One of the most significant and disturbing voices of horror fiction in the late 20th century was undoubtedly Clive Barker. Born in Liverpool, England, Barker struggled for years with his touring theatrical company before exploding onto the horror literary scene with the publication of his Books of Blood. His debut work was a Grand Guignol inspired collection of short stories devoted to exploring the perverted, disgusting, and the uncanny. Horror icon Stephen King was quoted as saying, "I have seen the future of horror. Its name is Clive Barker." With that impressive kind of benediction, Barker went on to become one of the greatest best-selling authors all time and was responsible for adapting several of his pieces into successful films, such as, Hellraiser and Lord of Illusions.
One of Barker's most recognized and praised works is a novella published in 1986 entitled, The Hellbound Heart. The text is what would eventually become the basis for the 1987 film, Hellraiser. Barker's piece concentrates on a mysterious puzzle box that, when solved correctly, has the potential to open up another dimension engineered by creatures, known as the Cenobites, who are connoisseurs of extreme sensual experiences and skilled in the art of pain and agony. The piece maintains the high-octane viscerally graphic prose that Barker first introduced to his readers in his iconic Books of Blood collection.
One of my favorite passages in Barker's novella is when dissatisfied housewife, Julia, encounters the grotesque reanimated remnants of her former lover, Frank, who has just escaped from the dimension of the Cenobites.
It was human, she saw, or had been. But the body had been ripped apart and sewn together again with most of its pieces either missing or twisted and blackened as if in a furnace. There was an eye, gleaming at her, and the ladder of a spine, the vertebrae stripped of muscle, a few unrecognizable fragments of anatomy. That was it. That such a thing might live beggared reason what little flesh it owned was hopelessly corrupted. Yet live it did. Its eye, despite the rot it was rooted in, scanned her every inch, up and down. She felt no fear in its presence. This thing was weaker than her by far. It moved a little in its cell, looking for some modicum of comfort. But there was none to be had, not for a creature that wore its frayed nerves on its bleeding sleeve. Every place it might lay its body brought pain: this she knew indisputably. She pitied it. And with pity came release. Her body expelled dead air, and sucked in living. Her oxygen-starved brain reeled. Even as she did so it spoke, a hole opening up in the flayed ball of the monster's head and issued a single, weightless word. The word was: "Julia."
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