One of the criticisms leveled against the horror genre is that it is too often a fantasy land of adolescent male aggression, obsessed as it is with the extremities of life and limb, madness and fear, sex and death, of killers and outcasts, monstrous egos and unstoppable rage. Horror becomes an endurance test, a game of one-upmanship: how far can the writer go, how much can the reader take? None of this for Tuttle. Here horror tiptoes, glides, smothers, appears in tiny details, climbing in at the corner of the page, lying in wait till the final sentences, then springing forth fully formed yet all too recognizable. Tension and suspense are present, but not unbearable; Tuttle’s work is appealing, not off-putting.
A ghostly premonition of grief haunts ‘Treading the Maze,’ in which a husband and wife witness a seemingly harmless pagan ritual, and the wife will come to realize it wasn’t so harmless. In ‘Horse Lord,’ ‘The Memory of Wood,’ and ‘The Other Mother,’ children are a woman’s undoing (ancient myths and possessed equines also appear). Can one be a mother and a full individual person at the same time? ‘I don’t know if I can manage it, not even with all the good examples of other women, or all the babysitters in the world,’ says a woman in the latter story. These are words mothers must not say aloud, for once spoken those forces will manifest themselves in otherworldly ways. Tuttle unleashes them, those inchoate fears at the bottom of women’s minds, and lets them do their worst. These feelings are not fit for idle chat over coffee. The grotesque, flayed horrors of ‘Sun City’ appear in daylight, terrifying a woman already exhausted by her all-night employment. ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ is surely one of the most distressing portraits of the writing life, a nightmare of humiliation, indignity, and vulnerability: as mother always said, ‘Don’t think you’re different, don’t think you’re special.’ The final tale, ‘The Nest,’ is a wise and heartbreaking account of loss about two sisters who are fixing up their new home. The haunting imagery – of a rubbish-strewn attic, of something black and unrecognizable flapping in a tree – perfectly encapsulates this collection’s title.
Often the horror is all too recognizable: sadness, alienation, a not-belongingness, modern anxieties and disappointments that grow too large. Lisa Tuttle’s characters suffer not just these pains but also the ineffable and unpredictable slings and arrows of the supernatural, the unexplainable, the uncanny. The sometimes predictable nature of some of the stories to me works not against them but in their favor: no matter how cozy we are in our rooms and our homes we are still most naked and vulnerable, and we cannot hide from the waiting world; no matter how well we tend our nests for ourselves and our offspring, certain doom awaits within and without. All that is uncertain is when.
Will Errickson
October 2019
Will Errickson is a lifelong horror enthusiast. Born in southern New Jersey, he first encountered the paperback horrors of Lovecraft and Stephen King in the early 1980s. After high school he worked in a used bookstore during the horror boom of the ’80s and early ’90s, which deepened his appreciation for horror fiction. Many years later, in 2010, he revisited that era when he began his blog Too Much Horror Fiction, rereading old favorites, rediscovering forgotten titles and writers, and celebrating the genre’s resplendent cover art. With Grady Hendrix in 2017, he co-wrote the Bram Stoker Award-winning Paperbacks from Hell, which featured many books from his personal collection. Today Will resides in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Ashley and his ever-growing library of vintage horror paperbacks.
BUG HOUSE
The house was a wreck, resting like some storm-shattered ship on a weedy headland overlooking the ocean. Ellen felt her heart sink at the sight of it.
‘This it?’ asked the taxi driver dubiously, squinting through his windshield and slowing the car.
‘It must be,’ Ellen said without conviction. She couldn’t believe her aunt – or anyone else – lived in this house.
The house had been built, after the local custom, out of wood, and then set upon cement blocks that raised it three or four feet off the ground. But floods seemed far less dangerous to the house now than the winds, or simply time. The house was crumbling on its blocks. The boards were weather-beaten and scabbed with flecks of ancient grey paint. Uncurtained windows glared blankly, and one shutter hung at a crazy angle. Between the boards of the sagging, second-story balcony, Ellen could see daylight.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ the driver said, pulling up at the end of an overgrown driveway. ‘In case there’s nobody here.’
‘Thanks,’ Ellen said, getting out of the back seat and tugging her suitcase after her. She counted the fare out into his hand and glanced up at the house. No sign of life. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Just wait to be sure someone answers the door,’ she told the driver.
Trudging up the broken cement path to the front door, Ellen was startled by a glimpse of something moving beneath the house. She stopped short and peered ahead at the dark space. Had it been a dog? A child playing? Something large and dark, moving quickly – but it was gone now or in hiding. Behind her, Ellen could hear the taxi idling. For a brief moment she considered going back. Back to Danny. Back to all their problems. Back to his lies and promises.
She walked forward again, and when she reached the porch she set her knuckles against the warped, grey door and rapped sharply, twice.
An old, old woman, stick-thin and obviously ailing, opened the door. Ellen and the woman gazed at each other in silence.
‘Aunt May?’
The old woman’s eyes cleared with recognition, and she nodded slightly. ‘Ellen, of course!’
But when had her aunt grown so old?
‘Come in, dear.’ The old woman stretched out a parchment claw. At her back, Ellen felt the wind. The house creaked, and for a moment Ellen thought she felt the porch floor give beneath her feet. She stumbled forward, into the house. The old woman – her aunt, she reminded herself – closed the door behind her.
‘Surely you don’t live here all alone,’ Ellen began. ‘If I’d known – if Dad had known – we would have . . .’
‘If I’d needed help I would’ve asked for it,’ Aunt May said with a sharpness that reminded Ellen of her father.
‘But this house,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s too much for one person. It looks like it might fall down at any minute, and if something should happen to you here, all alone . . .’
The old woman laughed, a dry, papery rustle. ‘Nonsense. This house will outlast me. And appearances can be deceiving. Look around you – I’m quite cozy here.’
Ellen saw the hall for the first time. A wide, high-ceilinged room with a brass chandelier and a rich oriental carpet. The walls were painted cream, and the grand staircase looked in no danger of collapse.
‘It does look a lot better inside,’ Ellen said. ‘It looked deserted from the road. The taxi driver couldn’t believe anyone lived here.’
‘The inside is all that matters to me,’ said the old woman. ‘I have let it all go rather badly. The house is honeycombed with dry rot and eaten by insects, but even so it’s in nowhere near as bad shape as I am. It will still be standing when I’m underground, and that’s enough for me.’
‘But, Aunt May . . .’ Ellen took hold of her aunt’s bony shoulders. ‘Don’t talk like that. You’re not dying.’
That laugh again. ‘My dear, look at me. I am. I’m long past saving. I’m all eaten up inside. There’s barely enough of me left to welcome you here.’
Ellen looked into her aunt’s eyes, and what she saw there made her vision blur with tears. ‘But doctors . . .’
‘Doctors don’t know everything. There comes a time, my dear, for everyone. A time to leave this life for another one. Let’s go in and sit down. Would you like some lunch? You must be hungry after that long trip.’