My Weblog: Old-school vampires and the horror of a New England winter

by Dana

Decades ago, I attended an archaeology conference that got snowed in. There was plenty of food, and everything to do with the conference was located in the hotel, so we didn't have to venture out. It was fun for a while, an adventure. Seize_the_Night_Cvr

Then people started getting a little fractious.

Too much of the same hotel menus, too little sunlight and fresh air. Folks started to worry about getting home in time for the start of semester, about the expense of getting stranded, about being done with the conference and wanting to go. Anxiety grew as people came up with plans to escape only to discard them just as quickly when flights were canceled.

After I'd turned to a life of crime fiction, I used the memory of that conference to write my fifth archaeology mystery, More Bitter Than Death, substituting a storm in New Hampshire for a snowbound English countryside, an academic conference for a hunting weekend, and my Professor Emma Fielding for Miss Marple. People liked (and were unnerved by) that book because it conveyed the feeling of being stranded and under stress. I've been told that graduate students like Mo' Bitter because the succession of murders opened up the job market for my fictional students.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. Another snowy winter, a storm every weekend. We'd be out shoveling, nodding to the neighbors who were also digging out, and then retreat to the fire and whiskey. Which was lovely, for the first few weeks, and then we all started to feel the cabin fever. The lack of sunlight, the confined quarters, and the seemingly endless repetition of digging out just long enough to get groceries then getting snowed in again began to tell. Driving was risky and walking almost impossible. The jolly smiles of camaraderie faded and all we could manage was a weary chin jerk and a knowing sigh, before returning to our heavy, sweaty, freezing work of snow removal. We'd make weak jokes about the lowering levels of brown liquor in the neighborhood and whether we'd have to stage raids to find more.

When Christopher Golden asked me to write a story featuring a vampire in the old-school tradition of horror, I started thinking about a farm property where we walk and how the landscape changes with the seasons. How isolated the farm would be when winter came. That reminded me of that earlier hard winter and the line “There was always too much whiskey and never enough light” came to me. That led to thoughts of what people desperate to stave off a predatory evil during a terrible winter might do. It's easy to joke about reviving the practice of ancient sacrifices to ensure survival when things aren't too bad; it's no joke at all when that's the only option left. My husband James was seriously spooked by “Whiskey and Light,” and I found myself curling up into a ball as I finished it, so be prepared: This has nothing to do with my heroic Fangborn vampires. (Oh, hey, Zoe's adventures continue in Hellbender, available the end of March!)

Seize the Night will be out next October and it is crammed with stories by some of the best horror writers out there (including shockers by our own Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner/Leigh Perry). I hope you'll run out and by it. Just promise me you'll read “Whiskey and Light” before the snow flies again.

Comments

Ooh, I'm shivering already, and not from cold. I consider winter a horror, period. Especially your Boston winters with tons of snow. Cngratulations. Looking forward to this story.

Posted by: Elaine Viets | February 13, 2015 at 11:11 AM

Such a great idea. And surrounded by snow and terrifying icicles, and with freezing fingers and fifteen
layers of clothing even inside, I cannot wait to read it. This spring., though, okay?

Posted by: Hank Phillippi Ryan | February 13, 2015 at 11:14 AM