Things Beyond Midnight Read online

  Table of Contents

  *Dedication*

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  *Epigraph*

  FOREWORD

  INTRODUCTION

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  SATURDAY’S SHADOW

  THE POOL

  STARBLOOD

  INTO THE LION’S DEN

  A REAL NICE GUY

  DEATH DECISION

  FAIR TRADE

  HE KILT IT WITH A STICK

  VIOLATION

  THE PARTNERSHIP

  DEAD CALL

  THE UNDERDWELLER

  SOMETHING NASTY

  LONELY TRAIN A’COMIN’

  THE ZURICH SOLUTION

  ONE OF THOSE DAYS

  DARK WINNER

  KELLY, FREDRIC MICHAEL: 1928

  COINCIDENCE

  THE PARTY (A Teleplay)

  To Art Cover

  and

  Lydia Marano

  who made it happen

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “Saturday’s Shadow” appeared in Shadows 2 ©1979 by Charles L. Grant.

  “The Pool” appeared in Horrors ©1981 by Charles L. Grant.

  “Starblood” appeared in Infinity Four ©1972 by Lancer Books, Inc.

  “Into the Lion’s Den” appeared as “The Strange Case of Mr. Pruyn,” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. ©1956 by FI.S.D. Publications, Inc.

  “A Real Nice Guy” appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine ©1980 by William F. Nolan.

  “Death Decision” appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine ©1981 by Renown Publications, Inc.

  “Fair Trade” appeared in Whispers ©1982 by Stuart David Schiff.

  “He Kilt It With a Stick” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ©1967 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  “Violation” appeared in Future City ©1973 by Roger Elwood.

  “The Partnership” appeared in Shadow 3 ©1980 by Charles L. Grant.

  “Dead Call” appeared in Frights ©1976 by Kirby McCauley.

  “The Underdweller” appeared as “Small World,” in Fantastic Universe ©1957 by King-Size Publications, Inc.

  “Something Nasty” appeared in The Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror ©1983 by William F. Nolan.

  “Lonely Train A’ Comin’” appeared as “The Train,” in Gallery ©1981 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation.

  “The Zürich Solution” appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine ©1982 by Renown Publications.

  “One of Those Days” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ©1962 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  “Dark Winner” appeared in Whispers ©1976 by Stuart David Schiff.

  “Kelly, Fredric Michael: 1928” appeared in Infinity Five ©1973 by William F. Nolan.

  “Coincidence” appeared in The Berserkers ©1973 by Roger Elwood.

  “The Party” (A Teleplay) ©1984 by William F. Nolan.

  Beware Things Beyond Midnight

  Which Haunt the Dark Hour

  Encounter Them Not

  For ’Tis Thee They Devour!

  —from a verse for children circa 1889

  FOREWORD

  First, I want to thank Art Cover, and Lydia Marano for making this new edition a reality. Plus special thanks to Lydia for her expert cover design.

  Things Beyond Midnight was my first major collection in the horror genre. Most of the stories in the book date from the mid-1970s into the mid-1980s. Prior to the 1970s I was not really into horror-suspense. Sure, I’d written “The Party” for Playboy back in 1967, and I had a few other scare tales to my credit, but “Dead Call,” which I wrote for Kirby McCauleys 1976 anthology, Frights, was my first calculated entry into the genre. Positive reader reaction to this story (plus the fact that it was selected for a national reading tour) convinced me to explore this genre on a serious level.

  The stories in this book prove that I made the right decision. Three of them were selected for Year’s Best volumes. Two were adapted for television, and one earned a World Fantasy Award nomination. The book itself was highly rated in Neil Barron’s influential Horror literature: A Reader’s Guide, with critic Keith Neilson citing the stories as “crisp, ironic, often humorous, and... provocative” He went on to state that “At his best, Nolan puts a likeable character into a terrible crisis and watches him squirm until a surprising conclusion is reached. The brevity of his stories intensifies their impact. Notable... entertaining [and] brilliantly nasty.”

  Happily, I’ve received very favorable comments on my work from a host of peers in the genre, including Joe Lansdale, Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles L. Grant, Dennis Etchison, and Peter Straub.

  In his Introduction to my second collection of terror tales, Night Shapes. Straub called me “one of horrors best storytellers” and went on to state: “Nolan is writing this kind of story... as well as anyone that ever did... He has brought a form that has an immensely distinguished tradition to a perfection that matches that of the traditions finest examples... No one has ever done it better.”

  Hey, thanks Peter! Praise such as this keeps me coming back to the field.

  I’m going to close with a poem that sums up my feelings about this genre. It first appeared in a “Special Nolan Issue” of Weird Tales:

  THE HORROR WRITER

  Shadow shapes,

  swimming in fogged darkness,

  razored teeth,

  slicing deep, releasing

  crimson heart tides.

  Prowling beasts,

  within a scything moon,

  wild of eye,

  lust-hungry for the kill.

  Demonic fiends,

  claw-fingered, eager

  to rend flesh,

  in blood-gored midnight feasts.

  Specter spirits,

  summoned from gloomed grave, risen

  from dank coffined earth

  to fetid life.

  Witch, devil, ghoul,

  the tall walking dead,

  night companions all,

  who join me at the keys,

  Welcome!

  Welcome to my world!

  W.F.N.

  West Hills, California. May 2000

  INTRODUCTION

  Remember lava lamps?

  You know, those goopy volcanoes that lived in ajar and spouted random parabolas to the tune of a 75-watt Sylvania?

  Well, I do. And with great fondness.

  When I was seven years old, my parents bought one of these sleazy masterpieces, set it on the bar, plugged it in and waited for the orange wax to grow irritable and rebel.

  And then—now, pay close attention—they invited Bill Nolan over. Very significant choice, that. See, Bill was just about the funniest adult I knew when I was a kid. Everything he said or did absolutely killed me. A simple hello was enough to make me pop a valve. Yet, I’d never been around Bill and my Dad when they really cut loose. Never actually had the chance to witness their mutual madness at close range, one might say.

  But the lava lamp changed all that.

  As I recall it, I was invited to sit and have a drink with the “big guys” before being exiled off to bed. So, perched on a barstool in droopy pj’s, swigging a Coke and munching Fritos, I wedged seven-year-old small talk between Bill’s maniacal gags. Gags which, as usual, had me collapsing with laughter, Coke jetting from my nostrils, Fritos exiting my mouth as if my head were a huge party popper.

  And then a rather magical thing happened.

  The lava lamp was starting to get hot and the wax began to stretch and bubble like a geyser under glass. In a couple of minutes, its Boschian tentacles were lifting. As the globules hit the top and headed back down in free-fall, Bill casually assumed a Hanna-Barbera cartoon voice and
spoke for one of the globules. No... scratch that. He actually became the globule.

  His globule, which was roaming inside the lava lamp on the right, struck up a conversation with another tubby globule on the left: “Hey, Sol, see who’s in the back room will ya?”

  Immediately my Dad (captured instantly by the demented premise) became the other globule. He said, “Don’t tell me what to do, you putz! You’re going nowhere in this organization. You’re on the way down!”

  Bill’s globule shot back an angry retort as the two stretched like taffy and argued bitterly with one another. When they had finally drifted to the bottom of the lamp, like that pearl in those nifty Prell Shampoo commercials, the conversation was over.

  Over, that is, until two new globules were formed in the primal ooze of this strange little lamp and they, too, took on life, slithering upward in molten birth.

  Instantly, Bill and my Dad were at it again, verbally scribbling in more insanely funny captions for this kinetic New Yorker cartoon they alone perceived.

  Talk about your weird memories... all I can tell you is that it was a very powerful epiphany for a seven-year-old boy. Here, before my glittering eyes, were two full grown guys toying around with the most preposterous absurdities as if discussing the best way to lube a lawn-mover.

  It made a sizeable impact. Say, something equal to the dents asteroids make in the Arizona desert. I never saw adults the same way again. Bill and my Dad had made me realize, with the help of a truly kitschey lava lamp, that adults were just children who wore bigger clothes and kept more desirable hours.

  It was my most memorable lesson in the sanity of fantasy.

  I learned it was really okay think wildly. Even crazily. I mean, that’s how we all start anyway, isn’t it? Children place no restrictions on their thinking. They just coast along with the pure joy of invention as their sail.

  Well, so do really fine fantasists. And William F. Nolan is one of the finest. The stagnant, glued-down process of most adult thinking does not apply to this man. His thinking has a kind of symphonic lunacy which transcends all rules and conventions. If the human mind is just one long road which we travel with our thoughts, Bill Nolan is running all the stop signs.

  Bill violates the parameters of reality again and again, yet makes you accept his incredible premises without hesitation. How does he do it, you ask?

  Simple. He’s incredibly talented.

  And whether his created reality be barbarous or sublime, he fashions it so meticulously and artfully that it is quite simply, unimpeachable. It isn’t just something that Bill Nolan thought up during an afternoon at the typewriter. It actually seems to exist.

  Read “Lonely Train A’Comin’” and try to convince yourself you don’t believe it. It’s a beautiful piece of storytelling that absolutely violates reality. Yet, it’s so convincing, it may well have happened to your skeptical uncle.

  Maybe that’s what fantasists like Bill and my Dad are telling us—that it’s really okay to go with our imaginations. That it’s okay to dream our own three-ring circuses, complete with lions and tigers and men in gold tights flying out of cannons.

  Sometimes I think life has a way of cheating the human heart. Losses of all variety seem inevitable and constant. But a few lucky souls manage to avoid the inevitable. At least in the way they experience it. These enviable folk have a kind of playfulness about them; they laugh more easily and most often dream in Technicolor. And no matter how many years sneak by, their imaginations keep them young forever.

  Well, that’s Bill Nolan.

  Read “One of Those Days.” You’ll be laughing right to the last line. And then a split second later, it’ll dawn on you how dead on the money this story really is. It goes far beyond a comically inspired narrative; it makes a meaningful point about the human condition.

  But then, that’s really nothing special for Bill.

  He seems to have this uncanny knack for doing that very thing over and over again. Each of his stories is like a psychiatric session from which the reader comes away knowing more about the human condition.

  No easy trick.

  In fact, no trick at all. It’s actually the startling by-product of remarkable observation and a prose style refined enough to dine with royalty.

  Read “Starblood” or “Saturday’s Shadow” or “The Partnership” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. These stories have an elegance and pace. Each is written with an exquisite poetry, with music to the language. Yet, each is wonderfully unsettling.

  Like Stephen King or Peter Straub or Roald Dahl, Bill is expert at seizing the reader with a blend of humor and horror; he understands the complexities of both. If you’ve never tried it, let me clue you in: it’s a nearly impossible balance to achieve. But Bill pulls it off without a quiver of the tightrope.

  I sometimes wonder if Bill had it all to do over, if he’d rather come back as Groucho Marx or Bela Lugosi. I think he’d have been just as happy whether wearing a cape or a cream pie. That’s the peculiar dichotomy of the man. And not so incidentally, it makes him one hell of a lot of fun to be around.

  I remember something my Dad once told me. He said a good piece of writing should make the reader do half the work. In other words, if the writer provides every detail, the reader isn’t being truly invited into the story. The reader should be able to contribute, to fill in the details. A good story should be a shared experience.

  I like that idea very much.

  And as the stories in this book prove, Bill Nolan strikes just the right balance. There is economical perfection in what he does as a writer. Not too much. Not too little. He invites you inside. And then he makes you feel like a plate of glass hit by a hammer when he decides to send you into a panic. Read “The Pool” and test your heartbeat after the last line. This guy Nolan can make your veins curl.

  Read “Into the Lion’s Den.” Now, there’s a story that will confuse the hell out of you emotionally. It absolutely offends and it totally ingratiates. Nolan is at it again, working his special magic, creating his own three-ring circus. And very likely shooting people out of cannons who’d rather just stand by and watch.

  As a fellow fantasy writer, I read a great many stories in the field and most fail to excite me. Either they have a terrific concept and weak writing, or the reverse.

  Not Bills work. His ideas are gems and his writing always does them justice. It’s not surprising, given his talent, that he’s been able to work in so many fields of writing. His scripts for television and films are lean, powerful extensions of his prose talents. Check out his teleplay of “The Party” in this collection, as an example. From his classic Logan’s Run, a novel which still echoes its poignant morality like fine Greek Tragedy, to the baleful menace of his screenplay for Burnt Offerings, Bill’s imagination is as evocative on a screen as on the printed page. His fascination with the topography of emotional torment, his infallible rendering of the troubled psyche mark a sensitivity to the human condition.

  The man sees things. He hears things.

  Things which are around all of us, all the time, unseen. Unseen, that is, unless one has Bill’s prismatic bent of mind. He perceives what is commonly thought to be invisible, As fellow practitioners, Bill and I often talk about the short story as an art form. We both love it. I have a particular fondness for short fiction because my Dad wrote so many stories while I was growing up. I dearly love them to this day. When I began to write and sell my own short stories and see them published, I felt a surge of enthusiasm that has never lessened.

  There’s something very exciting about writing a short story. And if you write the first draft of the story in one sitting, as I often do, it can be an out-of-the-body experience. You live through it in a compressed time span which can only be described as surreal. Novels are very different. I’ve written five so far and the writing and reading of the longer form is governed by more tranquil rhythms. A novel builds the mood slowly, over a long period of time.

  But a short story, pa
rticularly in the horror genre, often impacts like the bullet of a sniper during a sunny day at the beach (and yes, there’s a Nolan sniper in this collection. Check out “A Real Nice Guy”)

  In any case, I’ve said enough...

  Bill’s stories are getting restless.

  I can hear them screaming and pleading like the inmates of a burning madhouse, faces pressed against the windows.

  It’s time to let them loose. The lava lamp in Bill Nolan’s head is now turned on and the brilliant parabolas of this man’s extraordinary imagination are about to rise up from their primal base:

  You won’t be needing a reading light.

  The incandescent stories in this disturbing collection will light up your room, your mind and your heart. But be warned before blithely wandering in. I’ll make you a guarantee in writing: just when you’re feeling cozy and warm and secure, the occasionally sadistic Mr. Nolan will likely flip that light off, plunging you into howling darkness.

  Maybe a flashlight at hand wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  Richard Christian Matheson

  Los Angeles, California

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  What exactly constitutes terror on a screen or in the pages of a book or magazine? What actually frightens us? What combination of elements merge to cause a chill along the spine, a quickened beating of the heart, a gasp of sudden shock?

  Terror has to be built. It has to be constructed as carefully as an office skyscraper or a fine automobile. Terror is mood. Texture. Detail. Character. All must be orchestrated in the proper combination before the chill settles upon our bones.

  Let me demonstrate what I mean. In 1977 I wrote a television outline in which a really Awful Creature stalks through Los Angeles in human form. This scabrous fellow had already called upon an unfortunate young lady and left her floating, facedown, in her patio swimming pool. Now he is loose again, creeping about in the brush-covered hills of the San Fernando Valley, looking for fresh victims. As an example of how I build terror, here is the scene:

  FADE IN: