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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1987, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2012 by A. R. Morlan
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To the memory of
Ardath Mayhar
(1930-2012)
I can never repay you for all the help you gave me by restarting my publishing career, but I hope this volume is at least some justification of all your efforts on my behalf.
I miss you, dear friend....
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Duet on Thin Ice” was first published in Night Terrors, Issue #4, 1997. Copyright © 1997, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Initial Appeal” (the basis for the published story, “Dear D.B. ...”), is published here in this form for the first time. Copyright © 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Mother Gothel and Persinette” was first published in Symphonie’s Gift, #3, 1995. Copyright © 1995, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Little Nips” was first published in Symphonie’s Gift, #2, 1995. Copyright © 1995, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Of Vampires and Gentlemen....” was first published in Prisoners of the Night, #1, 1987. Copyright © 1987, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“...And the Horses Hiss at Midnight” was first published in Love in Vein: Twenty Original Tales of Vampiric Erotica, edited by Poppy Z. Brite, HarperPrism, 1994. Copyright © 1994, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“The Uppyroake Kamikaze and the Virgin Shredder” is published here for the first time. Copyright © 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Dark Ladonna” was first published in Crimson, #14, 2000. Copyright © 2000, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“At Funland, by the Swings, with Big Chuck” was first published in Red Eft, Vol. 2, Issue #1, Fall, 1997. Copyright © 1997, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“Yet Another Poisoned Apple for the Fairy Princess” was first published in 1993. Copyright © 1993, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“...And Do It Again” was first published in Space & Time, #95, 2002. Copyright © 2002, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
“The Realtor” was first published in Phantasm, Vol. #3, Whole #3, Spring, 1996. Copyright © 1996, 2012 by A. R. Morlan.
FOREWORD
Ever since I was a child, people have been either telling my mother, or telling me directly, that I was something of a “dark” person—not physically (I’m about as white-bread as a human can get: light hair, light eyes, beyond pale skin), but emotionally. I’ve never been the happy-go-lucky sunny type, and this has often caused those around me to fret and cluck and tsk-tsk about my gloomy outlook on life...as if my way of being somehow affects their ability to enjoy life.
Personally, I simply go with my own somewhat stagnant interior flow—as a certain spinach-eating cartoon character so aptly put it, “I yam what I yam.” But my unique way of seeing the world often affects my work; while I have created some softer, more positive works, the bulk of my fictional output is...dark. Some works more so than others.
The stories here are among (but certainly not all) my darkest creations; some are sexually disturbing, others visceral and graphically violent, while others are (here I go with that word again!) just plain dark in nature. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call them erotic, a few do have elements of the erotic in them. But I doubt most folks would get off on them!
I’ve also included three of my vampire stories—literally the first one I wrote, followed by what has been undoubtedly the most successful one (both financially and in terms of it being named as one of the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror stories in that long-running anthology series), and concluding with a previously unpublished story which just happens to be the last vampire story I’ve decided to write—in order to show my personal evolution in that sub-genre. As you’ll see, I don’t do dreamy romantic vampires, and they certainly aren’t suitable for nine-to-twelve-year-olds and up...not that I think that the cleaner, “vegan” vampires, aren’t just as worthwhile or as literary as what I’ve done with the sub-genre. I give all those writers my greatest respect—make it any way you can, and give the people what they want, just as long as people are picking up a book or a Kindle® or a whatnot and actually reading.... I do feel pretty certain that what I consider a vampire story wouldn’t appeal to the fans of the “nice” vampires, but I’m not offended by that—literature needs to appeal to varied tastes; if all works of fiction appealed to everyone equally, I think we’d be in trouble as a species!
Now that I’m done with my personal rant, on to the stories....
A. R. Morlan
2012
DUET ON THIN ICE
Unseasonably soft and mild, the fitful southwest breeze ruffled the thinning oiled hair which the Reverend Alredge Merewode had so carefully combed across the crown of his head, threatening with each errant gust to reveal the tonsure-shaped bald spot which the cleric strove to conceal whilst among his fellows at the University, but— “And thanks to the All Mighty,” he whispered through lips rough-chapped and just slightly numb from the half hour or so he’d spent skating the sun-sheened surface of Loch Coventina—since he was currently the only living soul within sight or hearing occupying the immediate area on this late December afternoon, the Reverend found no need to stop his daily exercise in order to secure his neck-scarf over his almost-unveiled pate. That such an act would have suggested a most unseemly show of vanity was not a concern of the good Reverend—ever since his hair began to thin during his days in the seminary, Alredge unconsciously began to use his remaining locks as a form of natural camouflage for Nature’s tonsorial stinginess—rather, Reverend Merewode was instead concerned about the cutting-short of his time spent gliding across the lake’s frigid winter flesh.
Framed from the casual prying eye by a monk’s fringe of larch and pine, Loch Coventina was off-set by a quarter mile from any road or path, so that on its opaque whiteness, Alredge Merewode could guiltlessly cast off his mantle of clerical obligations to his fellow clerics and students, even as he surrendered his albeit lumpy and ungraceful earthly self to the momentum-driven snniiiccckkk and shhhuuussshhh of his blades gliding across the glistening cold ice. Borne across and around the ice on curled-toe skates, he could surrender himself to the cold, to the relentless forward motion, to the grayish-greenish-bluish blur of the surrounding trees and distant mountains—and to the keening undulation of the wind rushing through the needle-burdened branches, the frost-stiffened rushes and reeds surrounding the loch.
The crisp, sustained whoosh and shwoosh of each blade’s journey across the ice (the sharp metal just barely incising a trail on the hoarfrost behind) formed a soothing counterpoint to the susurration of the wind, one which eased the lines of worry from Merewode’s typically furrowed brow, and one which allowed him to exchange the downward turn of his parched lips for a slight but mentally significant upward arc...until the cleric noticed that the wind’s erratic counterpoint was a counterpoint no longer.
Rather, it echoed the whole-note-long one-foot-then-the-other forward rhythm of his skating; when he allowed himself to slow down to a stand-still on the ice, close to a rigid bristling of sun-whitened
