dAN pEREZ, author
my short stories!
Click on anthology images to the right to buy that particular anthology, which contains my story and plenty of other good reading.
Story title: Nine
Appeared in Quick Chills II: The Best Horror Fiction From the Specialty Press
Edited by Robert Morrish and Peter Enfantino
Sometimes the inspiration for a short story comes from the oddest thing. This grim little story is based on an Aggie joke I heard in college. I have done public readings of this story on Halloween.
Story title: Time and Again
Appeared in Amazing Stories July 1991
This is the only time-travel story I've done, and was it ever a headache to plot out. I have great respect for writers of time-travel stories, and especially recursive ones!
Story title: Behind Enemy Lines
Appeared in Under the Fang
Edited by Robert R. McCammon
This was an anthology sponsored by Horror Writers of America (now known as Horror Writers Association). It is a sequel to Rick McCammon's novel They Thirst, and deals with an Earth completely overrun by vampires. The first of my "indestructible vampire" stories (see the Stoker Rules page).
Story title: Night Stop
Appeared in Cemetery Dance Summer 1992
This story idea came from a ratty hotel room a friend and I stayed in after a writer's convention in Boston when we were low on money. The air from the window-unit air conditioner smelled so foul we sprinkled cologne on strips of toilet paper and tucked them into the vents like streamers.
Story title: The Smoking Mirror
Appeared in Deathport
Edited by Ramsey Campbell
This was another anthology sponsored by Horror Writers of America (now known as Horror Writers Association). The premise was to write stories set in a haunted regional airport in Texas. I deliberately wrote my story so the airport was destroyed at the end in a nuclear explosion, and I expected the story would be the last in the book. But for some reason Ramsey Campbell put in the middle of the book. I was, as movie Texans say, hornswoggled! Humorous note: so many writers wrote stories about the haunted airport's bathroom that the book earned the unfortunate nickname of Flushport!
Story title: The Man Who Liked Poe
Appeared in Cemetery Dance Summer 1994
I was happy to sell another story, this one a contemporary version of The Cask of Admontillado, to Richard Chizmar, the editor of Cemetery Dance. Richard is doing some big things now, collaborating with Stephen King on a trilogy of novels.
Story title: The Likeness
Appeared in Cthulhu's Heirs: New Cthulhu Mythos Fiction
Edited by Thomas M.K. Stratman
This is, of course, my deep dive (heh) into the celebrated Cthulhu Mythos, created by H.P. Lovecraft. In this story a woman gets a large tattoo of an illustration in the fabled Necronomicon. Bad, bad idea.
Story title: Slice of Life
Appeared in 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories
Edited by Robert Weinberg, Steven Dzeemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg
The second of my "indestructible vampire" stories and the first story I wrote that is set in my hometown of Houston, Texas. My novel Stoker Rules, which was partially inspired by this story, also features vampires in Houston.
Story title: Gil
Appeared in Xanadu 3
Edited by Jane Yolen
An homage to my hero, Ray Bradbury. A boy rides rollercoasters to stay young. Set on the Texas coast near my beloved Galveston, where I used to walk the beaches with my grandmother to find sand dollars.
Story title: Requiem For a Witch
Appeared in 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories
Edited by Robert Weinberg, Steven Dzeemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg
Another homage to Ray Bradbury. A young witch with cancer goes on a mission to rescue a boy lost in a snowstorm. My vampire novel Stoker Rules has a mention of a Will O Wisp as a nod to the magical world of this story.
Story title: Die, Baby, Die, Die, Die!
Appeared in It Came From the Drive In
Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Norman Partridge
Perhaps the most fun I've had writing a short story. I love old monster and science fiction movies, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. A juvenile delinquent befriends a giant insectoid alien. Lots of Easter Eggs in this one.
Story title: The Quimby House Ghost
Appeared in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories
Edited by Robert Weinberg, Steven Dzeemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg
I always loved ghost-hunter stories like Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and I wanted to do a different spin on the idea. A mild-mannered postmaster rents a haunted house in an effort to find a ghost. He succeeds, but not in the way he expected.
