of his own past, but there was nothing. They could reach out but could not be touched. The wind rose again, wailing, and tugged at his hair the way Debra used to do when they were fighting.
"Deb? Did you do this?"
Footsteps behind him, somebody hesitant as if trying to be sneaky, then dashing forward like it was all just a game. Light and quick, several of them rushing him at once as the rustling leaves whirled and spiraled over his head. Maybe all of the women together. He began his turn knowing he would never make it, that he wouldn't be allowed to see what was coming up behind him, ever, as his sister's voice, forever petulant and crazed, cried out, "That's my brother! I need him." Jenks still didn't know who the other dead women were, but now he finally understood why they had joined and what they were all doing together. Plotting. It wouldn't do any good to beg.
As the willows wept with the heaving breeze, giggles breaking to his left and right, her voice grew closer and clearer with such a genuine hatred for everything alive, shrieking in her dead madness, " Get him !"
Introduction to "An Average Insanity, A Common Agony"
By Jack Ketchum
I think Dark Fiction has come to mean pretty much nothing. A publishing catch-phrase. Maybe it never did mean much. But if it did, at best, it seemed to me to refer to the dark night of the soul, the times and places in which we get lost, irretrievably sometimes. When it seems no good deed goes unpunished, when nothing we do can ever work out right. "We all need a private mission to perform, a reason to take the next step," Tom writes here. But the world often conspires to make those missions quixotic to say the least and utterly disastrous at worst. If there's redemption to be found in these doomed quests it can come at a terrible cost — and there may be none to be found at all. This is the territory AN AVERAGE INSANITY, A COMMON AGONY essays. Here, in this story much bigger than its few pages, we are lonely and isolated by definition, unable to quite connect. All unions so tenuous as to be almost illusory — but necessary as breath. I would like to refer to the final union here, in the very last paragraph — fragile, painful, possibly doomed, but unbroken — yet I'd spoil it for you if I did. Suffice to say that for me it was heartbreaking, while at the same time I could feel the spirit soar. Tough-minded, tender-hearted — the dark night of the soul still leaning toward the light.
–Jack Ketchum author of RED and SHE WAKES
An Average Insanity, A Common Agony
T hey thought it was just the funniest thing ever, bringing the old guy and his dog into the place. Three college jocks drunker than hell but with a real edge about them, carrying a harsh atmosphere inside with them from the street. Vin tightened in his chair as a flush of heat went through his belly. It only took a glance to know everything about them: a trio of starting line seniors but the pros hadn't come knocking like they were supposed to. Now at twenty-two these kids were already witnessing the fall of their dreams, the slow flat resentment angling up through their lives.
It's why they were so loud. Laughing wildly, easing loose with a little madness, pushing the blind man on, they grabbed him roughly and hugging him to their barrel chests as if he was their greatest love. His cane tapped mercilessly, slapping at puddles of spilled beer. Even the guide dog walked warily beside its master, watchful, sensing a vague evil.
Vin felt it too. His scalp prickled and the sweat began to writhe at his temples.
The waitress came over and asked, "Another scotch?" She had her body angled at him but she too continued glancing over at the scene.
A new song kicked on with a dully throbbing beat and she unconsciously swayed to it. He liked the way she held herself. Solid, with a real personality, an honest grin. She had a deeper strata to her disposition. Usually
"Deb? Did you do this?"
Footsteps behind him, somebody hesitant as if trying to be sneaky, then dashing forward like it was all just a game. Light and quick, several of them rushing him at once as the rustling leaves whirled and spiraled over his head. Maybe all of the women together. He began his turn knowing he would never make it, that he wouldn't be allowed to see what was coming up behind him, ever, as his sister's voice, forever petulant and crazed, cried out, "That's my brother! I need him." Jenks still didn't know who the other dead women were, but now he finally understood why they had joined and what they were all doing together. Plotting. It wouldn't do any good to beg.
As the willows wept with the heaving breeze, giggles breaking to his left and right, her voice grew closer and clearer with such a genuine hatred for everything alive, shrieking in her dead madness, " Get him !"
Introduction to "An Average Insanity, A Common Agony"
By Jack Ketchum
I think Dark Fiction has come to mean pretty much nothing. A publishing catch-phrase. Maybe it never did mean much. But if it did, at best, it seemed to me to refer to the dark night of the soul, the times and places in which we get lost, irretrievably sometimes. When it seems no good deed goes unpunished, when nothing we do can ever work out right. "We all need a private mission to perform, a reason to take the next step," Tom writes here. But the world often conspires to make those missions quixotic to say the least and utterly disastrous at worst. If there's redemption to be found in these doomed quests it can come at a terrible cost — and there may be none to be found at all. This is the territory AN AVERAGE INSANITY, A COMMON AGONY essays. Here, in this story much bigger than its few pages, we are lonely and isolated by definition, unable to quite connect. All unions so tenuous as to be almost illusory — but necessary as breath. I would like to refer to the final union here, in the very last paragraph — fragile, painful, possibly doomed, but unbroken — yet I'd spoil it for you if I did. Suffice to say that for me it was heartbreaking, while at the same time I could feel the spirit soar. Tough-minded, tender-hearted — the dark night of the soul still leaning toward the light.
–Jack Ketchum author of RED and SHE WAKES
An Average Insanity, A Common Agony
T hey thought it was just the funniest thing ever, bringing the old guy and his dog into the place. Three college jocks drunker than hell but with a real edge about them, carrying a harsh atmosphere inside with them from the street. Vin tightened in his chair as a flush of heat went through his belly. It only took a glance to know everything about them: a trio of starting line seniors but the pros hadn't come knocking like they were supposed to. Now at twenty-two these kids were already witnessing the fall of their dreams, the slow flat resentment angling up through their lives.
It's why they were so loud. Laughing wildly, easing loose with a little madness, pushing the blind man on, they grabbed him roughly and hugging him to their barrel chests as if he was their greatest love. His cane tapped mercilessly, slapping at puddles of spilled beer. Even the guide dog walked warily beside its master, watchful, sensing a vague evil.
Vin felt it too. His scalp prickled and the sweat began to writhe at his temples.
The waitress came over and asked, "Another scotch?" She had her body angled at him but she too continued glancing over at the scene.
A new song kicked on with a dully throbbing beat and she unconsciously swayed to it. He liked the way she held herself. Solid, with a real personality, an honest grin. She had a deeper strata to her disposition. Usually
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