Howdy, folks! I'm Scott M. Roberts, author of
The End-of-the-World Pool. I'm really pleased that you enjoyed it.
Pool is one of my favorite pieces.
If you're interested, I wrote up a story-behind-the-story for Intergalactic Medicine Show.
It is posted here.On to some of your points and questions!
I also enjoyed the ending...
So glad to hear it. The reason I am consistently drawn to write horror is opposite the reason that most people expect of horror: it is, generally speaking, a profoundly moral, and triumphant genre. At least the horror that I enjoy is. Whether the protagonist wins or not, horror speaks to the reality of evil and good (or at least, the unthinkable and the human) not just as abstract ideas, but as tangible, effective forces. Horror allows us to face both depravity and goodwill almost barefaced.
Of all the genres going, it is the most cathartic.
The relationship between the two boys was believable and well-written
I grew up with kids like Grant and Evan-- both real-life, and in fiction. I can't thank Ray Bradbury enough for
Dandelion Wine and
Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Speaking of Bradbury, and dread, the most terrifying thing I ever read was written by Bradbury in
Dandelion Wine. It's a short passage; the protagonist's mother is crossing behind some homes and is thinking about the quasi-mythical Lonely One: the stranger who comes to town to terrorize women. And as she's walking through this abandoned space, her dread is palpable. Bradbury draws the scene perfectly, from the creaking boardwalk to the imagery of the trail, to the mother's emotions.
It is an exquisite kind of terror that I recommend highly.
I would like to have heard about what was left after the pool draining, though. Anything at all?
:nod:
I wrote a couple epilogues for what the boys found in the pool after it was drained. One pins a definite substance to the mystery; the other just rambles.
The Creighton Cross rescue squad found two and a half feet of sand at the bottom of the deep end of the pool. And sticking out of the sand was a tiny, fleshless, human hand. The hand was connected to a tiny arm; the arm was connected to a tiny shoulder; and the shoulder to a neck and skull and body.
Even more bizarre was that the tiny skeleton’s pelvis was draped within the pelvis of another, larger skeleton. Mother and child; child, half-born.
And when Evan heard of it, he remembered the wisp of a glance he’d gotten below the water: pale, bare torso, and the aberrant lower body. Long legs and pale hair flashing through the murk.
“Bulbous,” he whispered, and thought of the baby’s round skull, and its pudgy arms, protruding from its mother’s body as she swam down, down, back into sand.
And Grant said, “Protuberant.” His eyes were distant.
There was an investigation, but the boys were not part of it. Eventually, when no one else claimed the mother and her child, their bodies came back to the Big House.
They buried them at the bottom of the sledding hill, near the green wood. Grant and Evan dug the graves themselves, sweating in the early summer air. And the trees whispered and hushed around them, like the echoes of breaking waves.
In the first drafts, there was a lot more text referring to the half-born child haunting the boys. As I continued to edit the story, the less I liked that angle, and the more I focused on the boys' relationship. I wound up liking the open-ended mystery more than the resolution.
The sand in the bottom of the pool was two and a half feet deep. The summer sun and the grass and the wild grapes and blackberries drank the black water, but the sand stayed. It skirled against the bleached-bone concrete, whispering. When Evan heard it he shuddered, and thought of the creature he’d seen below, the long, naked limbs, the aberrant lower body.
“Bulbous,” he whispered.
“Protuberant,” said Grant.
“Gibbous.” Evan touched his cousin’s shoulder. And Grant swallowed and blinked, but he didn’t take his eyes away from the sand.
In the heat of a June noon, the boys brought shovels and wheelbarrows to the pool. The sand twisted around their legs as they cut at its edges, as they hefted mounds of it into the wheelbarrows. It stung their eyes, gritted their mouths, but still they worked, blinking and coughing.
We are tearing a hole in the end of the world, Evan thought. We are stuffing it full of summer.
They buried the sand at the bottom of the sledding hill, near the green wood. The sand lay pale and quiet and still. And the trees rushed and sighed above them, like the echoes of breaking waves.
This one-- save for the line about tearing a hole in the end of the world and stuffing it full of summer-- is just me rambling. By this time, the ending as you've heard it was in place. I was quite satisfied with the direction the story had taken, and with the way that Evan saved Grant, and Grant restored summer to Evan. This ending was extraneous.
Funny story-- after he'd accepted
Pool, Edmund Schubert, IGMS's editor, asked if I'd include something clearly indicating what was in the pool. I hemmed and hawed and said what I said above about loving the murk and mystery. We settled on that.
That's what I remember, anyway. Edmund may have a different story to tell. If he says ANYTHING about penguins and a late-night fondue party in New Orleans, remember that he is a filthy liar. :-D
Did anyone else assume that the title was referring to a betting pool?
Ha! I suck at titles. At least this one is accurate.
Unlike another story I've had podcast...Pool's original title was
Slime King. I entered it in the Codex Writers Halloween Contest (a private contest between members of the online Codex writers group) under the title,
Three Minutes, Forty-Two Seconds With Annabelle Lee. Which sounds like a really short porno movie. (It took second place against James Maxey's
Where Their Worm Dieth Not, a really fantastic piece of super-hero fiction...)
It was submitted to IGMS under the title 'Horseplay at the End-of-the-World Pool'. Edmund requested that we drop 'Horseplay' because he thought that it implied the story was going to be more of a romp than it actually was. I agreed, and the present title stuck.
Thanks, y'all!