The Cleanup(1987) starts as a wish-fulfill-
ment fantasy. A young man who feels as though
he has been victimized by everyone he has ever
met, with some justification, discovers that he has
a supernatural power that enables him to strike
back. He believes that he is acting morally, be-
cause he targets criminals, muggers, rapists, and so
on rather than innocent people. Unfortunately,
the more he uses his new powers, the more his
own personality changes, corrupted by what he
mistakenly believes to be his obligation to society.
The indictment of vigilantism is quite obvious,
and the dissolution of the protagonist’s personality
is absorbing and convincing.
The Scream(1988) is in some ways more in-
ventive but less interesting. An ancient Asian hor-
ror reaches America, and its victims are destroyed
in unusually horrible ways. A fast-paced and sur-
prising thriller, it sometimes becomes so caught up
in its bizarre imagery that the story suffers, al-
though in the long run it remains a remarkable
achievement, possibly the epitome of splatterpunk.
Dead Lines(1989), on the other hand, adapts sev-
eral short stories into an episodic “novel” in which
the new tenant in an apartment finds several old
manuscripts and reads them, slowly becoming af-
fected by their evil aura.
The Bridge(1991) borrowed its plot from low-
budget science fiction films. A toxic waste dump
gives birth to a new form of life, an amorphous
creature that kills and absorbs all other life it en-
counters, growing so quickly that it poses a menace
to the entire world. Although the plot is exciting,
it lacks the originality of their previous work and
feels very much like a movie novelization. Their
final novel together, Animals(1993), also borrowed
from traditional themes, in this case having its pro-
tagonist fall in love with a woman who is actually a
werewolf, leading to a very interesting love triangle
when her shape-changing boyfriend objects.
Skipp and Spector also edited two highly re-
garded anthologies of short stories set in the uni-
verse of George Romero’s Living Dead movies. The
Book of the Dead(1989) and Still Dead(1992) were
to have been followed by a third volume, but pub-
lishing problems and the breakup of the writing
team prevented it from ever appearing. They also
collaborated on the screenplay for The Nightmare
on Elm Street: The Dream Child(1989), certainly
the most interesting movie in that series.
Both writers have continued to work sporadi-
cally on their own. Spector is the author of two
nonsupernatural thrillers. Skipp collaborated with
Mark Levinthal for The Emerald Burrito of Oz
(2000), a very strange novel in which a portal
opens between our world and Oz, resulting in a
power struggle for control of the government of
that magical world. Skipp’s “Now Entering Mon-
keyface” (1998) is also worthwhile.“The Skull of the Marquis De Sade”Robert
Bloch(1945)
Horror fiction is replete with stories in which a
particularly evil person manages to leave behind
some trace of himself or herself to wreak further
havoc even after he or she is gone. The most com-
mon form is, of course, the ghost story, but there
are others in which lingering traps, spells, curses,
or other supernatural phenomena serve much the
same purpose. Robert BLOCHhas a slightly differ-
ent take in this, one of his most famous stories.
Christopher Maitland is a collector of odd
items, things he cannot display publicly because of
their unusual nature or the less-than-strictly-legal
methods he uses to acquire them. He is reading a
very old book bound in human skin when one of
his suppliers appears unexpectedly, bearing a very
unusual item for which he asks a substantial price.
It is, according to his claim, the actual polished
skull of the Marquis De Sade, who, in addition to
his sexual fantasies, investigated and engaged in
sorcery. The skull is very extraordinary in that it
has an expression of sober contemplation rather
than the usual wide grin. Maitland is skeptical,
particularly when the other man, Marco, promptly
drops his price, insisting that the skull makes him
uneasy.
Maitland defers a decision and after a night
filled with dreams of death and torture consults a
fellow collector who tells him he once owned the
very same skull, that it was stolen from him, and
that he was glad to see it go despite its authentic-
ity and uniqueness. During the night outsiders
would break in, apparently to conduct arcane rites
with the skull, but even these interlopers had no“The Skull of the Marquis De Sade” 325