Glenn Rolfe's Blog - Posts Tagged "russell-james"
Love and Horror: My Heart is in Your Teeth (Parts One and Two)
(Part One)
“My Heart is in your teeth, baby, and it makes me want to make you near me always.” – Jewel
Valentine’s Day, the day of love (wasn’t it based off a day of blood?), has come and gone, but it got me thinking of something I talked about in my last article. I was going on about horror and heart. Love stories in the midst of all the nasty things us dark fiction machines pump out from our wicked hearts. Well, this week I decided to browse my library and see if any of my favorite horror books held any love stories within their pages that would make Taylor Swift proud. The lack of memorable/special relationships surprised me. A ton of books, tons of amazing horror writers, and only a handful of the sort of love I was looking for.
Is it harder than it sounds? Is it just that far out of place for a horror story? Are we too afraid to let such sappy and lovey-dovey scenarios play out in our scary books? Maybe horror authors, who naturally tend to gravitate toward horror movies, just don’t get the big deal about love? “What’s love got to do with it?” Tina Turner said that. “Everything.” I said that.
After scouring my personal collection of favorites, I found four such T-Swizzle worthy couples amongst my monster-loving brethren that really stood out. These four couples made a huge impact on my work. They each made me remember or feel those magical and mysterious, heart pounding and palm sweating, mind-altering and all-thought devouring moments, hours, days and restless nights when new love enters your life.
Let’s see just what love is all about, shall we?
“Jessica and Eddie: EB Hunters in Love?” Sinister Entity/Island of the Forbidden by Hunter Shea
Jessica Bakman is an EB (energy being) hunter of sorts. She takes on jobs via her website to, like her father before her, tackle or banish pesky poltergeists. When her father (who lost his life doing this) reaches out to Eddie, a guy from Jersey who has his own gifts with the dead), it’s to help to give his daughter the protection and help that her confidence won’t allow her to accept. Eventually Eddy convinces Jessica that he can help. They take on a particularly spooky case in New Hampshire and are pushed to the edge of their abilities.
What happens here is two similar people of the opposite sex working together, saving each other’s behinds, and thus endearing themselves to one another. Jessica’s got that all business type of persona and Eddie is just too damn laid back. By the end of the story we’re watching these two and seeing the obvious, but what I love about this relationship is that Shea doesn’t give in and hand it over to the love birds in the sky. Instead, we read in the next book (Island of the Forbidden) that these two, like an old Journey song, went their separate ways.
Eddie tracks Jessica down after being visited by some very convincing spirits and the two are off again. This time, they head to Ormsby Island. Another dangerous adventure in ghostbusting (if you like). As we watch these two work together, we are again wondering: will they or won’t they? Shouldn’t they? And I love this. Unlike so many novels where characters get the hots for one another and give in to that attraction fairly easily, shoving work aside, or just saying to hell with it and we’ll deal with the aftermath, Shea’s characters seem to realize how special their on-again off-again partnership against the paranormal is and are willing to sacrifice other feelings that may lurk beneath the surface to do the job. This arc within these storylines is subtle, but I love it. Jessica has that tough outer shell, and Eddie just doesn’t want to rock the boat; but one would think, eventually, love (or something like it) will find a way. In this age of instant gratification, the fact that Shea feels like he’s making Jessica, Eddie, and us work for it is both engaging and endearing.
“The Temple of Ig and Merrin” Horns by Joe Hill
Ig wakes up with horns on his head. The love of his life was murdered. The town looks at him as the prime suspect, though he is free and clear in the eyes of the law. There’s a lot going on in this one and it is a terrific story (and my personal favorite) from Joe Hill.
Hill weaves his love spell in a minimal amount of scenes. We visit them via flashbacks.
Ig first sees the beautiful red-haired girl at church. The next Sunday, his mind and body unleash their hormonal reaction:
“The whole way to church, Ig’s palms were sweaty, they felt tacky and strange…. It was ridiculous—he didn’t even know her name.”
She leaves a necklace behind. He finds it and intends to return it to her, but feels bad for his best friend, Lee, who lives in the trailer park. He decides to let Lee have the necklace to return to the beautiful new girl in town:
“Even now, he wasn’t sure how he could let her go, how he could give her away like a baseball card or a CD.”
Ig and Merrin, his church crush, wind up together. They have a romantic rendezvous in a tree house and Merrin makes references to Rolling Stones songs with the Gospel of Keith.
In the end (of their relationship, not the book), Merrin breaks his heart and then is murdered. We find out why and how and all that in the end of the book, but for me, I feel the relationship is built so well by Hill that you get that “unfair, damn it, it’s not right,” vibe from the way their love story ends. Throughout it all, Ig is constantly being cheap-shotted by life and you pull for him to get his vindication— his redemption. That’s the drive in this novel. If Hill doesn’t hook you with that, the story falls flat. But he does succeed and Horns is one of my favorite books because of it.
“Johnny and Sarah Spin the Wheel of Fortune” The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Maybe Joe Hill learned how to build that great love story that never quite crossed the finish line the way it should have from his father. Long before Ig and Merrin fell apart there was a budding romance between Johnny and Sarah.
In one of his early classics, The Dead Zone, Stephen King introduces us to two young teachers who go on a date to the fair. We see Johnny’s goofy side (he sneaks up on Sarah while wearing a scary mask), we see Sarah realize that this is one of the good guys. Their date is picture perfect until Johnny’s “gifts” help him make a spectacle of a fair game. After the odd incident and Sarah’s upset stomach from a bad hot dog, they wind up at her house. Johnny offers to stay on the couch and take care of her. She begs him to go, because she doesn’t want him to see her being sick. On his way home, an accident puts a halt to his life for the next five years. In that time (he’s in a coma), Sarah waits until she eventually has to give up on him and go on with her life.
Johnny wakes up with that “no, it’s not fair” scenario going on, but for him, the relationship is just the kick in the balls. His entire world has gone on without him. He has a lot of adapting to do…and of course, there’s his special power….
What King does later in the story is give Johnny and Susan a slice of what was stolen from them. Sarah goes to Johnny’s for a visit. She is married and has a baby. She even brings the baby (I believe he’s a toddler) with her for the visit. She makes her intentions clear right off the bat. When the boy take his nap they steal back their moment. She tells him straight up:
“Sarah, you don’t have to…”
“I do have to, because things like this you can only say once. All I want is what was taken from us. And I want it with all my heart. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s wrong, but it’s right. It’s fair.”
They leave the baby sleeping and sneak off to the barn to kiss and make up. It’s a beautiful scene that feels wrong and right, but absolutely fair. It’s a small piece of this amazing story, but it was a memorable moment that really stuck with me then as it does now. There’s a weightiness that crossroads right and wrong—that moment of justice against one of life’s cheap shots. Not often in life do things work out like this, not even in books, but King felt compelled to enter a space a lot of horror writers dare not tread—he brought The Dead Zone for a drive-by in the romance neighborhood, and it added another layer to the book. Lucky for us.
*Excerpts from Horns by Joe Hill and The Dead Zone by Stephen King
These are some of my favorite love stories in my horror book collection. Come back next week for some of my other favorites in part 2 of this article.
Be sure to check out these books (featuring Jessica and Eddie) from Hunter Shea:
Sinister Entity and Island of the Forbidden
(Part Two)
In my last article I touched on some of my standout relationships in horror novels. Here are a few more of my favorites and surprise, surprise, Stephen King is here again….
“THE STRANGE WRITER & THE SMALL TOWN GIRL” ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King
“He was sitting on a bench in the park when he observed the girl watching him…. a very pretty girl…. reading a book.”
This is without a doubt my favorite love story in a horror novel EVER. It also happens to be found in my favorite novel of all-time, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. So, we have Ben Mears former resident of Jerusalem’s Lot. He returns as an adult to write his next book. A book about or inspired by his haunted memories of the big creepy house on the hill…the Marsten House. When Ben meets Susan, it’s in the park. She’s reading a book—his book. By the end of their first meeting they’ve set up a date to the movies and Ben signs the library copy his book for her: For Susan Norton, the prettiest girl in the park. Warm regards, Ben Mears
King goes on to build this great “Made for Hollywood” old-school romance between the two. It is a timeless love story. The date to the movies, dinner with her parents. The mom who doesn’t trust him, the dad that warms to him rather quickly. There is, of course, the ex-boyfriend who doesn’t take too kindly to this stranger coming in and stealing his girl. Ben is staying at a local bed and breakfast that is under the watchful eye of the town’s gossip queen. Small towns and their grapevines! I mean, there is so much wrapped in this romance that it could have been its own book, but it’s not. It’s woven perfectly into the story of a vampire coming to an isolated, small Maine town and sucking it dry.
King does an amazing job painting these two wonderful characters. I’ve read the book four times. It means the world to me. And this romance is a huge part of that. If you haven’t read it, do so.
“THE BALLAD OF DWIGHT AND SLIM” ‘The Traveling Vampire Show’ by Richard Laymon
Here, we get a coming of age tale complete with a budding romance between best friends. And there’s more vampires….
Best friends find moments to ditch their third wheel and explore uncharted feelings for one another. Meanwhile, a traveling circus of vampires is coming to town. No one really thinks that they’re vampires. Cant’ be, right? It’s a gimmick, surely. Only, it’s not. Our trio of friend’s stumble upon the truth and end up fighting for their lives.
But let’s look at the love story:
What I love about this one is how well Laymon, a man known more for his vicious storytelling and a Beast House, puts to words every nerve-wracking, knee wobbling, palm-sweating, love-buzzing moment we’ve ever gone through when we fall in love at such a young age. There’s a scene where they come in from the rain and need to dry off. Slim (whose real name is Frances, but she always picks nick-names from novels she’s read), is the less reserved of the two. She instigates any and all contact. Dwight, in the meantime, is going through everything that a young man at the precipice of a romantic development entertains in his hormone-riddled body, mind and soul. Laymon put me in a time machine and brought me back to so many summers….
Laymon (being Laymon) takes this innocent romance a few steps further…. Slim lets Dwight touch her breasts, and she also gives him a handjob to relieve his hard-on, but the romance is still there in spades. A real touchy-feely love story.
“YOUNG LOVE AMONG THE ALIEN SLIME” ‘Boom Town’ by Glenn Rolfe
Okay, okay, this one is my story. I figured after sharing some of my favorites with you, I’d show you how much of an impact they had on my own writing.
Boom Town is a novella I wrote for Samhain Publishing. It is an alien invasion story of sorts on a smaller scale. It’s loosely based on true events that happened in Clintonville, Wisconsin where a series of nightly tremors below the ground shook the small town and caused scientists and alien conspiracy folk to descend upon the area in search for answers.
In my story, I have two twelve-year-old best friends (Brady and Kim) discovering a cracked pipe (that’s a cracked pipe-not a crack pipe) jutting up from the ground and oozing blue goo. What’s funny is that I fashion my young love birds after Dwight and Slim. I have Brady lend Kim one of the adult books he’s managed to sneak off his mother’s shelf which, of course, leads to this line: “She imagined herself as the girl named Susan and Brady as Ben Mears.”
Boom Town being a novella, I didn’t quite have the space to explore the blossoming feelings like I would have enjoyed doing in a full-length novel, but it was both challenging and fun to create the relationship the way it appears. There’s not a lot of room for me to find a soft spot in this fast-paced adventure, but I did manage to have Kim and Brady steal a moment on her back porch. Brady gets upset and worked up about his father and brother who passed away the year before, his mother has since become overprotective and in this exchange, Kim takes his mother’s side.
“It’s not fair. But you have to look at her side of things too.” Kim locked her hands in his. “She can’t lose anyone else. You’re all she’s got left.”
He knew she was right. His thoughts hiccupped as Kim stared into his eyes. Butterflies launched from runways near his heart. His mom, Mr. Packard, the ooze, all slid away. He swallowed hard, lost in her gaze. Kim leaned in and kissed him.
Kim and Brady are rushed from scene to scene and the ending is one I hope you’ll find to be powerful and unforgettable.
I’m no Laymon, King, Hill, or Shea, but I am compelled to give what I’ve been given. These guys all offer a bit more than your average horror yarn. More heart, more soul, more…real life, and that only adds to the impact of their horror. Please do yourself a favor and find these titles.
* Excerpts from ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King and Boom Town by Glenn Rolfe
Don’t miss these great love and horror titles:
Darkness Rising by Brian Moreland and Dreamwalker by Russell James
“My Heart is in your teeth, baby, and it makes me want to make you near me always.” – Jewel
Valentine’s Day, the day of love (wasn’t it based off a day of blood?), has come and gone, but it got me thinking of something I talked about in my last article. I was going on about horror and heart. Love stories in the midst of all the nasty things us dark fiction machines pump out from our wicked hearts. Well, this week I decided to browse my library and see if any of my favorite horror books held any love stories within their pages that would make Taylor Swift proud. The lack of memorable/special relationships surprised me. A ton of books, tons of amazing horror writers, and only a handful of the sort of love I was looking for.
Is it harder than it sounds? Is it just that far out of place for a horror story? Are we too afraid to let such sappy and lovey-dovey scenarios play out in our scary books? Maybe horror authors, who naturally tend to gravitate toward horror movies, just don’t get the big deal about love? “What’s love got to do with it?” Tina Turner said that. “Everything.” I said that.
After scouring my personal collection of favorites, I found four such T-Swizzle worthy couples amongst my monster-loving brethren that really stood out. These four couples made a huge impact on my work. They each made me remember or feel those magical and mysterious, heart pounding and palm sweating, mind-altering and all-thought devouring moments, hours, days and restless nights when new love enters your life.
Let’s see just what love is all about, shall we?
“Jessica and Eddie: EB Hunters in Love?” Sinister Entity/Island of the Forbidden by Hunter Shea
Jessica Bakman is an EB (energy being) hunter of sorts. She takes on jobs via her website to, like her father before her, tackle or banish pesky poltergeists. When her father (who lost his life doing this) reaches out to Eddie, a guy from Jersey who has his own gifts with the dead), it’s to help to give his daughter the protection and help that her confidence won’t allow her to accept. Eventually Eddy convinces Jessica that he can help. They take on a particularly spooky case in New Hampshire and are pushed to the edge of their abilities.
What happens here is two similar people of the opposite sex working together, saving each other’s behinds, and thus endearing themselves to one another. Jessica’s got that all business type of persona and Eddie is just too damn laid back. By the end of the story we’re watching these two and seeing the obvious, but what I love about this relationship is that Shea doesn’t give in and hand it over to the love birds in the sky. Instead, we read in the next book (Island of the Forbidden) that these two, like an old Journey song, went their separate ways.
Eddie tracks Jessica down after being visited by some very convincing spirits and the two are off again. This time, they head to Ormsby Island. Another dangerous adventure in ghostbusting (if you like). As we watch these two work together, we are again wondering: will they or won’t they? Shouldn’t they? And I love this. Unlike so many novels where characters get the hots for one another and give in to that attraction fairly easily, shoving work aside, or just saying to hell with it and we’ll deal with the aftermath, Shea’s characters seem to realize how special their on-again off-again partnership against the paranormal is and are willing to sacrifice other feelings that may lurk beneath the surface to do the job. This arc within these storylines is subtle, but I love it. Jessica has that tough outer shell, and Eddie just doesn’t want to rock the boat; but one would think, eventually, love (or something like it) will find a way. In this age of instant gratification, the fact that Shea feels like he’s making Jessica, Eddie, and us work for it is both engaging and endearing.
“The Temple of Ig and Merrin” Horns by Joe Hill
Ig wakes up with horns on his head. The love of his life was murdered. The town looks at him as the prime suspect, though he is free and clear in the eyes of the law. There’s a lot going on in this one and it is a terrific story (and my personal favorite) from Joe Hill.
Hill weaves his love spell in a minimal amount of scenes. We visit them via flashbacks.
Ig first sees the beautiful red-haired girl at church. The next Sunday, his mind and body unleash their hormonal reaction:
“The whole way to church, Ig’s palms were sweaty, they felt tacky and strange…. It was ridiculous—he didn’t even know her name.”
She leaves a necklace behind. He finds it and intends to return it to her, but feels bad for his best friend, Lee, who lives in the trailer park. He decides to let Lee have the necklace to return to the beautiful new girl in town:
“Even now, he wasn’t sure how he could let her go, how he could give her away like a baseball card or a CD.”
Ig and Merrin, his church crush, wind up together. They have a romantic rendezvous in a tree house and Merrin makes references to Rolling Stones songs with the Gospel of Keith.
In the end (of their relationship, not the book), Merrin breaks his heart and then is murdered. We find out why and how and all that in the end of the book, but for me, I feel the relationship is built so well by Hill that you get that “unfair, damn it, it’s not right,” vibe from the way their love story ends. Throughout it all, Ig is constantly being cheap-shotted by life and you pull for him to get his vindication— his redemption. That’s the drive in this novel. If Hill doesn’t hook you with that, the story falls flat. But he does succeed and Horns is one of my favorite books because of it.
“Johnny and Sarah Spin the Wheel of Fortune” The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Maybe Joe Hill learned how to build that great love story that never quite crossed the finish line the way it should have from his father. Long before Ig and Merrin fell apart there was a budding romance between Johnny and Sarah.
In one of his early classics, The Dead Zone, Stephen King introduces us to two young teachers who go on a date to the fair. We see Johnny’s goofy side (he sneaks up on Sarah while wearing a scary mask), we see Sarah realize that this is one of the good guys. Their date is picture perfect until Johnny’s “gifts” help him make a spectacle of a fair game. After the odd incident and Sarah’s upset stomach from a bad hot dog, they wind up at her house. Johnny offers to stay on the couch and take care of her. She begs him to go, because she doesn’t want him to see her being sick. On his way home, an accident puts a halt to his life for the next five years. In that time (he’s in a coma), Sarah waits until she eventually has to give up on him and go on with her life.
Johnny wakes up with that “no, it’s not fair” scenario going on, but for him, the relationship is just the kick in the balls. His entire world has gone on without him. He has a lot of adapting to do…and of course, there’s his special power….
What King does later in the story is give Johnny and Susan a slice of what was stolen from them. Sarah goes to Johnny’s for a visit. She is married and has a baby. She even brings the baby (I believe he’s a toddler) with her for the visit. She makes her intentions clear right off the bat. When the boy take his nap they steal back their moment. She tells him straight up:
“Sarah, you don’t have to…”
“I do have to, because things like this you can only say once. All I want is what was taken from us. And I want it with all my heart. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s wrong, but it’s right. It’s fair.”
They leave the baby sleeping and sneak off to the barn to kiss and make up. It’s a beautiful scene that feels wrong and right, but absolutely fair. It’s a small piece of this amazing story, but it was a memorable moment that really stuck with me then as it does now. There’s a weightiness that crossroads right and wrong—that moment of justice against one of life’s cheap shots. Not often in life do things work out like this, not even in books, but King felt compelled to enter a space a lot of horror writers dare not tread—he brought The Dead Zone for a drive-by in the romance neighborhood, and it added another layer to the book. Lucky for us.
*Excerpts from Horns by Joe Hill and The Dead Zone by Stephen King
These are some of my favorite love stories in my horror book collection. Come back next week for some of my other favorites in part 2 of this article.
Be sure to check out these books (featuring Jessica and Eddie) from Hunter Shea:
Sinister Entity and Island of the Forbidden
(Part Two)
In my last article I touched on some of my standout relationships in horror novels. Here are a few more of my favorites and surprise, surprise, Stephen King is here again….
“THE STRANGE WRITER & THE SMALL TOWN GIRL” ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King
“He was sitting on a bench in the park when he observed the girl watching him…. a very pretty girl…. reading a book.”
This is without a doubt my favorite love story in a horror novel EVER. It also happens to be found in my favorite novel of all-time, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. So, we have Ben Mears former resident of Jerusalem’s Lot. He returns as an adult to write his next book. A book about or inspired by his haunted memories of the big creepy house on the hill…the Marsten House. When Ben meets Susan, it’s in the park. She’s reading a book—his book. By the end of their first meeting they’ve set up a date to the movies and Ben signs the library copy his book for her: For Susan Norton, the prettiest girl in the park. Warm regards, Ben Mears
King goes on to build this great “Made for Hollywood” old-school romance between the two. It is a timeless love story. The date to the movies, dinner with her parents. The mom who doesn’t trust him, the dad that warms to him rather quickly. There is, of course, the ex-boyfriend who doesn’t take too kindly to this stranger coming in and stealing his girl. Ben is staying at a local bed and breakfast that is under the watchful eye of the town’s gossip queen. Small towns and their grapevines! I mean, there is so much wrapped in this romance that it could have been its own book, but it’s not. It’s woven perfectly into the story of a vampire coming to an isolated, small Maine town and sucking it dry.
King does an amazing job painting these two wonderful characters. I’ve read the book four times. It means the world to me. And this romance is a huge part of that. If you haven’t read it, do so.
“THE BALLAD OF DWIGHT AND SLIM” ‘The Traveling Vampire Show’ by Richard Laymon
Here, we get a coming of age tale complete with a budding romance between best friends. And there’s more vampires….
Best friends find moments to ditch their third wheel and explore uncharted feelings for one another. Meanwhile, a traveling circus of vampires is coming to town. No one really thinks that they’re vampires. Cant’ be, right? It’s a gimmick, surely. Only, it’s not. Our trio of friend’s stumble upon the truth and end up fighting for their lives.
But let’s look at the love story:
What I love about this one is how well Laymon, a man known more for his vicious storytelling and a Beast House, puts to words every nerve-wracking, knee wobbling, palm-sweating, love-buzzing moment we’ve ever gone through when we fall in love at such a young age. There’s a scene where they come in from the rain and need to dry off. Slim (whose real name is Frances, but she always picks nick-names from novels she’s read), is the less reserved of the two. She instigates any and all contact. Dwight, in the meantime, is going through everything that a young man at the precipice of a romantic development entertains in his hormone-riddled body, mind and soul. Laymon put me in a time machine and brought me back to so many summers….
Laymon (being Laymon) takes this innocent romance a few steps further…. Slim lets Dwight touch her breasts, and she also gives him a handjob to relieve his hard-on, but the romance is still there in spades. A real touchy-feely love story.
“YOUNG LOVE AMONG THE ALIEN SLIME” ‘Boom Town’ by Glenn Rolfe
Okay, okay, this one is my story. I figured after sharing some of my favorites with you, I’d show you how much of an impact they had on my own writing.
Boom Town is a novella I wrote for Samhain Publishing. It is an alien invasion story of sorts on a smaller scale. It’s loosely based on true events that happened in Clintonville, Wisconsin where a series of nightly tremors below the ground shook the small town and caused scientists and alien conspiracy folk to descend upon the area in search for answers.
In my story, I have two twelve-year-old best friends (Brady and Kim) discovering a cracked pipe (that’s a cracked pipe-not a crack pipe) jutting up from the ground and oozing blue goo. What’s funny is that I fashion my young love birds after Dwight and Slim. I have Brady lend Kim one of the adult books he’s managed to sneak off his mother’s shelf which, of course, leads to this line: “She imagined herself as the girl named Susan and Brady as Ben Mears.”
Boom Town being a novella, I didn’t quite have the space to explore the blossoming feelings like I would have enjoyed doing in a full-length novel, but it was both challenging and fun to create the relationship the way it appears. There’s not a lot of room for me to find a soft spot in this fast-paced adventure, but I did manage to have Kim and Brady steal a moment on her back porch. Brady gets upset and worked up about his father and brother who passed away the year before, his mother has since become overprotective and in this exchange, Kim takes his mother’s side.
“It’s not fair. But you have to look at her side of things too.” Kim locked her hands in his. “She can’t lose anyone else. You’re all she’s got left.”
He knew she was right. His thoughts hiccupped as Kim stared into his eyes. Butterflies launched from runways near his heart. His mom, Mr. Packard, the ooze, all slid away. He swallowed hard, lost in her gaze. Kim leaned in and kissed him.
Kim and Brady are rushed from scene to scene and the ending is one I hope you’ll find to be powerful and unforgettable.
I’m no Laymon, King, Hill, or Shea, but I am compelled to give what I’ve been given. These guys all offer a bit more than your average horror yarn. More heart, more soul, more…real life, and that only adds to the impact of their horror. Please do yourself a favor and find these titles.
* Excerpts from ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King and Boom Town by Glenn Rolfe
Don’t miss these great love and horror titles:
Darkness Rising by Brian Moreland and Dreamwalker by Russell James
