In Laymon's Terms

The wild, excited look on her face turned to fear as Neal threw himself against her. He knocked her backward. Her head crashed against the casket. As he fell down on top of her, he felt the curtain come loose. He struggled off her onto the floor and rolled away, trying to put out his burning clothes.

Then he heard a loud noise and felt a blast of cold on his back.

Hal, standing above him, kept spraying with the fire extinguisher even after the flames were out.

Then Hal rushed to the other blaze. He pointed the extinguisher at Elizabeth’s burning body.

But nothing happened.

Hal turned to Neal. “It’s empty,” he said.

CHAPTER 8

NIGHT OF THE WITCH

“The last time we came to this theater...,” Neal began. But Lynda made a face as they moved to the end of the line.

“I don’t want to think about the last time,” she said. “Yuck!”

“It doesn’t seem like that long ago, though, does it?” Neal asked. “But it’s almost a year.”

“It seems like last night.”

A young girl waiting ahead of them stared at Lynda. Her eyes opened wide. Then she turned and whispered to a friend. They both looked back, then whispered some more.

Lynda smiled at the two girls. They walked right up to her.

“Hey,” said the one who had first spotted Lynda. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, all right.”

“Lynda Connors?”

She nodded.

“Wow! I’ve seen Might of the Witch three times already. It’ll be four after tonight. It’s so creepy!”

“Is all that stuff true?” the girl asked. “About how the real Melissa tried to kill you and everything?”

Lynda nodded.

“Did you really get bitten by a rattlesnake?” asked the other.

“She almost died,” Neal said.

Lynda squeezed his hand. “This is my friend, Neal.”

“Are you the guy that killed that crazy lady?”

“Well, I knocked Elizabeth down,” Neal told her. “She was killed by the fire she started.”

“Wow! They should make a movie about all that! Wouldn’t that be neat? You two could star in it and play yourselves!”

Lynda shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Would you mind if I took a picture of you two?” one of the girls asked.

“Not at all,” said Lynda.

The first girl took a small camera out of her very large purse. She stepped back and looked through it. “OK. Man, this’ll be great. Say ‘cheese.’ Now...wait a minute. There’s something moving in the picture. Hey, it’s a black cat. Get out of here. Shoo!”

Lynda looked at Neal. Together, they turned around. A big black cat sat up on a window sill behind them. It rubbed its head with its paw. Then it looked at them with bright green eyes.

“Oh no!” Lynda gasped. “It couldn’t be...”

“No, it couldn’t,” Neal said. But his hand tightened on hers. They both watched as the cat jumped down from the window and walked away up the street.

“OK. I’m ready,” the girl with the camera was calling to them. “Say ‘cheese,’ will you?”

“She’s right,” Lynda said to Neal. “This is a time for happy pictures.”

She put one arm around Neal, and they both turned back to face the camera.

“Cheese,” they said and smiled.

by ED GORMAN

Originally Published in Mystery Scene July/August 1995

EG: Tell us about Quake, which is now available over here.

RL: An excellent description of Quake was provided in the British periodical Time Out. The reviewer wrote, “LA is hit by the big one, but instead of giving us a standard disaster scenario, Laymon sets up a wicked female-in-peril situation as the earthquake provides a perfect opportunity for pervy Stanley to get his hands on a woman trapped in the ruins of her home. In the aftershock chaos, can her blinded husband and daughter reach the house before she is attacked? There’s enough cat-and-mouse suspense here to leave your nails in shreds.” (By the way, the daughter isn’t blinded—R.L.)

A reviewer for the Manchester Evening News wrote, “It’s a catalogue of horrors that makes Nightmare on Elm Street look as cosy as Coronation Street.”

Quake was inspired by my own earthquake experiences. I’ve been in three large earthquakes (and too many smaller ones to count), but the idea for Quake came to me in the wake of the Whittier shaker of 1987. When it hit, I was alone in a second-story law office in Glendale, not far from the epicenter. I was also about thirty miles from my home in west Los Angeles. After the quake ended, my only concern was getting home to my wife and daughter. Not knowing the extent of the damage, I was terrified for their safety.

I took that experience, magnified the size of the quake, created a bunch of characters, threw in my perceptions of modern Los Angeles civilization (or lack thereof), and presented my own version of how things might be for a family trying to survive—and save each other—after a major quake has broken down not only the walls of the city, but the rules of decent behavior.

In other words, LAPD is shut down and people are left to fend for themselves.