Book Review: HALLOWEEN III SEASON OF THE WITCH: THE NOVELIZATION (1982, Dennis Etchison)

Stars:  3 of 5.
Length:  228 pages.
Publisher:  Jove Publications, NY.
Tag-line:  "The night no one comes home.  The new screen shocker by Jack Martin based on a screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace– a John Carpenter /Debra Hill production."
Back cover blurb:   "Do you know where your kids are tonight?  The streets are quiet.  Dead quiet as the shadows lengthen and night falls.  It's Halloween.  Blood-chilling screams pierce the air.  Grinning skulls and grotesque shapes lurk in the gathering darkness.  It's Halloween.  The streets are filling with small cloaked figures.  They're just kids, right?  The doorbell rings and your flesh creeps.  But it's all in fun, isn't it?  No.  This Halloween is different.  It's the last one."

Happy Halloween, everyone–  Poor Man's Carpy continues!

Using the pseudonym of "Jack Martin," Dennis Etchison brings us another John Carpenter-related movie novelization (he also did THE FOG and HALLOWEEN II) that's better than it needs to be.  In lieu of retreading old ground, if you need a little background on Etchison and his other Carpy-related work, see my review of THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION.  Also, if you're somehow unfamiliar with HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, allow me to fill you in:

After HALLOWEEN II, John Carpenter was getting sick of this Michael Myers guy, and envisioned the HALLOWEEN series as becoming a series of spooky flicks that merely shared the common holiday setting.  Therefore, he, HALLOWEEN co-creator Debra Hill, and crony Tommy Lee Wallace (who designed the original look for Michael Myers) teamed up to unfold the saga of an evil cult of killer-robot-manufacturing Irish people living in a small town in California who are hell-bent (literally!) on killing the children of America by way of rigged masks that will turn them into rotting piles of snakes and spiders. They are doing this so that people will take Halloween seriously again.  It leads to an absurdist, apocalyptic, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS-by-way-of-James Bond conclusion, and in its own way is one of the great, underrated horror films of the 1980s.

So what does HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION bring to the table?  The language isn't quite as florid as in THE FOG, but it's a decently written palimpsest of the screenplay.  Let me give you the rundown– my ten favorite things about HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION:

#1.  It begins with a Thomas Hardy quote.

 Remember him, possibly from English Lit?  JUDE THE OBSCURE, THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, etc., etc.?  So let me say that again:  the HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH novelization begins with a quote by Thomas Hardy.

"If a way to the better there be, it lies in taking a full look at the worst."
–Thomas Hardy

Is that a prediction of HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION?  Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.  (Also, I'd like to see Carpy do "TESS OF THE COUPE DE VILLES!)

#2.  Attempts to recreate how annoying the "Halloween Countdown song" is.

Anyone who's seen HALLOWEEN III will never forget the "Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween... eight more days to Halloween..." Silver Shamrock song, set to the theme of "London Bridge is Falling Down."  Etchison, obviously, makes it an integral part of the novel.

"The insistent refrain, chanted inanely to the tune of 'London Bridge is Falling Down,' was for a few moments everywhere, even cutting into speakers which were set to carry only a steady drone of Muzak around the clock throughout the hospital and, it had seemed to Challis lately, the entire world.  But tonight he was feeling no pain.  '...SIL-VER SHAMROCK!'  At last the advertising jingle wound down, followed immediately by Madison Avenue's idea of an Irish jig."

#3.  Michael Myers fake-out.

Etchison knows that some readers of HALLOWEEN III: THE NOVELIZATION (specifically those who haven't seen the film yet) are going to expect to read about Michael Myers.  Instead of being up front with his audience about Myers' exclusion, he tries to fake them out for the first fifty or so pages.   I find this to be hilarious.

In a marked reference to "The Shape" being Myers' name from the credits to the first film, Etchison tries to fool us while he describes one of the Irish robots:

"It was not a bush that was moving.  It was the shape of a man.  ...He veered to the curb and cut his lights.  The shape was no longer there."

Furthermore, he specifically references the tag-line of the first film by naming the first section "The Night He Came Home Again." As you read on, you realize that this actually refers to "Challis" (the Tom Atkins character).  Additionally, the opening murder (which takes place less than five minutes into the movie) doesn't occur until 53 pages in to this thing!  It almost seems designed to piss people off.  I heartily approve, and find it well-deserving of a slow clap.

 #4.  Challis' (Tom Atkins') alcoholism.

In THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION, Etchison fills in a few gaps in regard to character development, particularly with Father Malone (Hal Holbrook), the tortured whisky priest.  Here, since Challis is the clear protagonist, Etchison's focus is not divided (THE FOG has an array of protagonists– you could even make the argument that the fog itself is the main character!) and he's free to explore his brooding and alcoholism in great detail.  We see a fair amount of it in the movie, but in the novelization, Etchison describes it quite well, alternating between grotesque Bukowskian flourish,  Raymond Carver-ish straightforwardness, and Amis-style panache.

"'Agnes, tell me you've got a beer stashed somewhere with my name on it.  You were just about to say that, weren't you?  I can tell.  My mouth feels like a bedpan.'"

"He was strangling the glass neck through the twisted brown paper." 

"The day after the funeral he had bourbon for breakfast."  

"He poured beer down his throat.  It tasted bitter, but he knew it would make him feel better in a few minutes."  

"Beneath the wide brimmed hat was an old face, covered with stubble and deeply creased from too many years out of doors and out of luck.  The expression in the eyes was rat-shrewd.  It was a look Challis had seen all his life, in bus depots and skid-row clinics in every city he had worked.  The face was no more than forty years old by the calendar.  But they had been forty long, hard years." 

And perhaps one of my all-time favorite sleazy 1982 sentences:

"Ellie's maroon Cutlass was waiting at the curb in front of the liquor store."

#5.  These sentiments extend to Challis' brooding, which is wonderfully bitter and even more enjoyable if you properly imagine it as Tom Atkins' internal monologue.

"Kids, he thought.  They don't forget– they're too young– and so they don't forgive.  They're the only truly uncivilized beings left on earth, a race apart, a primitive tribe and a law unto themselves."

"The evasions are over.  I thought I could get away.  But I couldn't.  Happy Halloween, he told himself, gunning the motor and roaring away from the house, his house, the house he had built and would continue to maintain forever, undoubtedly even unto death and beyond the grave, if his ex-wife and the lawyers had their way.  Trick or treat?  ...He knew the answer, and would never ask the question again."

#6. Big Ideas.

Etchison tries to work some Big Ideas into this mass market paperback...  and sort of succeeds!  He hammers the point home that men are becoming like machines, that our humanity is being lost as our society becomes increasingly mechanized and detached.  These have become stock ideas and it's nearly impossible to express them without hammering the reader over the head, but dammit– Etchison hammers 'em well:

"They survive, he thought, the slow and the stubborn, the old individualist misfit sons of pioneers who won't allow themselves to be folded, stapled, or spindled.  The revolutions come and go, nations are torn apart and rebuilt, the climate changes to make way for the next millennium; the snow on the wheel turns and the century ices.  Men like machines walk on the moon and machines like men remake the world in their own image; the iron dream rears its head again in a new age; the old tribes fade from sight in the long night of the human soul."

I never thought I would read about "the long night of the human soul" in any movie novelization, much less that of a much-loathed horror sequel written under a pseudonym.  Will wonders never cease?


#7.  A FOG reference?

Apparently Father Malone survived THE FOG and relocated to Santa Mira?

"A signboard reading 'Church of St. Patrick/Rev. Father Tom Malone' was hanging peeled and broken from one upright."

#8.  A Jamie Lee Curtis reference.

The robotic, Big Brother-ish voice which lords over the evil Irish town of Santa Mira is played in the movie by an uncredited Jamie Lee Curtis.  She even gets a shout-out in the novelization:

"'Going down,' said a sensuous female voice."

#9.  The book can also function as a robot-killing manual.

"The graysuit outside her room went into a sputtering death-dance at the first surprising thrust to its soft spot.  The same spot, where the diaphragm would be in a human being, an inch or two below the center of the ribcage.  Challis remembered well his latest anatomy lesson."

#10.  The closing lines of apocalyptic brilliance:

"'STOP IT!  STOP IT! STOP...'  Then there was only the sound of the rain outside in the endless blackness of the long night and, presently, the rising tones of a pitiful wailing within and without, spreading across the station, the town, and the land without end."

Simply fantastic.  That about wraps it up, ladies and gentlemen. Again,  Happy Halloween– and stay tuned:  Poor Man's Carpy shall continue through November!

–Sean Gill

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Book Review: THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION (1980, Dennis Etchison)

Stars:  3.7 of 5.
Length:  180 pages.
Publisher:  Bantam Books, NY.
Tag-line:  "The terror filled novel– based on a motion picture written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill."
Back cover blurb:  "Before the light of dawn, you will know the vengeful fury of the dead.  Tonight the fog that rises off the California coast is different.  And deadly.  A writhing icy mist pulsing with terror.  It is too late to escape.  Even now the people of Antonio Bay are cut off, engulfed.  Along darkened streets, death searches them out.  There is no sanctuary for the living.  Those who are doomed will die horribly.  Those who are spared will suffer the endless fear of a soul-chilling night when the dead, finally, return for revenge.  THE FOG: NOW A MAJOR RELEASE FROM AVCO EMBASSY PICTURES."

Now here's some real Carpy marginalia– the novelization of THE FOG!  Longtime readers will note that THE FOG is one my all-time favorite horror movies, and I did a write-up about it a few years back which you can read here.  (Others will note that I was even so moved by THE FOG that I wrote a three-part series of John Carpenter fanfiction entitled "Carpy & the Cap'n" which chronicles the fictitious attempts to combine a CAPTAIN RON sequel with a spin-off of THE FOG.)

Anyway, as to the novelization:  surprise, surprise– it's basically the movie.  But amid its cheap and yellowed pages there's some nice ghostly atmosphere, the clear influence of writers like Ray Bradbury and M.R. James, and some fine horror nostalgia for fans of Young Adult lit in the 1980s.

A little background:  from page one, you can tell that Dennis Etchison is a higher caliber of writer than those who usually pen these sorts of trashy mass-market rush-jobs.  His C.V. is of interest, too:  he  was the President of the American Horror Writers' association in the early 90s, wrote an un-produced adaptation of THE MIST in the early 80s, was Stephen King's film consultant on the nonfiction DANSE MACABRE, and was a staff writer on TV's THE HITCHHIKER (you can read a rundown of my love/hate relationship with that particular series here).   Later, under the pseudonym of Jack Martin, he wrote the novelizations for HALLOWEEN II, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, and VIDEODROME, one of which will be the subject of a forthcoming review.

Now, without further ado, my Top Six favorite moments from the paperback novelization of THE FOG:

#1.  The opening lines:

     "The moon rose over the bay, round and burnished as a golden doubloon.  It hung there high above the black waters, breaking the even waves with yellow tips and tinting the flat sand and the beach houses and the jagged trees behind them with a faint, ghostly pallor, a reflection of its polished, uneven face."

Etchison really sets the stage– evocative, ornate, maybe even a little overblown.  But that's good.  He's not a hack, and this isn't simply a paycheck for him.  Right off the bat, he's letting us know that he intends to take the novelization of THE FOG very, very seriously.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

#2.  Father Malone (Hal Holbrook in the movie)'s alcoholism: 

     "Ought to put the wine away, he supposed.  But why bother?  The boy had smelled it on his breath enough times.  ...He turned slowly and gave the boy a sleepy smile, rotating the stem of the crystal wine glass in his fingers." 

and his self-condemnation:

     "His robes flowed open, rustling over the uneven stones as the material filled with dank air and blossomed around his thin body.  From time to time his bare heels caught and tripped on the hem, but he took no notice of the tearing of the vestment as he drifted on, circling the pews beneath darkling stained glass, doomed to visit, again and again, without end, the stations of his dispensation."

Malone's soul, racked with guilt over the misdeeds of his ancestors, has become that classical archetype of the "whisky priest."   This is what movie novelizations are all about– the writer has to fill his paragraphs with something extra– so why not explore in depth what is mostly alluded to in the movie?


#3.  Evocative prose.

     "He marched across the sand, packed smooth again during the night, the red float at the end of his fishing line swinging in the sky in front of him like a brave winking eye, leading the way. ...  Already his cheeks were burning as the breeze combed his hair back with a fine spray from the riptide.  Far down the beach at the cusp of the bay, a big dog, an Irish setter or golden retriever, pawed for sand crabs and then broke into a loping run at the gulls that were sunning themselves at the waterline, kicking up a muddy trail and then dashing for safety, his legs splaying wildly and his pink tongue flying, as the water washed in to fill his footprints with clear bubbles."

The seaside has always impelled writers to employ poetic language, and Dennis Etchison is no exception.  And though it's not quite worthy of William Faulkner, that closing sentence up there is pretty damn lengthy for a movie-based paperback, intended to be disposable reading for people on summer vacation!


#4.  That stomach-pounder reference!

As I explained in-depth in my review of HALLOWEEN 6, a throwaway line in THE FOG has led to much debate about what, exactly, a "stomach-pounder" is.
Here, is that section from the novel, replicated in all of it's glory:

     "'Mom, can I go get a Stomach Pounder and a Coke?'
How quickly they change gears, she thought.  Exit the wood to the junk pile, enter the Golden Arches.  'After lunch.  Did you eat your breakfast?'
     "Yeah.  I'm gonna go look for another one [piece of driftwood -SG].    Maybe this time I can get the gold coin!'
     He jumped off the bed and raced out of the bedroom."

Well, now it certainly looks like the person who theorized it meant "Quarter Pounder from McDonald's" was right, given the reference to the "Golden Arches."  But again this raises the question– why would he get a Quarter Pounder after lunch?  Perhaps we will never know. 

#5.  Added material.

There's not a whole lot here that's not in the movie, but, for example, Stevie (Adrienne Barbeau) notices a crucified starfish on her property; we spend a lot more time with Dan O'Bannon (Charles Cyphers) and his daily routine, which involves a daredevil coastal drive to the weather station; and Andy (Ty Mitchell, who plays Adrienne Barbeau's son) has an extended dream sequence with evil pirates, Davy Jones, and a giant manta ray ("...the remains of the great pirate Davy Jones himself.  An electric eel was slithering alive inside the empty skull, lighting the eyesockets with a blinding florescence.  A host of plankton jetted by, tinging the water around Andy with a glow like Greek fire.")


#6.  Like the movie, it leaves plenty to the imagination.

The violence is muted and atmospheric, remaining true to Carpenter's vision.  From the death of Mrs. Kobritz:

"Had he looked back over his shoulder one last time to argue, he would have seen a tall shape solidifying behind Mrs. Kobritz, a stringy black hand reaching around her head from the outside, closing at her chin, covering her mouth so that she could not scream, and lifting her as if she were a rag doll straight up into the air, leaving her empty shoes toppling on the welcome mat." 

And so there you have it.  THE FOG: THE NOVELIZATION.  Not an essential work of literature by any means, but far better than it needed to be! 

–Sean Gill

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Book Review: THREE BAD MEN: JOHN FORD, JOHN WAYNE, WARD BOND (2013, Scott Allen Nollen)

I'm a longtime fan of John Ford (who isn't, really?), the patron-saint of Monument Valley, born-again Irishman, and director of some of the best-constructed, most thoughtful films to come out of Hollywood, from THE INFORMER to THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE to THE QUIET MAN to THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
John Wayne is, so to speak, John Wayne, though his work frequently transcends the "movie star" mold with a dancer's grace and a touch of madness like in Ford's THE SEARCHERS, Hawks' RED RIVER, and Siegel's THE SHOOTIST.
Then, there's Ward Bond: a character actor extraordinaire who played brutes and cowpokes and priests and boxers across more than two hundred films.  Though his supporting work with Ford and Wayne is why he's included in this trio, my soft spot for him will always be his one and only shot at top-billing in 1942's HITLER: DEAD OR ALIVE, a film that clearly inspired INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and contains the fabulous spectacle of Ward slapping the shit out of Hitler himself ...before proceeding to force-shave off his mustache! 

Anyway, I just finished reading Scott Allen Nollen's in-depth examination of the lives and work of these three cinematic giants, and I highly recommend it as a fascinating study for burgeoning old-Hollywood aficionados and serious fans of cinema alike.  Chronologically tracing the intertwining lives of these three "good-bad men" who were not unlike the characters in their films (Ford directed Bond and Wayne in nearly thirty pictures each), Nollen is at once objective and affectionate in his analysis, and there's a wealth of source material including documents, letters, telegrams, and plenty of rare photographs.  There are riveting anecdotes (I may now actually be inspired to read Harry Carey, Jr.'s autobiography), some great yarn-spinning (including tales of Ward Bond's brutish, high-flying, indecent-exposing, Wile E. Coyote-style antics and his ruining of a key scene in THE SEARCHERS when he unplugged the camera to plug in his electric razor!), and the work definitely touches on their peccadillos and absurdities, though never salaciously.

It's deftly written and never dry; while many books of this kind become bogged down by academic posturing, Nollen remains true to the spirit of his subjects and opts for a two-fisted, no bullshit approach.  I really appreciate how deeply he throws himself into the work, freely admitting "a meaningful (though a bit one-sided) conversation with a tombstone or two."  He's as a film writer should be– intense, obsessive, and highly-focused; reverent without succumbing to hollow adulation.

The main drive of the work is the examination of the complex personal and working relationship between the three (though large swaths of the book are dedicated to advancing the underrated Ward Bond to his rightful place in the pantheon).  None of these men could really be pinned down or branded with a particular stereotype– each had a volatile mix of id and ego (often sprinkled heavily with alcohol) that fused together to create a kind of perfect storm of filmic art. 
The complex psychology of Ford's relationships with the two men is indeed worthy of an entire volume– you see a strange kind of ownership emerge, resulting from Ford's "discovering" of the two actors.  This ownership was generally expressed in verbal (and often physical) sadism as Ford became master of his "whipping boys," something which may have even tied into his potential bisexuality:

"Ford loved John Wayne and Ward Bond, but his true sexual orientation wasn't something he would have discussed with them, or anyone else.  When it came to his own life and psyche, Pappy [Ford] avoided the truth, exaggerated, lied, or just didn't 'have any goddamn idea.'  The positive emotions he felt for his two favorite actors and whipping boys may have been the underlying cause of his negative, sadistic treatment of them (and himself); but even a lifetime of psychoanalysis may not have 'proved' anything."

Vindictive and controlling, Ford "froze out" Wayne for eight years when he appeared in a rival director's Western (Raoul Walsh's THE BIG TRAIL) and later, when Bond made serious forays into television (WAGON TRAIN) and Wayne tried to direct a picture of his own (THE ALAMO), Ford would sometimes install himself as a presence on set and attempt to undermine/co-opt the work therein.  These behaviors even extended beyond the trio– he punched out Henry Fonda (!) on MISTER ROBERTS and made cruel, deliberate use of alcohol to wring earth-shattering, hungover performances out of the likes of Victor McLaglen in THE INFORMER and Woody Strode in SERGEANT RUTLEDGE.

Though he reveals these men "warts and all," Nollen also paints a portrait of devoted friends and masterful artists whose lives and creative outlets meshed almost completely.  (For instance, despite the abuse, Ford chose Bond to play his own alter-ego in the deeply personal THE WINGS OF EAGLES.) 

Nollen takes on the accusations of racism in Ford's films, and reveals his struggle to show all sides despite the constraints of the system– especially evident in films like THE SEARCHERS, SERGEANT RUTLEDGE, and CHEYENNE AUTUMN.  He tackles the strange political spectrum of the men, too, with John Ford's patriotic progressivism, Wayne's conservatism, and Ward Bond's ultraconservatism (and yet it was Ford who took his camera overseas into the crucible of World War II while Wayne and Bond remained in Hollywood).  He doesn't shy away from Ward Bond's shameful behavior in the McCarthy era as a supporter of the blacklist:

"The social climbing Bond's ultimate political affront to Ford involved an invitation to a party he was throwing for Senator Joseph McCarthy.  His great mentor [Ford] simply answered, 'You can take your party and shove it.  I wouldn't meet that guy in a whorehouse.  He's a disgrace and a danger to our country.'"

Bond's involvement with the blacklist feels like a moral counterpoint to Ford's extensive work with the U.S. armed forces in World War II and beyond, and much attention here is paid to his military career (I learned that in North Africa a Nazi actually surrendered himself to John Ford!) 

Along the way, Nollen delves into a vast spectrum of material including Ford's relationship with his older brother Francis (mentor, actor, and silent film director), Ford's gleeful propensity for Chaucer/Shakespearean-style low comedy and his hilariously bizarre obsession with highlighting Ward Bond's "horse's ass" in shot compositions ("Although FORT APACHE is a serious examination of the mythology of the American West, it humorously can be branded Ford's 'ass-travaganza'").  Of particular interest to me were Ford's work with Victor McLaglen (whose performance in THE INFORMER is one of the greatest in filmdom), his direction of genius child actor and later genre-movie legend Roddy McDowall in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY,  Bond's artistic process as unofficial show-runner on WAGON TRAIN, and the compelling, touching latter-day friendship between Ford and Woody Strode– and the book certainly has some genuinely emotional, poignant moments as the three "good-bad" men's lives dwindle to a close.

In the end, it definitely gets you amped up to watch some John Ford films– I've probably seen at least two dozen or so at this point, but there's still scores more I need to get my hands on, and there's obviously some big gaps in my knowledge.  For instance, since I've read THREE BAD MEN, MISTER ROBERTS, THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, 3 GODFATHERS, and WAGON MASTER have now leapt to the forefront of my queue.

THREE BAD MEN is published by McFarland (Order line: 800-253-2187), ISBN 978-0-7864-5854-7

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Book Review: THE GHOST MAKER: A HALLOWEEN TALE (1988, John Carpenter)

In continuing John Carpenter week, here's a little oddity- originally published in the New York Times on October 31, 1988, this short story is extremely derivative of H.P. Lovecraft, but is certainly enjoyable enough as a miniature horror yarn designed to complement your bowl of Count Chocula or what-have-you on a Halloween morning. It recalls most readily Lovecraft's "The Outsider," one of his most famous short stories (which in turn, is rather indebted to Poe).

Carpenter additionally injects the theory of Schrodinger's Cat into the narrative, which imbues it with a touch of Science Fiction. He peppers the story with references to Lovecraft, from "Dr. Necron," to the asylum frame story, to simply the language itself- and, as such, it feels more like a mere pastiche than, say, Carpenter's Lovecraft-inspired films like IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS or PRINCE OF DARKNESS (or to some extent, THE THING), which take on distinct lives of their own. In short, it's not a piece of any literary significance, but an interesting curiousity for the Carpenter (or Lovecraft) fan. The original story appears below:



The Ghost Maker: A Halloween Tale
© 1988, John Carpenter and The New York Times.

I live my days in silence, behind the barred in windows of this asylum, in a cell of shadows. Until this moment I have spoken to no living person of the events of that Halloween night five years ago - because I could neither ask for nor expect belief.

But today, my doctor has given me paper and a pen, as he hopes I shall be compelled to write out my tale of horror and madness - once and for all expelling the demons that hold me in their catatonic embrace. I know this horror shall never leave me. So my purpose, Dear Reader, is to finally put before the world the events of Oct. 31, five years past, as I experienced them, that no man may follow me to this hideous darkness in which I dwell, awaiting the only mercy I shall ever know - my release - the moment of death.

It was a bitterly cold night and I welcomed the warmth of the hearth in Howard Necron's study that All Hallow's Eve five years ago. I settled myself comfortably into an armchair by the crackling fireplace and waited as Necron poured two large snifters of brandy. He then turned to me with the oddest smile...

"I suppose, William, that you wonder why I have asked you here this evening," Necron said as he poured the amber liquid.

I admitted that I had been somewhat curious, as for the last 15 years we had been bitter professional rivals. We had once been partners in science and the closest of friends as well, but a dark schism had developed over our opposing research ethics. Necron had always wanted to prove that which should have, to my mind at least, remained in the ephemeral world of mathematics and theory. Disagreement had turned to debate, which in turn had become cold enmity.

"What would you say, William, if I told you that using universally accepted scientific principles, I could create a ghost?"

"I would say, Necron, that you were as mad as a March hare." My smile of derision must have been obvious, for he turned quickly away, pausing for a moment with his back to me before he slowly crossed the study to hand me the brandy snifter.

"To science, eh, William?" As he raised his glass to mine, his gaze seemed to burn into me, as if a shrewd smokey secret passed behind his eyes. I nodded and took a sip of the brandy. It had a sharp undertaste, and as I started to mention something about it, Necron settled himself closer to me on the ottoman at my feet.

"What is Schrodinger's cat?" he asked in a whisper.

"There's no need for this. We both know what it is." I suddenly felt unfocused. Drowsy. Probably the heat from the fire, making me sleepy. "It is a... a... thought experiment used to demonstrate the paradox of observer-created reality," I answered.

Necron seemed unbearably close to me now, his face but inches from my own.

"Yes," he said, "Nothing is real until you observe it."

Necron now stood, staring down at me with triumph and ice, the fire flickering on his face, shadows squirming like mad, devouring insects. A wave of dizziness washed through me.

Necron continued: "Imagine a box. The size of a coffin. Inside it is a radioactive particle with a 50-50 chance of decaying in, say, one minute. Also in the box is a glass bottle containing cyanide gas, and a Geiger counter. And, finally, into the box, is placed - an unconscious man."

"A cat, wasn't it?" I broke in. I was having a difficult time maintaining any line of reasoning, but there was a chill to his words.

His eyes began to drift strangely above me, as I sipped once again from my drink. That metallic undertaste assaulted me again. What had he put in my brandy? Could Necron be that insane? I tried to focus on his face. His features seemed to melt in the heat of the fire.

"If the radioactive particle decays, the Geiger counter so records it, trips a hammer, smashes the glass bottle, thus allowing the cyanide gas to escape and kill the man."

Necron's words were running all together.

"You mean... the cat," I mumbled weakly.

"Or," he said, "if the particle does not decay, the Geiger counter is silent, the hammer not tripped, the man allowed to live."

The room was spinning like a child's music box. The heat from the fireplace... Necron looming above me... My eyes bobbed open, closed. "What did you put... in my drink?"

But Necron ignored my slurred question.

"Don't you see, William? I could be either a murderer or a savior, because until human eyes see inside the box, the man inside is both dead and alive at the same time - a complex, linear combination of the two. The man in the box is a ghost of all possibilities of dead and alive, condemned to live in a limbo until the box is opened and he is observed by human eyes." His voice had dropped to a sibilant rasp, eyes glowing with a fury.

The snifter of brandy suddenly fell from my fingers. As I lost consciousness Necron's face was the last thing I saw.

"I am the ghost maker," he said, grinning. Then there was nothing. Blackness. Silence.

I awoke. I was lying down. Enclosed. Trapped. I couldn't move. Listening. Trying to breath. Then suddenly I threw up my arms. Touched a solid surface above me, no more than a foot away from my face. A lid. I was buried. In a coffin. A box.

I pushed up the lid a fraction of an inch.

A sliver of morning sunlight appeared as the lid opened, illuminating the inside of the box.

I suddenly saw the thing above me. It was hovering, just a foot away. Its body prone, it was staring down at me. Fuzzy. Indistinct. Its arms reached for me and at the same time another pair of arms lay at its side.

It was a blurred composite. A living transition. A contradiction. All possibilities, dead and alive. It undulated. Gazing eyes. Dead eyes. Living eyes. Blue decaying flesh.

In the fraction of a second before it disappeared I saw the creature's shape crawling, diffracting - indefinite, exploding anew out of rippling flesh.

A leering death's head began to scream down at me, disintegrating, crumbling and decomposing, growing and rejuvenating, humanity degraded and corrupted, dead and alive, revealed in an instant.

And then it was over. The thing disappeared. Its features settled, collapsed into definition. I looked around - the glass bottle at my feet was unbroken, the cyanide gas contained. The Geiger counter at my side was silent.

My mind raced frantically. Dead plus alive. Alive minus dead. Dead plus the square root of minus alive.

And then, as I continued to push upward, the impact of Necron's experiment hit me. As my fingers lifted the underside of the lid, the thing made man stared back at me in horror, screaming a long, sustained shriek of utter annihilation. Touching the unfeeling surface of a mirror - I realized the hideous image had been a reflection - it was I.

-John Carpenter

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