the blade; shape a grave quick, like placer mining, even with the ground a ice pond. We don’t cotton to that. Use picks and shovels.’

The young man hesitated. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘You mean, I get scared ever?’

‘Well.. yes.’

The old man took out and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, tamped it with a calloused thumb, lit it, and let out a small stream of smoke.

‘No,’ he said at last.

The young man’s shoulders sank.

‘Disappointed?’ said the old man.

‘I thought maybe once.?’

‘Oh, when you’re young maybe. One time. ’

‘Then, there was a time!’ The young man shifted up a step.

The old man glanced at him sharply. ‘One time.’ He stared at the marbled hills and the dark trees. ‘My grandpa owned this yard. I was born here. A gravedigger’s son learns to ignore things.’

The old man took a number of deep puffs and said, ‘I was just eighteen, folks off on vacation, me left to tend things alone, mow the lawn, dig holes, and such. Alone, four graves to dig in October and a cold came hard off the lake, frost on the graves, tombstones like snow, ground froze solid.

‘One night I walked out. No moon. Hard grass under foot, could see my breath, hands in my pockets, walking, listening.’

The old man exhaled frail ghosts from his thin nostrils. ‘Then I heard this sound, deep under. I froze. It was a voice, screaming. Someone woke up buried, heard me walk by, cried out. I just stood. They screamed and screamed. Earth banged. On a cold night, ground’s like porcelain, rings, you see?

‘Well.’ The old man shut his eyes to remember. ‘I stood like the wind off the lake stopped my blood. A joke? I searched around and thought, Imagination! No, it was underfoot, sharp, clear. A woman’s voice. I knew all the gravestones.’ The old man’s eyelids trembled. ‘Could recite them alphabetical, year, month, day. Name any year, and I’ll tell. 1899? Jake Smith departed. 1923? Betty Dallman lost. 1933? P.H. Moran! Name a month. August? August last year, buried Henrietta Wells. August 1918? Grandma Hanlon, whole family! Influenza! Name a day. August fourth? Smith, Burke, Shelby carried off. Williamson? He’s on that hill. Douglas? By the creek. ’