The Collection (2002) by Bentley Little
Hold your blankets tight
Readers unfamiliar with The Collection may wish to read these notes only after reading the collection.
The Collection and Bentley Little have both been on my radar for twenty-three years. Back then I made it a habit to purchase or borrow exclusively horror short story collections and anthologies. Novels were too problematic: long, perhaps boring, or poorly executed.
“The Sanctuary” (1989)
Weird family in a presumably weird society.
Weird region or weird family rites?
Coming of age.
This was crazy, he thought. This was wrong. This wasn't what he was supposed to do. But as he looked up, he thought he saw approval in Chrissie's running, clouded eyes, in his father's dry, empty sockets.
“The Woods Be Dark” (1993)
Aftermath
Rural
Back to the Olde Ways
We went to see Mrs. Caffrey the next day. All of us. We went into her little trailer out there by the edge of the lake and waited in the tiny waiting room out front. When she came out she was all dressed up. Momma told her what happened and Mrs. Caffrey prayed over her small bag of bones and threw a handful of sticks onto the table. When she was through she nodded. She held her head in her hands, closed her eyes, and sort of hummed to herself. When she looked up she was staring at me.
I tried to look away but I couldn't.
“The Phonebook Man” (1992)
Stalking
Menace
New in town
Strange customs
“Gone to pick up Erin. Be back for lunch.”
It was unsigned, but she knew who it was from. She ran to the bedroom, grabbed her keys, and sped out to the car. The car bumped over the curb on the way out into the street, but Nina didn’t care. She threw the car into drive and took off toward the school.
“Estoppel” (1988)
Solipsism
Malleable reality
Mind over matter
“I’m a music major,” I lied.
And I was a music major.
As simple as that.
My whole life shifted as I spoke those words. I remembered the myriad music courses I had taken and passed; I recalled names, faces, and even particular expressions of piano teachers I had studied under. I knew details about people I had not even known existed minutes before. I knew what the band had just played, and how and why.
“The Washingtonians” (1992)
Stalking
Menace
Cult
Lifting the veil
He leaned forward, across the counter. “I’m not sure you realize what you have here, Mr. Franks. With this one sheet of paper, you can entirely rewrite the history of our country.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “History is myth, Mr. Franks. It’s not just a collection of names and dates and facts. It’s a belief system that ultimately tells more about the people buying into it than it does about the historical participants. What do we retain from our school lessons about George Washington? About Abraham Lincoln? Impressions. Washington was the father of our country. Lincoln freed the slaves. We are who we are as a nation because of what we believe they were. This letter will shatter that belief system and will forever change the image we have of Washington and perhaps all our Founding Fathers. That’s a huge responsibility, and I think you should think about it.”
“Think about it?”
“Decide if you want to make this knowledge known.”
“Life with Father” (1998)
Rape
Incest
Dystopia
Environmentalism
[….] Father enters the living room, but out of the corner of my eye I can see his dark bulk blocking the light from the kitchen.
He walks toward me.
“I feel The Need,” he says.
My stomach knots up and I can’t hardly breathe, but I force myself to smile because I know that if he can’t have me he’ll start in on Shari. His seed can’t really be recycled (although he tried it once with frozen jars and the microwave, using his semen first as a skin lotion and then as a toothpaste), but he does not want it to go to waste, so when he feels The Need he makes sure that he finds a receptacle where it might do some good. In his mind, impregnating me is better than letting his seed go unused.
That’s how we got The Pets.
I take down my pants and panties and bend over the back of the couch, and I try not to cry as he positions himself behind me and shoves it in.
“Oh God,” I say, recycling the words he taught me. “You’re so good!”
And he moans.
“Bob” (2002)
Wrong address
Neighbors
Misunderstanding
“Well, Bob—” Ida began.
“My name’s not Bob,” he interrupted. “It’s Brandon.”
“Why, of course it is. But the reason we dropped by today is because of Libby—”
“I don’t know Libby.”
“Of course you don’t. But Libby is—how shall we say it?—going through some tough times. She hasn’t exactly been herself, as you might imagine, and, well, we just wanted to meet you first. You know how it is. We just wanted to make sure she was doing the right thing, that she wasn’t making a big mistake.” She looked around the room, blinked, brightened. “I’m sorry! I forgot to introduce everybody! Where are my manners?”
“That’s okay. I think—”
“Girls!” Ida said. “Best faces forward!”
“Bumblebee” (1991)
Zombies
Human trafficking
Red necks
Coyote
Arizona
“This Raymond Chandler crap”
“Bumblebee” is a first-person hard-luck you-can’t-win noir (or “neo-noir”?) about what today we would term human trafficking. Will exploited immigrants take revenge against coyotes?
“Lethe Dreams” (1987)
Parenthood
Newborns
Dead babies
Sleep deprivation
Marc smiled. Babies were a pain. They cut into sleep time and recreation time. But they were worth it. He closed his eyes for a second…
… and opened them in blackness. Cindy was sleeping soundly beside him, her bare back pressed against his chest. She had taken his clothes off somehow, while he was asleep, and they were carefully folded over the back of an antique chair. His headache was gone, but his brain was not still. The demon phantasms of a particularly vivid nightmare were imprinted onto the backs of his pupils. He saw them wildly reeling around the room even as he noted the firm substance of reality about him. There was a woman, not unlike Cindy but with torn ragged hair and misshapen grinning teeth, who was somehow, in some way, trying to kill a low-slung scuttling monster.
“Paperwork” (1988)
Arizona
Small town
Drivers
Pit-stop
Paper cut
Josh unscrewed the gas cap, and the attendant inserted the nozzle.
“Get out of here fast,” the old man whispered. “While you can. While they let you.”
Josh frowned. He glanced instinctively back at Lydia in the front seat. “What?”
The attendant’s eyes widened as he looked over Josh’s shoulder. “Here comes one now!”
The Idol (1991)
Folk horror
James Dean
Griffith Observatory
She put an arm around me. “I know, but my mom and a few of her friends are having, like, a picnic, and I have to go.”
My mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to lick my lips. “Where?”
“Griffith Park.”
“Can I go?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. It’s only for us girls this time.”
“I won’t—”
“No.” She smiled, reached over, tweaked my nose. “Jealous?”
I looked at her, looked at the closed drawer, thought for a moment, and shook my head. “No,” I said slowly. “No, I guess I’m not.”
“The next weekend we’ll do something special. Just us.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“The Idol” is a superbly modulated story.
