In Laymon's Terms

Perhaps ten years before, I’d read a book called The Stake, by a guy I’d never heard of...purchased in a secondhand bookstore in Dublin. Three pages into it, I knew I had to read everything this man had ever written. I had my favorite writers...people whose work I devoured...and by the time I’d finished The Stake, there was a new star amongst their ranks. I’d always been astounded with the sheer consistency of Laymon’s work. Unlike many of his jaded contemporaries, in the latter period of his career he was actually producing some of his greatest work...books like Island, Body Rides, The Midnight Tour, The Traveling Vampire Show.

I acquired my copy of The Wilds directly from Richard Laymon, a “Christmas 2000” gift from my wife (it was a late gift, arriving around the beginning of January). The Laymon family had gone on vacation around the time it arrived, and when they got back home Richard emailed my wife and told her he’d been thinking about us during his vacation, worrying that we might not have safely received the book. This man, whose work had changed my life and made me want to be a writer, had been worrying about me! I’d often dreamed of meeting Richard Laymon (and embarrassing the hell out of him by gushing about his work), but a little over a month after I’d received The Wilds in the post, we got the terrible news that Richard was gone.

During very dark periods in my life, when everything seemed a waste, the one thing that kept me going was the dream that one day I would be a published writer. My love for the work of a very select number of writers kept that dream alive for me, kept my enthusiasm strong. Richard Laymon was, and still is, at the top of that list.

Philip Robinson

IGHT WORKED ON the tree, displaying it in a way daylight never could...shaping and styling its leaves and branches until the Cedar seemed to become a huge, drooping face looking at me through the nursery window.

Carol and I were converting the spare room at the front of the house into a bedroom befitting a princess, racing against the miracle of nature to get it done. Stripping, painting, wallpapering, sawing, hammering, carpeting...we went to bed every night with sore hands and aching backs, flecks and smudges of paint on our bodies that no amount of showering could defeat.

I’d never paid much attention to the big Cedar outside the window...but in the summer evening light its beauty was striking. Its leaves were wafer-thin, mostly green but for an erratic spattering of brown and yellow, and each one shaped like an elaborate snowflake drawn by a child. These green snowflakes hung all the way down to the ground, worn like a dress and so thick you couldn’t see the trunk at the center.

In the darkness of night, though, a black hulking thing stood out there, its branches not quite touching the glass but you got the feeling they would like to...maybe splay their leaves like fingers on the cool pane. At night, its luscious green dress became a long black cloak. Trimmed branches near the top, hardly even noticeable in daylight, became horrid amputee stumps, bare and black.

We couldn’t leave it out there after the baby came. No child deserved to sleep under the gaze of such a monster.

Tap-tap!

I opened my eyes and half-climbed out of bed before realizing I wasn’t in bed, but lying back against the wall in the nursery. I remembered sitting down to have a cup of tea after Carol had called it a night (there it was next to me, cold and barely touched), and I must have dozed off.

Tap-tap!

One of the branches was waving back and forth outside, knocking gently against the glass. I walked closer to the window. The tree had never seemed within reach before...

I considered ignoring it and going to bed, but I knew it would bug me so I went outside for a better look.

A nice warm breeze was blowing around...I could hear the swiiiiish-swiiiiish of trees around the neighborhood, tall black silhouettes being pulled back and forth against the dark sky.

I walked around the Cedar, peering up at its full body, watching it sway in the gentle breeze and—

A voice came from within its thick coat: “Brian.”

Raspy and gravelly and guttural. I held my breath...it was the voice a Rottweiler would have if it could say my name.

I stepped back with fright. “Who’s there?” I felt so foolish...talking to a tree, but there was no doubt where the voice had originated.

“I have been waiting.” The Cedar towered high above me, its broad peak rising higher than the rain-gutter of the house.

“Who’s in there!” I reached forward to part the branches, but found I didn’t want to touch them. The leaves began to rustle up and down the height of the tree, as though someone in there was rummaging around for something they’d carelessly misplaced, and then near the top there was a parting in the branches and something was shoved through the black, oval opening.