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by Edward Lee  When novelists are asked that most vexing question "Where do you get your ideas?" we all too often find it impossible to answer, but my newest work BLACK TRAIN is an rare exception.
Twenty years ago I was hanging out in an old Federal-period tavern in Annapolis (the Ram’s Head, which I believe is still there) and some friends of mine suggested that I write a horror novel pertaining to the Civil War. As a child, I’d always had an interest in military history, and in the Civil War in particular; indeed, one of my earliest childhood memories is that of my father and grandfather taking me to Lookout Mountain, the site of a pivotal battle. (I recall ascending a sinister stone observation tower complete with grave vaults.)
But as for my friends decades later urging a book project relative to America’s bloodiest war (I believe over half a million soldiers died in it), I responded quite drably with, “A Civil War horror novel? No way, I don’t have any ideas.”
Coincidently, however, that self-same night, I dreamed I was walking in a scrubby field where I happened upon two very creepy little girls in smock dresses. One was named Mary, the other Cricket. “We’re waiting for the train ‘cos our daddy is one of the guards,” they told me. Train? I wondered. Guards?
Suddenly some railroad tracks conveniently appeared, and the unnerving silence was ruptured by the chugging of a monstrously large steam locomotive. It tore past us with such force and velocity that the ground trembled.
Mary and Cricket began waving at the soldiers on watch at the end of each car–not modern soldiers, mind you, but Confederate soldiers of the Civil War era. Wow, I thought, I must be having a dream about the Civil War! My enthusiasm didn’t last long, though.
“There’s our daddy!” one of the creepy girls exclaimed. “Wave to him!” So I waved to the gray-garbed solider at the coupling rail, and as I did so, he noticed me and smiled...with the face of a withered cadaver.
In fact, every soldier on the train existed in the same deteriorated condition. That’s when I noticed exactly what the train was hauling: prison cars, each surrounded by jail bars and each absolutely stuffed with emaciated, sunken-eyed captives. I’m pretty sure I screamed at that point in the dream, and Mary and Cricket chuckled as I did.
To these creepy little girls, I bellowed something to the effect, “What kind of a screwed up dream is this?”
“It’s not a dream,” one of them said with a beaming grin, but, lo, now her face was as withered and cadaverous as the soldiers’.
And wouldn’t you know it? The train had stopped, and one of the corpse-troops had disembarked and was now running toward us.
“Here comes daddy,” I was told. “He’s gonna put YOU on the train now and then take you to hell!”
Delightful. I’m sure I awoke at that precise moment in a cliched cold sweat.
Though I’m not particularly prone to nightmares (usually my sleep is hectored by ridiculous dreams, not scary ones) this remains one of the worst nightmares of my life, but I don’t regret a second of it because I suddenly, in the space of one night, I had an idea for a big, gory, high-creep-factor novel relating to the Civil War. But now you might be thinking: If he got the idea for the book twenty years ago, why did it take him so long to write it?
Answer: I was afraid.
That’s right. The Big Bad Horror Novelist was TOO AFRAID to actually commence with his own book. Months, then years passed, all with my delightedly notating the novel and its keynote horror scenes, but I kept putting the actual writing off because the images I foresaw disturbed me so much I JUST COULDN’T GET ON WITH IT.
As much as I loved the concept, I was scared, uh, shucksless, to actually sit down and WRITE the sucker. I was UNWILLING to confront and then execute the images that I’d been outlining for years. I kept telling myself "next month I’ll start,” then “next year,” like that, for two decades.
It was just a couple of years ago that I cave-manned my way past my own apprehensions, bit the bullet (or the musket ball, in this case), and plunged head-first into what I believe is my most effective Gothic horror opus. It took me three or four months to complete, but believe me, every one of them haunted me, and to this day I’m still unnerved by some of those scenes.
Scaring other people is one thing (hopefully proof of the novelist’s skill) but the author scaring himself is uncannily something else altogether. Whether BLACK TRAIN is a success, I will leave for you to decide. Just please know that it scared the bejesus out of my to write. Mary and Cricket are in the book, by the way; and just as they so grimly visited me all those years ago...
Perhaps they’ll be visiting you as well.
Edward Lee is the author of over forty novels, including THE GOLEM, CITY INFERNAL, and FLESH GOTHIC. The film adaptation of his novella HEADER is now available on DVD and can be purchased at Amazon or rented on Netflix.
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