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MORE STORIES FROM THE
TWILIGHT
ZONE
MORE STORIES FROM THE
TWILIGHT
ZONE
EDITED AND WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
Carol Serling
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK • New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
MORE STORIES FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Serling and Tekno Books
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2581-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-2582-2 (trade paperback)
First Edition: July 2010
Printed in the United States of America
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COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction copyright © 2010 by Carol Serling
“Curve” copyright © 2010 by Loren D. Estleman
“Reversal of Fortune” copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Serling
“By the Book” copyright © 2010 by Nancy Holder
“Earthfall” copyright © 2010 by John Farris
“Dead Post Bumper” copyright © 2010 by Dean Wesley Smith
“Thoughtful Breaths” copyright © 2005 by Peter Crowther. First published in Subterranean #1. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Obsession” copyright © 2010 by David Black
“Sales of a Deathman” copyright © 2010 by David Gerrold
“The Writing on the Washroom Wall” copyright © 2010 by Jane Lindskold
“Stanley’s Statistics” copyright © 2010 by Jean Rabe
“The Mystery of History” copyright © 2010 by Emily Lawless Taffe
“I Believe I’ll Have Another” copyright © 2010 by Loren L. Coleman
“The Ides of Texas” copyright © 2010 by Douglas Brode
“The Bloodthirstiness of Great Beauty” copyright © 2010 by M. Tara Crowl
“Eye for an Eye” copyright © 2010 by Susan Slater
“The Couch” copyright © 2010 by Peter Farris
“Where No Man Pursueth” copyright © 2010 by Norman Spinrad
“The Last Christmas Letter” copyright © 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“An Odyssey, or Whatever You Call It, Concerning Baseball” copyright © 2010 by the Rod Serling Trust
CONTENTS
Introduction • CAROL SERLING
Curve • LOREN D. ESTLEMAN
Reversal of Fortune • ROBERT J. SERLING
By the Book • NANCY HOLDER
Earthfall • JOHN FARRIS
Dead Post Bumper • DEAN WESLEY SMITH
Thoughtful Breaths • PETER CROWTHER
Obsession • DAVID BLACK
Sales of a Deathman • DAVID GERROLD
The Writing on the Washroom Wall • JANE LINDSKOLD
Stanley’s Statistics • JEAN RABE
The Mystery of History • LEE LAWLESS
I Believe I’ll Have Another • LOREN L. COLEMAN
The Ides of Texas • DOUGLAS BRODE
The Bloodthirstiness of Great Beauty • M. TARA CROWL
Eye for an Eye • SUSAN SLATER
The Couch • PETER FARRIS
Where No Man Pursueth • NORMAN SPINRAD
The Last Christmas Letter • KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH
An Odyssey, or Whatever You Call It, Concerning Baseball • ROD SERLING
INTRODUCTION
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.
—ROD SERLING
Welcome to our second collection of stories celebrating the Twilight Zone television program, which recently celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its first broadcast. As with our previous collection, Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary, we’ve assembled a stellar assortment of writers, each of whom have given us their unique take on a story that, in another time, might have just come from that fertile realm of the imagination.
When Rod Serling created his visionary television series, he had done so with a goal in mind beyond simply supplying entertainment to the viewing public. He felt that television had the potential to be a real art form . . . to entertain, yes, but also to educate and illuminate the human condition, not to just rehash formulaic comedies and westerns. But he was repeatedly frustrated by the endless censoring from the networks and sponsors, who insisted on removing all controversial political and social commentary. Fed up with fighting this process, he knew that the only way to express himself and deal with these issues of the times would be to create and control his own show. But how to prevent the censors from watering down the themes of his new series?
It was here that Rod came up with his brilliant idea to circumvent network control; he would create a show that existed in a world of “what if” . . . a shadow land that existed just beyond the limits of imagination. Call it science fiction, imaginative fiction, fairy tales—whatever it was, it worked beautifully. Powerful episodes like “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” “A World of His Own,” “Time Enough at Last,” and “Walking Distance” were among the first of many, many celebrated episodes written by Rod, garnering critical acclaim and awards for excellence—Rod’s fourth of six Emmy Awards for dramatic writing, a Producers Guild Award for his creative partner, Buck Houghton, and the first of three Hugo Awards for best dramatic presentation. Most important, it was a show that told the stories Rod wanted to tell, in the style he wanted to tell them.
Of course, The Twilight Zone has grown from that modest beginning to become a part of American culture for the past fifty years. Whether in syndication across the country, or in the two revivals of the television series, the title itself has entered our consciousness as a label for anything that is strange, weird, or inexplicable. And his original tales have inspired many writers to create their own stories—some of whom are showcased in this volume.
The following eighteen stories range from the unusual to the bizarre—and each would fit very nicely in that realm beyond sight and sound that is the Twilight Zone. From bestselling author John Farris comes a cautionary tale about how mankind might be its own destroyer. Kristine Kathryn Rusch gives us a moving tale of a family that still receives correspondence from a long-lost relative at the holidays. David Gerrold explores a future society where everyday men and women are given the ultimate power over the rest of humanity. From the glitter of Hollywood, M. Tara Crowl tells of a woman who wished for her heart’s desire—and not only got it, but everything that came with it. We’ve even included a rare gem from Rod himself, about a man who is unstoppable in his own mind.
Each of these stories epitomizes everything the Twilight Zone represented—a journey into the unknowable to confront the strange and unique, which can be found everywhere, from the world around us to the deepest recesses of the human heart. I hope you’ll enjoy reading these stories as much as I did assembling them.
CAROL SERLING
MORE STORIES FROM THE
TWILIGHT
ZONE
CURVE
Loren D. Estleman
Herb Tarnower fell asleep watching a basketball game and woke up looking at the History Channel. Penny must have changed it while he was sleeping.
They were running old footage of JFK’s funeral procession.
He recognized the horse with the empty boots reversed in its stirrups and the flag-draped coffin in the back of the hearse. Something about it seemed different, though. It must have been that he was watching it in color. When he’d seen it live as a boy, it had been on a black-and-white set.
“The kids should be watching this,” he said aloud. He got up and dialed the phone.
“Hello?”
“Becca, turn on the History Channel. Brian and Amber might learn something.”
“There’s no one here by that name. You have the wrong number.”
He realized then it was a strange woman’s voice. He apologized, broke the connection, and dialed again more carefully. The same woman answered.
“I’m trying to reach my daughter,” he said. “Is this two-one-oh-six-four-four-three?”
“Yes, it is.”
His wife came in carrying a basket of laundry as he was cradling the receiver. She asked whom he’d called.
“I just tried to call Becca. Why didn’t you tell me she’d changed her number?”
“Who’s Becca?”
He frowned. After twenty-eight years of marriage he didn’t always understand Penny’s humor. He opened his mouth to say something caustic, but she was distracted by the TV. “I thought they’d be at Arlington by now,” she said. “These state funerals seem to get longer and longer.”
He thought it an odd comment, but he shook his head. “After all this time it still saddens me.”
“Well, he lived a long life.”
“Long? He was cut down in his prime!”
“Don’t be silly, Herb. You haven’t made sense since I walked into the room. Are you still asleep?”
“Me? You’re the one who pretended she didn’t know her own daughter.”
Her face became a rictus of pain. “That’s—how can you be so cruel? Don’t you think I’d have given you children if I could?”
He was alarmed then. She’d never taken a joke this far. “Penny, are you all right?”
She dropped the basket on the floor and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. He heard her crying.
The television commentator’s deep voice broke in on his confusion. “For those of you who just joined us, you’re watching continuous coverage of the funeral services of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, former president of the United States, who died Thursday at the age of ninety-two.”
Herb saw then that the vehicles in the procession were all late models. Some of the people lining the pavement were using cell phones—science fiction back in 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated. And the distinctive boxed H was missing from the corner of the screen. It wasn’t the History Channel.
Alone in the living room, he wondered if Penny had guessed the truth, and that he was still asleep. When he tried to change the channel, the remote was different, with none of the buttons in the same place. He had to study it a moment to figure it out.
The funeral procession was on every channel, a live broadcast. He wanted to check the satellite stations, but couldn’t find that feature on the remote, and then he noticed the satellite box was missing from the entertainment center. He turned off the set, feeling woozy. It was Sunday—at least it had been when he’d gone to sleep. He tried to remember if he’d been drinking Saturday night and was still under the influence, but he wasn’t much of a drinker. They’d spent a quiet evening at home watching a movie. On satellite.
Other things had changed. There were no pictures of Becca, her husband Rick, or their kids anywhere in the room. The new carpet they’d had installed last spring had been replaced by the old one, stained in places and showing wear.
Practical joke? An elaborate one if so, and he couldn’t picture his wife planning or cooperating in any such scheme. She considered that kind of humor mean-spirited and in poor taste.
No, he was dreaming. But in the past, he’d always awakened the moment he realized it.
Sinister thought. He was fifty-two, in relatively good shape for his age, although he knew he should eat better and exercise more. He and Penny had discussed retiring before they were too old and sick to enjoy it. The last time he’d had his cholesterol checked it had tested borderline high, and for a few weeks afterward he’d eaten a lot of oatmeal and taken walks, then had slipped back into comfortable old bad habits. Was this a stroke? Or more frightening yet, the onset of Alzheimer’s? His father had lingered for years in a nursing home, and in the end recognized no one in his own family.
If it was dementia, which things were right and which were wrong? Had JFK died in 1963 or 2009? Had Herb imagined he was a father and grandfather, or was he hallucinating that he was neither?
He shook his head. If he was losing his grip, it wasn’t from age or hardened arteries. That started with misplacing things, like one’s eyeglasses, and became serious when one forgot one wore them. But then, how could he be sure how long this had been going on? Maybe what had seemed like a short nap had actually been a coma.
No, he rejected that, too. If that were the case, Penny would have reacted to his confusion with pity, not hurt and anger.
That was as far as he could investigate on his own. He knocked at the door of the room that contained his most reliable counselor.
“Go away!” Her voice was hoarse with anguish.
“Please, honey. I’m sorry for anything I said. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” His throat caught. “Penny, I’m scared.”
There was a silence. Then bedsprings shifted, and after another pause the lock snapped. She opened the door just wide enough to show swollen red eyes and the stains of tears on her cheeks. Penny had good genes and took better care of herself than Herb did. The only time she looked her age was when she’d been crying.
He saw her expression change from pain to concern. His face felt cold, the blood drained from it, and he knew he was pale. She opened the door the rest of the way. He followed her and sat down on the edge of the bed while she turned away to dry her eyes and blow her nose delicately. She put the handkerchief on the night table and turned to face him. “What’s going on, Herb?”
“I wish to God I knew.” Staring at the floor, he told her about some of the things that were different: the carpet, the remote, the missing satellite box. He didn’t mention JFK—that was too complicated—or the pictures that had vanished, or who was in them. He sensed that would have upset her all over again.
When he finished, she sat beside him and took both his hands in hers. She spoke in a calm, measured tone, maintaining eye contact, the way he’d heard and seen her do while reasoning with their daughter when she was small, and more recently with their grandchildren when they misbehaved—or had she? He forced his mind to stay in one place and concentrate on what she was saying.
“We’re saving up for a new carpet,” she said. “Right now, it’s not in our budget. You know we can’t afford satellite TV on your salary.”
“We don’t have to depend on my salary. You’re head of Pediatrics at Burgess General. You make more money than I do.”
“Herb, I’m a housewife. I gave up nursing when we got married. Burgess doesn’t have a female doctor on staff. Few hospitals do.”
He took away his hands and held his head. Suddenly it was pounding. Maybe he was having a seizure after all.
Her voice remained steady. “Tell me everything you can remember, the way you think things are.”
He lowered his hands and drew a deep breath. Complicated or not, he had to go into it. Somehow it seemed to be at the core of all that was wrong. “Kennedy—”
“Not Kenned
y. Us. You tried to call a daughter we don’t have. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when we were engaged. I had to have a hysterectomy. When I came out of the anesthetic, I offered to release you from your proposal, because we’d talked so much about having children. You said it didn’t matter, that nothing mattered as long as you got to live the rest of your life with me. We never mentioned children again, until today. Does any of this sound familiar?”
“You had a hysterectomy, but only after we’d been married two years. The way I remember the conversation, I told you one child was plenty, that we’d give her all the love we’d have divvied up among the lot. We spoiled her. She gave us some bad times, but she turned out all right in the end. She married a good man and they have two children, a boy named Brian and a girl named Amber. Our grandchildren.”
She shocked him with a bittersweet smile. “Goodness. All that, and I’m a doctor, too? When did I have time to go to medical school?”
“I was a junior executive with an advertising agency; I quit to stay home with Becca. We had to scrimp, but with a loan from the GI Bill we got along until you’d graduated and served your internship. When you joined the staff at Burgess, we could afford regular day care, and I went back to work. I’m a senior executive, you’re a chief of staff. Penny, we’re very well off.”
“How could you qualify under the GI Bill? You never served with the military.”
He held his head again. It felt as if the back of his skull would fly off. “But I did! If I hadn’t, you and I would never have met. A land mine nearly took off my leg in Vietnam. You were the nurse assigned to me in the VA hospital when I came home. I proposed to you when I was in therapy.”
“Vietnam? I haven’t heard of that place in ages. We never were at war there. You work for Meredith and Klugman Advertising, but as a copywriter. You were passed over for promotion so many times, you stopped applying. You’re not one of those cutthroat, get-ahead-by-any-means corporate sharks. That’s one of the many reasons I love you.”
More Stories from the Twilight Zone