A deal with Death

Some years ago, my wife and I spent a week at Shute Gatehouse, a place owned by The Landmark Trust that you find by turning off the main road, passing between two half-collapsed stone posts, and finding yourself on a narrow route that seems to take you a couple of decades back in time. The mist closed in and we spent a few days exploring the local woods, pubs, and footpaths. 

One afternoon we came across a steep driveway lined with pumpkins - rotting, puckered and caved-in on themselves in the week since Halloween, but which must have marked out the way to a bonfire party. The story “A Wrong Turning” arrived in my head just like that, in one piece, a gift from the otherworld. 

The premise: it's that time of year when the veil between life and death is so thin that to stray off the path could easily take you on a detour via undiscovered country. Guy Wasserman has already suffered one bereavement, and when his car is forced off the main road he finds Death waiting with an impossible demand: "You, or your son." 

“A Wrong Turning” is my homage to the old Warren horror comics of the 1960s and 1970s. The tight, atmospheric pencils are by Martin McKenna, and you’ll see right away why he was so in demand for movie storyboarding. His artwork on this little tale reminds me of the great EC Comics and Creepy artists like Gray Morrow, Reed Crandall, Angelo Torres and Al Williamson.