tiny frights volume 1 issue 1, Walpurgis 2022

Stuff to get out the way

Compensation for this review: a review copy of the ebook. No other consideration, and no solicitation of a favorable review.

Content Warnings: “WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTER... This book contains adult situations and is not suitable for children.”

The review

I don’t review books I don’t like, so if you’re just looking for a thumbs up/thumbs down, you can stop here. I like this book.

This anthology is unusual in that there was no call for submissions. This is the overflow from Volume 3, 23 stories they wanted to include but didn’t have space for. I haven’t read that volume, but this is not a “didn’t quite make the cut” collection. These are top-notch tales. The one slightly negative comment I have is that it’s hard sometimes to see a connection between the story and the anthology’s title, but that could be the result of having the stories first and looking for a commonality among them. Loss is a prominent theme.

Not every story connected with me, but there are no clunkers. All are well-written, and any might be some discriminating reader’s favorite. I won’t summarize each, but I’ll highlight a few that stand out for me. (No spoilers, I promise.)

The anthology opens with “What the Sea Gives” by K.P. Kulsi. This might be more a narrative prose poem than a story (if that distinction means anything), about an island castaway seemingly doomed to a solitary immortality.

The protagonist of Ariel Dodson’s “Black-Eyed Susan” is haunted by her loss, and her own guilt, in a very literal way.

Alyson Faye’s “The Silver Horn” is set in the modern day (including lockdown), but it has the feeling of a macabre old ballad or one of the creepier corners of Arthurian romance.

In Charlotte Platt’’s “Shoot Your Shot,” an incel chooses the wrong library to shoot up.

“Capable of Loving,” by Sonora Taylor, is a chilling, thoughtful, and deep bit of psychological horror, in which the horror isn’t the whole point. I’ll be looking for more of Taylor’s fiction.

It’s cliche to say that robot stories are about exploring humanness, but that’s certainly true of Angela Yuriko Smith’s “Perfect Girlfriend.” It has an interesting point of view and an economical narrative that trusts the reader’s intelligence.

“Sharp Spaces,” by Samantha Ortiz, is another entry in the psychological horror category, with a poetically apt title.

Cosmic horror is represented by Kirby Kellogg’s “Four Corners.” It’s a little reminiscent of Welcome to Night Vale, a bit of Twilight Zone, but completely original.

What can I say about Cecilia Kennedy’s “Soul Grinder” without giving too much away? You may never want to go to a county fair again. (Assuming you ever did.)

The anthology closes strong with R.A. Busby’s body horror parable “Fluid.” The story reminds me of Junji Ito, and it contains some beautiful sentences.

The clown has been following me almost all my life. She offered me a hot pink balloon at the church carnival when I was six. Her droopy face paint made me cry. Her hot pink lips were too big for her face. She wore a lopsided hot pink wig and her eyes were circled in black. My mom dragged me away by the hand but the clown followed us, right up until we were getting in the car. After that I saw the clown everywhere, hot pink balloon in hand. I saw her out on our street at night and outside the playground fence at recess and in the parking lot of the grocery store that accepted my mom’s food stamps. Always in costume, always on the edge of my vision. She eluded the cops my mom called and she never tried to hurt me so eventually I was the only one who cared, the only one who cried herself to sleep knowing she was out there with her balloon. I was seventeen the day she followed me home from the bus stop. I started running, and she ran, too, and I ran out into the street without looking and a car hit me. As I lay on the gravel with my bloody body and broken bones the clown knelt down over me, a laugh escaping her misshapen hot pink lips. She handed me the hot pink balloon. With the arm that wasn’t broken, I took it, fingers trembling. I let it go. It flew away. We both laughed.

A short man in a green suit keeps grabbing at all the Easter eggs I touch though he never takes them; only his fingers caress mine, his yellow eyes widen, he shows a row of rotted teeth and whispers, “Tag, I’m it!” The adults cheer me on as I reluctantly fill up my basket.

Christ, would you look at the garden. Totally waterlogged; the drainage always has been horrendous. And the old trampoline, them legs are at least three inch deep in water. Look, you can see the rust flaking off from here.

Remember lugging the great thing out from the shed every summer? Took all afternoon to set up, and kids hardly seemed bothered for five minutes. You about did your back in that last year, and then it were ‘we're not little kids anymore.’ Wouldn't even go on it. Lord, we felt old. Watching them grow made us old. They stole our best years, and what thanks did we get?

It was sort of nice, wasn't it, afterwards, to watch them rot for a change? But you were right, of course. Not safe leaving them out in the open, not with her next door hanging around, nosy bugger. Best to keep them out of the way.

No use bothering putting the trampoline down after that, was there? Even all these years later, I still feel a little younger looking at it. Yes, the old thing makes a fine gravestone. Just fine.

The ground stirred, moving with a gentle tremor like the shudder of a tiny earthquake. His hands emerged first, filthy-nailed and puckered, scooping aside the dirt as if swimming against a heavy tide. As he dragged himself to the surface, she reached for him, taking his cold hands in hers and pulling him free of the churning earth.

He lay naked in the cold air, pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. No breath passed his lips. But with her incantations and desire, he had life.

He looked at her, unblinking, with dull, clouded eyes. She saw no recognition there, just confusion, as if he was trapped in the remnants of a slowly receding dream. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know that he had once loved her, before that love had soured. Before he had tried to leave.

She would show him.

He was numb to her embrace. Unresponsive to her kisses. Cold to her wet heat. But as she moved against him, she thought she saw a spark of recognition in those blank, grey eyes.

When she had finished, she sank him back into his grave. The earth shifted around him at her command. As his head vanished beneath the rolling black soil, she saw the light of awareness in his eyes. Stark terror contorted his face as he realised that she would never let him go.

The earth was still. He was gone, until she needed to feel alive again.

Corpses glittered overhead as I ascended the well-lit tower at the edge of the world; surrounded by the ocean of darkness.

“Shifts up!” he startled awake as I knocked his helmet.

“Not funny man!” he wiped the sleep from his eyes, “you know if anybody else caught me sleeping I’d be dead.”

The edge of the world stood still; frost winding its way to the edges of the shadow but never daring to pass. I lifted my gaze to meet the gaping maw of the darkness itself. My eyes made shapes out of shadows.

Francis’ hand landed on my shoulder, “did you hear what happened to John?”

“Yeah.”

I was in that hallway when it happened. The alarm sounded; soldiers breaking down the door that John had barricaded. His screams echoed through my mind. When they got him out his eyes were bloody pools sloshing around his sockets; face contorted but very much alive.

“Locked himself in his bathroom. Lights out! Why would anyone invite the darkness in like that?”

I nodded- not agreeing with Francis but John. I knew why he did that. His thirst to know if the bullshit they taught us from birth was real. That our gods died, and our planet stopped spinning. Darkness consumed half the world- transforming our friends into demons.

Did he find what he was looking for?

I shouldered my rifle and looked down the barrel into the infinite blackness knowing that I would soon find what I was looking for too. But tonight, I hoped to see only shadows.