Title:  The Dead Line

Author: Dennis Etchison

Date of First Publication: 1979

Place of Publication: Whispers 13-14 (anthology)

Type: Short story

Characters: No characters

Themes: ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER

Title:  The Dead Line

Critical Summary: Etchison’s “dark fantasy” or “quiet horror” can be difficult to classify. “The Dead Line” is part of what Ramsey Campbell, in an introduction to Etchison’s work, dubbed “the transplant trilogy… one of the most chilling achievements in contemporary horror,” along with “Calling All Monsters” and “The Machine Demands a Sacrifice.” These tales loosely connect around the horror of donors, experiments, and transplants in a dark alternate reality or bleak sf future. “The Dead Line” has a famously horrifying first line: “This morning I put ground glass in my wife’s eyes.” The story is a haunting, strange “mad scientist” story about unnamable experiments in an uncanny hospital; reviewers comment that the work evokes the disturbing screams of Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain. In the story, a man, whose wife (Karen) is paralyzed, meets Emily, whose husband (William) is also dying in the hospital. He urges Emily to take William out of the hospital before the doctors tear him apart for experimental purposes. We never learn if Emily succeeds at her attempt to get her husband out of the hospital.

Administrative Notes:  Christopher Ballard, CSUF; Alexandra Roman, CSUF (editing); Dr. David Sandner (editing)