A Deeper Look Into "Behind the Shadows," by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Those of you who’ve been steady readers of Lucky Burns already know this about me. I’m a fan of horror anthologies. Fiction, television or comic book, I’m a chump sucker for terror shorts. I’ve mentioned it in prior posts, specifically my behind-the-scenes memoir for my recently-released horror collection, Bringing in the Creeps. I am a devotee of Stephen King, the original EC horror comics from the 1950s (the new stuff from EC’s recent reboot through Oni Press is also rather gnarly), the original Twilight Zone series and of, course, Creepshow in all of its varying media.

All of these and my love of retro storytelling (frequently dipped into the treasure trove of my loves and lives throughout the 1980s) went into Behind the Shadows, my first horror collection which was released in November of last year, through Raw Earth Ink. The same imprint who’d previously published my other works, Coming of Rage and Revolution Calling. When I told my publisher, tara caribou (lowercases are intentional) I wanted to shift my writing focus from reality-based drama to the genre I’ve loved most of my life, horror, she was all-in.

tara went the extra mile for me with my prior books and she put in a beautiful effort with Behind the Shadows, inclusive of printing ethereal smoke trails for the interior pages. People visiting my table at my book signings have all lingered on those rad effects while sifting through this collection and my sales turnaround rate from those who engage with it after listening to my spiel has been better than half. Thank you, tara, for such a savvy presentation.

The birth of this project stemmed from an abundance of horror short stories I’d written after separating from my first wife, on the weeks our son was with his mother before he came to live with me and my future wife full-time later in the year. Simultaneously writing Revolution Calling. In part a defense mechanism to the turmoil of my life, I hit an explosion of creativity.

I belted out many of the stories you read in Behind the Shadows in that period of transition, a few coming along later after I’d re-met and gotten engaged to my best friend, TJ. I put certain pains and joys into these ten tales and it was TJ who read them all and and spurred me to do something with them. To tighten up my original drafts, I went back to my EC bibles and crammed my library of reprinted volumes of Tales From the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, Shock SuspenStories, Weird Science and Crime Suspenstories. There’s just something to the visceral art and the gutty storytelling from vintage EC, and even though the trope of infidelity and backstabbery gets hashed to death in those classics, you can’t deny they’re addictive stuff to other storytellers of the macabre and fantastical.

Like Bringing in the Creeps, my stories here in Behind the Shadows are wrangled from various tempos of tension, certain levels of gore and widespread settings, going as far back as the Victorian age in the werewolf-starred title story and “Vladana’s Daughters.” The first story I wrote in this collection where I track one of Dracula’s brides who has ventured off to cultivate her own vampire coven after his dispatchment by Van Helsing. There’s been an accelerated curiosity about Drac’s harem over the years, who never really had names when first conceived by Bram Stoker. Lilith, Lamia and Melusina are the common names birthed from literature, but future movies and works spotlighting the infamous nympho brides all change their names to suit their purposes.

I did likewise, using the Czechian name Vladana and I sought to subtly retain her heated sexuality as she canvasses the same streets of London her former husband had prowled in Stoker’s vision. Vladana reviles Dracula and abhors her transformation, and yet she is yet still bound to him carnally as her feminine broils remain insatiate while turning young women on the streets to propagate her own family of Nosferatu. I had devious fun with the final scene of sexual exasperation Vladana goes through with an unfortunate male victim she and her brood take down. She is her own creature and leader now. Dracula is dead, yet it’s all still about him.

I worked in comic book retail during the early 1990s when DC Comics dropped the bombshell they were killing off the iconic Superman. A cheap ploy, as everyone now knows, considering the character’s low sales returns at the time of this stunt, which did feel very real back then. Also considering dead is never dead in comics these days.

It was a time of pure insanity working at Alternate Worlds in Cockeysville, Maryland. I’d worked the shop in its second location at the Cranbrook Shopping Center (the store has since been sold to new ownership and is now reverted to strictly online sales). The entire layout and “Death of Superman” madness served as setting for the bloody mayhem of “Death of the ‘S’” in Behind the Shadows.

The entire “Doomsday” saga ended in the brutal double death of Clark Kent and his seemingly unbeatable bone pillar of an adversary, a genetically-engineered alien killing machine kicked out by prehistoric Krypton and buried deep inside our planet. Eff you very much, prehistoric Krypton. Both Superman and Doomsday have clocked out and checked back in for duty ad nauseum since 1993, but back then, “Doomsday” was a sales bonanza. It made national news. An actual day of mourning was held for Superman. DC writers couldn’t have penned a better farce. We sold advance packages of the entire story kicked off in Justice League and spanning four simultaneous Superman titles DC was running at the time, the death blow coming in Superman, Volume 2, number 75. It was a blowout from investors more than pure readers before it ever kicked off.

If you were there, you remember the polybagged special edition of # 75 complete with those stupid silk mourning armbands inside. It all blew out of Alternate Worlds at Warp Five and all across America to the point DC issued successions of reprints. It was the second printing of Superman # 75, released on Black Friday that year, where we were mobbed by people who’d missed out and wanted in on the story of the century. Collectors and curious alike, we had people in the store we’d never see again clamoring for that damn book. The line out the door before store’s opening stretched all the way down the shopping center. It was one of the toughest days of work I ever had in my 55 years. I did have PTSD from it, lol.

I recreate the entire mania and rain Armageddon all over it in “Death of the ‘S,’” one of my favorite tales from Behind the Shadows and one comic book geeks especially will get a real kick out of. Note the altered color scheme in the titling and the Roman number II on the infamous second printing below.

Reviewers and readers alike routinely flag the opening story “The Darkest Side of Jericho” as one of their favorites from Behind the Shadows. It so happens to be a real place.

Jericho Covered Bridge in Kingsville, Maryland, has been, for generations, reported to be haunted. Ghosts of hanging Civil War soldiers, runaway slaves and ill-fated lovers, the burnt woman, the creepy little girl. Irresistible fuel inspiring my story of a young, modern-era couple who are amateur paranormal video documentarians who discover there’s absolute truth to the dark legends at Jericho Covered Bridge.

I had fun using a lost-footage motif at the end to hammer my story’s brutal denouement. I even had a blast with TJ when we took a drive out to Jericho Covered Bridge a week before Behind the Shadows’ release to get some goofy promotional photos using the bridge as backdrop.

That’s me, of course, in the silly ghoul gear, prancing around the bridge. The shot peering through the bridge with me skulking by was TJ’s call and it’s pretty effective, I’d say. Thanks, babe! I later staged a contest for my readers to give my ghoul alter ego a name in a pre-launch promotion for Bringing in the Creeps. Cheers to my winner, Michael Raven out of Minneapolis, for coming up with the creepy-cool “Avernus.”

Full disclaimer, no spirits, ghosts or other nasties were found at the bridge during our visit. Only a left-behind sneaker. Insinuate what you will…

Probably my proudest-written story in this collection is a Creepshow-designed baseball story, “Backdoor Breaker.” I’ve been passionate about the sport for most of my life, though I was a rank outfielder but a snappy second baseman in the short time I played. My overall batting average? Let’s not go there.

Nevertheless, I am a deep baseball aficionado and tooting my own horn, my play-by-play narration inside “Backdoor Breaker” was meticulous and possibly my best writing in the entire collection. Superstar first baseman Jake Puzzella’s done a fellow league player dirty. Jake’s about to be done dirtier in the middle of a tense, one-run game from the spirit of the player he killed for love.

I created fictitious teams and dreamed up an intercontinental professional baseball league on the same echelon as the MLB, purposefully adding teams from Japan and far eastern countries and a deeper plunge into Canada beyond only Toronto (Montreal Expos forever). It’s because I’ve always taken exception to Major League Baseball’s termed “World Series” for a near-exclusive American team-based league. You’re not a true world champion unless you’ve beaten teams outside your borders, just saying. The stadium I imagined for “Backdoor Breaker” was modeled after PETCO Park, home of the San Diego Padres. No rhyme or reason other the Padres have a really neat park.

How cool is this ad I was able to take out in the international horror magazine, Scream? As I’m a one-man operation, it meant the world (pun intended) to get this full-pager run inside their pages. That artwork you see is courtesy of comic book and horror artist, Matt Slay, who also did the gloriously nasty cover of Bringing in the Creeps.

I gave Matt my idea of recreating one of the 1990s Wolverine covers where he slashes out at the reader. An image that’s stuck with me ever since and it perfectly captures what I conjured up in the story “Secrets,” probably my second favorite story in Behind the Shadows. A Vietnam veteran and his daughter have moved across the country from Maryland to Montana to start a new life and to hide a terrible secret from the world. A monster mother. I sought to honor my stepfather in this story, who’d fought in the ‘Nam at the Rock Pile in the nefarious DMZ where countless casualties were incurred. Father and daughter come to terms at a crossroads, but what about Ma-Thing?

I round this book out with a David Bowie tribute of sorts titled “The Grinning Soul,” inspired by the final cut from his Aladdin Sane album, “Lady Grinning Soul.” I had dastardly fun cooking this one up where I serve a cheater his splattery comeuppance. Evan’s a bit of a loser. He spends all his money on music. His marriage is going down the rails. He can’t quit smoking. He’s got it bad for the cashier at his favorite music store, Patrice. Interracial sex, hot tunes, a crazy drug trip in the key of Bowie and a finish where Patrice just may be his living end. What’s not to love?

As always when I’m deep into a project, I ran through some deeper cut Twilight Zone episodes such as “Escape Clause,” “The Fever,” “A World of Difference” and “Mr. Bevis” while writing these stories. Most obviously Twilight Zone spilled into the endings of “Behind the Shadows” and “Lunch Break” where I sought gut-punching irony. Werewolves or cannibals, they’re creatures of habit, but there are still strange equalizers and game-changing monkey business afoot to be accounted for.

Finally, I have a 100-word drabble story appearing in Behind the Shadows called “Deepfake.” One the most frightening concepts in this modern age of A.I. and advanced tech I can imagine is being held hostage somewhere and some Hostel-type sickos perpetrate outrageous wholesale murder using your identity. I’d read this piece at open mike events and shared it with other writers and got the shivery responses I was looking for. Thus, it landed here.

My promotion for Behind the Shadows was tiring but exciting. I printed up my own t-shirt with the cover, I had stickers and swag, including coffee mugs, as giveaways. I had print and video advertising. I had incredible testimonials from New York Times bestsellers Dayton Ward, Michael Jan Friedman and Richard Chizmar and other esteemed authors and comic creators.

It was the biggest initiative I’d ever thrown into one of my endeavors. It’s taken until now for things to rev up, and I’m happy to say sales have been, of late, pretty even between Behind the Shadows and Bringing in the Creeps. I’m on the ups.

Both of these collections are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Walmart.com and numerous online retails, plus digitally at Kindle, Nook and Kobo. As my wife loves to say, pick your shivers. Or better yet, get all goosey by grabbing both!

Thank you as always, my friends.

—Ray Van Horn, Jr.