G W Thomas - An Atmosphere of Dread, Angielskie [EN](1)
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presents
A SNEAK PEAK at
PROLOGUE
By Bob Gunner
The watch on his wrist reads: 4:45 a.m., as the lone balding middle-age man stands
shivering in the cold bite of the morning breeze in front of a darkened storefront in the middle of
an old strip shopping center on the edge of town. This could be the edge of ‘hell’ as far as he is
concerned, for he had been laid off of his job of ten years as an accountant just a few weeks ago,
and now survival and the desperation to be a good provider for his wife and children (left behind
in a small town in the swampland of lower Louisiana) had led him to here, a big Texas city over a
hundred miles away from his home, family and close friends.
A huge and ominous neon orange moon floated up high in the gray soupy and murky
clouds that passed by swiftly, and from time to time exposed clear black skies that sparkled with
bright stars, twinkling like tiny fires in the almost barren atmosphere, and then a lone tear slipped
and slid down his reddened cheek.
Of course, he had never saw that the layoff was coming. He had worked hard and had
given the company all the extra un-paid hours they wanted from him, never complaining. He just
wanted to have the security of a full-time job and some reasonable health and medical benefits to
assure he could take care of his family correctly in these god-awful times. And he was the sole
breadwinner, because he and his wife had decided she should stay home and take care of the
house and their children.
Then unexpectedly like a brash and shameless slap in the proverbial face, the softening
economy suddenly took a ninety-degree nosedive, and the horrible events of September 11
th
along
with the quick push for a war in Iraq added to the financial problems weakening their personal
world. For not only had the economy affected their personal well-being and make their savings
disappear, it also had made the bean counters begin to conspire, and the managers’ start trimming
their employees to almost nothing, assuring they could make a bigger profit for their company.
They coldly replaced him with three pimple-faced fresh college grads with almost no
real-world experience at all. All school-sense and no damn commonsense. The reining corporate
sharks (barely out of damn business school themselves) had eliminated him because he would
never fit into their ridiculous pop-oriented culture where the rich were the only ones benefiting,
nor the speculative future business plans of their sacred and ridiculous vision for the company…
One at a time, the others began to arrive in front of the Labor Pool. They came in all
colors and shapes and sizes, all different educational levels, opinions, religions and ages. Each of
these individuals had hope to get out for a day on a temporary job ticket just to make a few bucks
for their unskilled labor (it did not matter that some had years of job experience and college
degrees, at the Labor Pool you were “unskilled labor”), and then proudly hiding the dishonor of
the way they were used for the day, get quickly paid for their hard work and leave the place to go
on living their lives.
Some wanted the money they would make (usually under $40 after federal and local
taxes and social security deductions) for cigarettes and cheap booze, and some needed it for rent
and food. Some had ambitions for a bright and sunny future in the horizon, and others really
didn’t give a damn if they lived to face the next morning. Expressions of gloom and
dissatisfaction were the rule, rather than the exception. This was not a happy or a satisfying place
to be, you had to take jobs you really did not like, and you were often treated with no dignity,
respect or humanity. Such was the way of the Labor Pool.
If you did work hard and never ever complained, you might stay at the same place for
quite a while, but you were always looked upon as an ‘outsider’ by the other personnel hired
directly by the company to work for them. The guys and gals that had been sent over from the
Labor Pool were commonly considered the scum and slime of the earth. This of course, was only
the assumption of these other company employees who acted selfishly as though they were of a
better grade stock and previous job experience than the temps.
The opinion was if someone was working out of a labor pool, then they didn’t have what
it took to qualify for a good permanent position with any company. And perhaps that might have
been true at one time in America, but now times are totally different. There are a lot less full-time
jobs available, and too many people are competing for these positions. There are fewer employee
benefits, and even part-time positions are scarce. It seems sadly that only the rich are getting
richer, and the middle class and the lower class must suffer for just trying to survive and keep
their heads up above the water.
The immigrant situation isn’t helping either; more and more undocumented workers are
flooding the borders and taking the work away from legitimate American citizens. Of course,
these immigrants have good reasons to do this, they have families and there is no work in their
countries to support their personal and family needs either. They too want a part of the American
dream. American was born of the dreams of immigrants, and it is even worth the chance of dying
in the back of a hot dark eighteen-wheeler trailer or a filthy rail car to get to the big city in the
U.S. where they can stand on corners, or by the railroad tracks, or work out of the hundreds of
small unregulated labor services without needing any proper documentation of any kind.
A white window van pulls into the driveway from off the street, it’s headlights flashed off
and then back on like a strange signal to the people waiting. Painted on the side in big block
letters: THE LABOR POOL. The man driving the van pulls into a reserved parking spot in front
of the door, slides out of the vehicle, and checks out the small army of people waiting for his
arrival. He smiles a broken smile and unlocks the door for business to get started. The battered
and unhappy crowd pile into the building and sit down in the chairs to wait for the man to call
their name if they have already registered for work, the ones who have not begin to fill out the
necessary forms on the counter. When they are through, they are told to sit down in chairs spread
out through the building, each with a worn bible on it.
The Labor Pool manager, Brother Bill, sits back in his comfortable high back leather
chair and says nothing as he flips through his own old beat up bible, and every once in a while
looks through the glass pay window of the secured office area and checks out the new arrivals
through his bloodshot eyes. A well-dressed woman joins Brother Bill after a few moments,
arriving in a nice new and shiny Cadillac, and begins to process the paperwork of the line of
people who have never worked at the Labor Pool before. She takes their paper and tells them to
have a seat until their name is called.
The gentleman from Louisiana asks if it looks like there is going to be plenty of work
today, and she glares up at him and sighs, then smiles and replies sarcastically: “No promises
here,” and then asks him to join the others in the seats of the front lobby. He sits down in the cold
brown aluminum chair and covers his eyes with his hands. And so, no one feels his uncertainty or
notices his random tears…
And now without further delay…
Selected and With Commentary by G. W. Thomas
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE VALLEY OF THE SPIDERS by H. G. Wells
WAILING WELL by M. R. James
THE UPPER BERTH by F. Marion Crawford
THE TERROR OF BLUE JOHN GAP by A. Conan Doyle
THE DERELICT by William Hope Hodgson
LUKUNDOO by Edward Lucas White
THE HORLA by Guy de Maupassant
FURTHER MONSTER READING
This book is respectfully dedicated to the greatest anthologist of monster fiction,
Peter Haining.
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