: Paul Tremblay
: The Beast You Are: Stories
: Titan Books
: 9781803364285
: 1
: CHF 10.30
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 400
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
A haunting collection of short fiction from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World. Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart. In 'The Dead Thing,' a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents' substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with 'the dead thing' inside. He won't show it to her and he won't let the box out of his sight. In 'The Last Conversation,' a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. The title novella, 'The Beast You Are,' is a mini epic in which the destinies and secrets of a village, a dog, and a cat are intertwined with a giant monster that returns to wreak havoc every thirty years. A masterpiece of literary horror and psychological suspense, The Beast You Are is a fearlessly imagined collection from one of the most electrifying and innovative writers working today.

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy awards and is the author of Disappearance at Devil's Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World, Growing Things, Survivor Song and The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland omnibus. He is currently a member of the board of directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in Entertainment Weekly.com, and numerous year's-best anthologies. He lives outside Boston with his family.

I KNOW YOU’RE THERE


I know you’re there,” Silas Chen says.

His niece Victoria, crouching in the doorway separating the hallway from the kitchen, calls out, “But you can’t see me!”

Silas exchanges a weary half smile with his sister, Gwen. She is five years younger than Silas, a time stamp of permanent import on their relationship, even as the difference shrinks while their middle ages expand. When Silas was a child, he would hide on Gwen and pretend to be dead when she found him. Gwen would shake and tickle him, pinch his cheeks, and half laugh, half tear up while shouting, “This isn’t funny!” Silas imagined he played dead so well his arms, legs, fingers, and toes still wouldn’t move when he would eventually send those secret bodily messages to lift, wiggle, or twitch. The longer he remained play-dead, the more convinced he became that his body was a cage and he wouldn’t be able to move when he needed to, which both scared him and inexplicably thrilled him.

Gwen says to Victoria, singsong, “Someone should be in bed and not eavesdropping.”

Silas hopes Gwen won’t be too hard on her daughter. Victoria doesn’t know how to process the shock and grief any more than the adults do.

“I am not dropping!” Five years old, made of charged electrons, Victoria Muppet-rushes into the kitchen for the cover-blown tickle attack of her uncle. Silas, still in his chair, scoops her up and airplanes her over his head. While Victoria is airborne and giggling, her mom tersely ticks off the bedtime checklist: go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, pick out one, only one, book for Daddy to read, and where is Daddy? Gwen falters, as though she said something she shouldn’t have. Maybe she did. Hell if Silas knows. He cannot provide comfort or answers for anyone else, never mind himself.

Victoria offers her bed to Uncle Silas again, and he declines, insisting the couch fits hits long body better. He presses the button of Victoria’s nose and kisses her forehead. She wipes it away and her maniacal laughter turns to tears. She tells him she’s sorry about Uncle David. He says, “Thank you.