Today, February 3, is the birthday of Rick Hautala (1949-2013). I actually had some time today while sitting in the Husband Holding Area while my wife did some shopping, so I read a couple of his stories. Both of these stories can be found in Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala.

I’ve read some of Hautala’s work before, but that was years ago. It was good to be reminded of why I like his stuff.  Feel free to consider this post to be another in the informal series I’ve been doing of writers whose work shouldn’t be forgotten.

Before I get to the stories, let me say that Glimpses is a great  collection. I’ve only read a little of it, and the stories I chose are in the middle of the book, but if you want to sample Hautala’s work, especially at shorter lengths, then this is a great place to start.

The first story I read is “Blossoms in the Wind”.  Miko is a woman of late middle age. Her husband at one point says she’s sixty, but that doesn’t add up to some dates given in the story if I read it correctly. No matter. Miko’s mother lives in California and is in her eighties. She’s going into an assisted living, and Miko is flying from Boston to spend a week with her as she makes this transition. Miko and her mother moved to the United States when Miko was very young.

For several weeks, Miko has been having dreams of a Japanese man in a flight jacket and a kamakazi headband trying to tell her something. These are not comforting dreams.

Now that her husband, who is not Japanese, is taking her to the airport, she is seeing the pilot even in the daytime. He keeps appearing to her in the airport. Every time Miko sees him, she gets more and more upset.

This sotry had some twists that weren’t hard to see coming. But that’s fine. Knowing what is actually going on, when Miko doesn’t, only added to the tension.

The next story, “Late Summer Shadows”, is a more traditional horror story. The story is set sometime in the early 1920s. It’s narrated by an old man who is telling about an incident when he was a boy. Each summer, he and his mother would visit his friend George and George’s parents at a camp they owned. The story starts out with George asking the narrator if he knows why they put gravestones on graves.

You can guess that this probably isn’t going to end well for George. And maybe not for the narrator, either.

It seems George knows where a grave is hidden in the woods…

This one might be set in a common background of some of Hautala’s other stories. I haven’t read enough to say. He seems to place some emphasis on the location and a character who doesn’t really play a part in the story.  Not a lot of emphasis, mind you, but enough that it caught my eye.

This one, like I said, is more traditional of the two stories. It’s also the earlier of the two by roughly a decade. In comparing them, you can see how Hautala matured as a writer. “Blossoms in the Wind” is a more subtle story that deals with honor and duty and the things that define those concepts. I said it was slightly predictable, but I think everyone who remembers the events that come into play in that story had them imprinted on their minds. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. I don’t want to give away any surprises if you decide to read the story.

I hope you will. It’s something of a slow build, but I found the story to be worth the wait for the climax.

Rick Hautala’s work, at least what I’ve read of it, falls into the subgenre of quiet horror, and I can’t help but think of Charles L. Grant when I think of Hautala.

He’s definitely a writer whose work deserves to be remembered.