The man who taught me to love stories

I often talk about my brothers when people ask me why I like zombies, and why I love science fiction, fantasy, and horror in general. 

One of the biggest influences on all of that was my brother Mick. 

We lost him to cancer on September 21st. 

To say we are devastated—as family, siblings, friends, colleagues, and neighbors—is a gross understatement, but right now the tools of my trade fail me.

So I’ll tell you about him instead.

We watched scary movies a lot when I was a kid, especially classic horror and sci-fi: Them!, Invaders from Mars, War of the Worlds, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

The 1956 version, obviously.

The people I remember watching horror movies with most are my brothers, especially those 1970s vampire films that were usually broadcast on Saturday afternoons. 

They had big name actors, too. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Denholm Elliott. Trevor Eve, Donald Pleasance, Laurence Olivier. There was no going wrong with casts like that.

There was Chiller Theater late on Saturday nights, which left too-young-to-be-watching me scared to go to sleep. 

I still experience flashes of anxiety that a vampire will float up outside my bedroom window. No wonder I was afraid of the dark for far longer than I’ll ever admit.

Mick read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me when I was very young, giving me not only a foundational childhood memory, but a lifelong love of fantasy. 

A voracious reader, as so many of us in the family are, he always had science fiction, fantasy, and horror books around.

I read them all.

No one could spin a yarn like Mick, from the Topsol the Dwarf stories he made up for his daughter to the don’t-want-to-walk-from-the-campfire-to-my-tent ghost stories. Green Eyes—spun from his imagination and woven by his command of the spoken word—was my favorite.

Thinking of the ending of Green Eyes just now gave me a shiver.

Mick was also a talented musician and Irish music was his true love: tin whistle, flute, uilleann pipes, the bodhrán (an Irish drum), even the humble spoons. And, of course, he had a wonderful singing voice. He had a gift for connecting with people, putting them at ease, and drawing them in. Audiences ate from his hand.

His laugh was infectious, his wit acerbic, and his love for friends and family boundless. 

There was never a doubt in my mind that if I needed his help with or protection from anything—be it killing a bug or burying a body—Mick would be there. No questions asked and one trillion percent on my side.

We never actually buried a body, but you know what I mean.

Because of the flexibility my career gives me, I was able to spend his last few days with his wife and kids, and to be there with him as he went on to whatever comes next.

I don’t know how much I’ll be writing in the short term, which strikes me as funny, because here I am, using words on a page to tell you about my brother and how much I love him. But I know that grief can unfold in ways you don’t expect. I guess we’ll see.

I wanted to share this with you not only because I’m sad and heartbroken.

Mick was one of the most significant influences on why I became a person who writes the stories you are kind enough to read.

And I realize now that I don’t think I ever told him that.

I wish I had.

Long before I was writing about zombies and the end of the world, I was a little girl listening to my big brother read Tolkien and scare the hell out of me around a campfire.

When you read one of my books and stumble upon something that later frightens you in the dark—some piece of another, darker world that you just can’t turn away from—there’s a little bit of Mick in there.

There always has been, and there always will be.