Christopher Fowler - Personal Demons

Christopher Fowler, one of Britain's most highly regarded horrorwriters, is the author of eighteen published books, including thebestselling Roofworld, Rune, Spanky, Psychovilleand Disturbia, as well as numerous screenplays and collectionsof short stories. He lives and works in London, where he runs TheCreative Partnership, a Soho film promotion company.

PERSONAL
DEMONS

CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-81169
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the
BritishLibrary on request
The right of Christopher Fowler to beidentified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act1988
Copyright (c) 1998 Christopher Fowler
Firstpublished in 1998 by Serpent's Tail,
4 Blackstock Mews, LondonN4
Website: www.serpentstail.com
Phototypeset in 10ptSabon by Intype London Ltd
Printed in Great Britain by
Mackaysof Chatham plc, Chatham, Kent
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

PREFACE

'Cowards die many times before their deaths;
Thevaliant never taste of death but once.'
W. Shakespeare, JuliusCaesar
Short stories of the fantastic are cowards' deaths,explorations of what might yet be. They are premonitions written todisturb and ultimately comfort, because they present us with theresults of our darkest dreams. They help us to deal with our fearsand realise our fantasies.
KennethTynan said 'when the writer cares more about the audience's reactionthan the truth of the character or situation, they are writing foreffect, they are writing melodrama.' The problem is, many novels andshort stories seem to exist for the sole purpose of producing aseries of melodramatic effects. Editors often ask for a showyset-piece to be situated at the start of a novel. Anthologies lookfor shock-pieces. The 'new lad' school of writing precipitated byIrvine Welsh has nearly kicked everything else off the shelves.Writers of great power and subtlety are treated as creators ofspecialist literature because they choose to explore strangeterritory. Television has become the new home of a specialised formof SF, horror and fantasy, dumbed-down, safe,value-reaffirming.
Not long ago Iwas told that my material was 'too quirky' for mainstream America.Why didn't I develop a single theme and stick to it in order to buildreader loyalty? Stephen King is the most successful author in theworld. Didn't all horror and fantasy authors aspire to be likehim?
Well, no.
True,some of his books have made terrific films because his stories areadmirably rooted in character, and his ideas are simple, clear andstrong, even if his prose is as elegant asan orthopaedic boot, butultimately it's a parochial style peculiar to one area of the USA,and I wanted to write specifically to my own English environment. Inthe eighties, American concepts of dumbing down horror provided grimnew benchmarks, reaching even lower. They constituted a sacrifice ofall that disturbed, discomforted or encouraged thought, and theBritish followed suit. Virginia Woolf said that 'the steps from brainto brain must be cut very shallow if thought is to mount them'. Somewriters began providing wheelchair slopes. The genre has still notrecovered, although I'm convinced that it will.
Thebest horror anthologies ever produced were two Panther volumes editedby an experimental psychologist, Dr Christopher Evans. In Mind AtBay he admits that he isprimarily interested in exploring themind's 'inner space', and that his selected tales are 'tricks to trapthe brain into giving up some of its secrets'. In Mind In Chainshe suggests the reader should use the stories 'to see what they tellhim about the structure and the denizens of his own internallandscape'. These are tales that look for contact points between thehorrific and the normal, where logical events lurch into alarmingdisarray, and all the human mind can do is try to cope.
Iwonder if such anthologies would be published today.
Certainly,Serpent's Tail would be one of the few publishing houses who couldperform the favour. I have to admit, I would write much darker booksif I thought the market could take it. One develops a certain amountof pessimism as one grows older, not based on nostalgia for the pastso much as disappointment for the future. I rarely write anything asdark as the real lives we lead; the strain, the anger, the sheer dullache of life is not something I'd wish to catalogue. Instead, I amdrawn to the exotic, and I think that is reflected in thesestories.
These Personal Demonsare linked by an interest in a perverse array of subjects, a desireto test out ideas, and a need to wander into unusual territories. Ihave consciously tried to avoid retreading old ground, and havepresented the stories in the order in which they were written, sothat you may follow a logical progression of thought, even if some ofthese processes appear oblique. The final story is unorthodox, butexplanatory. Here you will find horror, fantasy, reality and humour;there's hardly any blood, and only a few deaths. One of the storiesis even optimistic. A frequently asked question is 'What scares ahorror writer?' My answer is 'the disfiguring blankness of a personwith no imagination'. Anyone who has seen TV interviews withmurderers and religious fanatics knows the dead-eyed look they share.These stories are in some sense about keeping the death of theimagination at bay.
So long as thereis imagination, there is hope.

SPANKY'S BACK IN TOWN

1 THE HISTORY OF RASPUTIN'S CASKET
'Can't we go anyfaster?' Dmitry turned around in the seat, punching at the driver'sfur-clad back. Behind him one of the wolves had almost caught up withthe rear-runners of the sleigh and was snapping at the end of hisflapping scarf.
'This is new snowover old,' the driver shouted. 'The tracks have hardened and willturn us over.'
The horses wereterrified, their heads twisting, their eyes rolling back in fear ofthe baying creatures behind the sleigh. Scarcely daring to look,Dmitry counted seven - now eight of the wolves, swarming so closethat he could feel their hot breath on the icy rushing air. Heglanced down at the terrified child in his arms and pulled thebearskin more tightly around her deathly pale face.
'We'llnever make it in time,' cried Yusupov, 'it will be dark before wereach Pokrovskoye.'
They could seethe black outline of the town on the horizon, but already the sun wasdropping below the tops of the trees. The sleigh clattered andcrunched its way across deep-frozen cart tracks, swaying perilously,the wolves howling close behind, falling over each other in theirefforts to keep up. One of the largest, a fearsome yellow-eyed beastthe size of a Great Dane, suddenly threw itself forward and seizedDmitry's scarf-end in its jaws. The wool pulled tight, choking him ashe clawed at his throat. Yusupov yanked it away from his brother'sneck and pulled hard, feeling the weight of the animal on the otherend. 'See, Dmitry,' he cried, 'look in the eyes of our pursuernow!'