No matter. If I can survive reading all 29 issues of The Vault of Horror back-to-back, I’m ready to harvest another year’s crop of new horrors from 1983. See you in Series XII.
But now, sink your fangs into The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XI. Or vice versa.
Heh, heh!
—Karl Edward Wagner
THE GRAB
by Richard Laymon
There’s a point of view that writers are born, not made, and it’s one that has its pros and cons. If you ask around, however, you’ll perhaps be surprised to learn just how many published writers had that “burning urge to write” at about the time they first learned to push a pencil across a ruled page. Case in point: Richard Laymon, who confesses: “I have always, for as far back as I can recall, wanted to be a fiction writer. When I was a kid, I used to fool around writing a novel after school, when I was supposed to be doing my homework. I submitted my first story to a magazine at age 12. The magazine, Bluebook for Men. didn’t see its merit.” Well, Bluebook was always a tough market to crash, as the older pulp writers will tell you, and Laymon did manage to sell his first story seven years later—to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (no easy mark, at that). More stories followed.
Born in Chicago in 1947, Laymon moved to California in 1963, and is now a resident of Los Angeles. He was an English major at Williamette University in Salem (Oregon) and took an M.A. in English literature from Loyola University of Los Angeles, after which he taught ninth grade for one dismal year before turning to librarianship. Proceeds from his first novel, The Cellar, rescued Laymon in 1980 and allowed him to write full time. Warner Books also published Laymon’s second adult horror novel, The Woods Are Dark, in 1981, and this year has published Out Are the Lights. In Britain, New English Library is bringing out two other horror novels, Beware! and Night Show. For young horror addicts, Scholastic Books has published Your Secret Admirer (as by “Carl Laymon”), and Dell has just brought out Nightmare Lake. Perhaps these will inspire other young readers to ignore their homework.
“The Grab” is a story that would have fit perfectly in one of the old E.C. horror comics—drawn, no doubt, by Jack Davis.
My old college roomie, Clark Addison, pulled into town at sundown with a pickup truck, a brand-new gray Stetson, and a bad case of cowboy fever.
“What kind of nightlife you got in this one-hearse town?” he asked after polishing off a hamburger at my place.
“I see by your outfit you don’t want another go at the Glass Palace.”
“Disco’s out, pardner. Where you been?”
With that, we piled into his pickup and started scouting for an appropriate night spot. We passed the four blocks of downtown Barnesdale without spotting a single bar that boasted of country music or a mechanical bull. “Guess we’re out of luck,” I said, trying to sound disappointed.
“Never say die,” Clark said.
At that moment, we bumped over the railroad tracks and Clark punched a forefinger against the windshield. Ahead, on the far side of the grain elevator, stood a shabby little clapboard joint with a blue neon sign: THE BAR NONE SALOON.
Short of a bucking machine, the Bar None had all the trappings needed to warm the heart of any yearning cowpoke: sawdust heaped on the floor, Merle Haggard on the juke box, Coors on tap, and skin-tight jeans on the lower half of every gal. We mosied up to the bar.
“Two Coors,” Clark said.
The bartender tipped back his hat and turned away. When the mugs were full, he pushed them toward us. “That’s one-eighty.”
“I’ll get this round,” Clark told me. Taking out his wallet, he leaned against the bar. “What kind of action you got here?” he asked.
“We got drinking, dancing, carousing, and The Grab.”
“The Grab?” Clark asked. “What is it?”
The bartender stroked his handlebar moustache as if giving the matter lots of thought. Then he pointed down the bar at a rectangular metal box. The side I could see, painted with yellow letters, read, TEST YER GUTS.
“What’s it do?” Clark asked.
“Stick around,” the bartender said. With that advice, he moved on.
Clark and I wandered over to the metal box. It stood more than two feet high, its sides about half as wide as its height. THE GRAB was painted on its front in sloppy red letters intended, no doubt, to suggest dripping blood. Its far side was printed with green: PAY $10 AND WIN.
“Wonder what you win?” Clark said.
I shrugged. Leaning over the bar, I took a peek at the rear of the box. It was outfitted with a pound of hardware and padlocked to the counter.
While I checked out the lock, Clark was busy hopping and splashing beer. “No opening on top,” he concluded.
“The only way in is from the bottom,” I said.
“Twas ever thus,” he said, forgetting to be a cowboy. He quickly recovered. “Reckon we oughta grab a couple of fillies and raise some dust.”
As we started across the room toward a pair of unescorted females, the juke box stopped. There were a few hushed voices as everyone looked toward the bartender.
“Yes,” he cried, raising his arms, “the time is now! Step on over and face The Grab. But let me warn you, this ain’t for the faint of heart, it ain’t for the weak of stomach. It ain’t a roller coaster or a tilt-a-whirl you get off, laughing, and forget. This is a genuine test of grit, and any that ain’t up to it are welcome to vamoose. Any that stay to watch or participate are honor bound to hold their peace about what takes place here tonight. Alf s curse goes on the head of any who spill the beans.”
I heard Clark laugh softly. A pale girl, beside him, looked up at Clark as if he were a curiosity.
“Any that ain’t up to it, go now,” the bartender said.
The bartender lowered his arms and remained silent while two couples headed for the door. When they were gone, he removed a thin chain from around his neck. He held it up for all to see. A diamond ring and a small key hung from it. He slid them free, and raised the ring.
“This here’s the prize. Give it to your best gal, or trade it in for a thousand dollars if you’re man enough to take it. So far, we’ve gone three weeks with The Grab, and not a soul’s shown the gumption to make the ring his own. Pretty thing, isn’t it? Okay, now gather ’round. Move on in here and haul out your cash, folks. Ten dollars is all it takes.”
We stepped closer to the metal box at the end of the bar, and several men reached for their wallets—Clark included.
“You going to do it?” I whispered to him.
“Sure.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“Can’t be that bad. They’re all gonna try it.”
Looking around at the others as they took out their money, I saw a few eager faces, some wild, grinning ones, and several that appeared pale and scared.
The bartender used his key to open the padlock at the rear of the metal box. He held up the lock, and somebody moaned in the silence.
“Dal,” a woman whispered. She was off to my left, tugging on the elbow of a burly, bearded fellow. He jerked his arm free and sneered at her. “Then go ahead, fool,” she said, and ran. The muffled thud of her cowboy boots was the only sound in the room. Near the door, she slipped on the sawdust and fell, landing on her rump. A few people laughed.