tiny frights volume 1 issue 2, Halloween 2022

I am a good mother. You hold this knowledge in the palm of your hand. Scroll my feed and I feed you: A tray of cookies, each ginger shape uniform. Nothing here burnt, only clean edges, fondant precise.

Are you hungry for more? Swipe and see: my perfect home, perfect pies, perfect husband and son, and now my perfect baby girl, asleep in pink lace on a pink blanket in pink morning light on the peach curve of her cheek.

She had been fussy the night before, so I set the alarm for 4:40, time to do the work I needed before the dawn, wrapping that blanket around her, placing her hand, curled like a mystery under her chin, all to catch the dawn, that fairy light on her cheek. Just. So.

I administered the cough syrup with care, through an eye-dropper, watching the clock as the codeine lulled her and she became pliant, poseable, quiet.

And she's never quiet. Never sleeps unless steps are taken. But you didn't see that. You saw only what I spoon-fed you, this picture, my little peach, asleep, all the evidence you need to see that I am a good mother.

True, beings from other planes cannot exist on ours. But spirits survive where matter cannot.

When the divide between dimensions cracked, the ghost of a destroyed thing stroked my spine.

He stands in the kitchen, looking upon his only love.

Focused on her, he awaits the perfect moment to reconcile. He can describe her in thousands of words, but none truly do justice. He talks only about his love for her, hoping it will be enough.

"You need to let me go." She has no sympathy. Her words are harsh, but honest.

"How do you expect me to do that? You're all I ever think about."

From the top kitchen drawer, she pulls out a knife. It is tipped with a fine point and smooth along the blade. She holds it out for him.

He draws an incision around across his skin just above the eyebrows. His fingers slide under the flesh and pull upwards. Strands of tissue snap, blood pours down his eyes, he does not stop until he removes his flesh like a swimmer's cap.

The white of his skull is now visible.

He places the tip of the knife against his bare forehead. It aligns with the clump of matter known as the prefrontal cortex. He walks towards one of the brick walls of the. She remains standing behind him.

On the first headbutt, the knife only chips the bone. On the second it goes deeper, becoming caught in the skull. On the third it slices through.

He turns back around but she has already left.

He cannot remember who he was talking to.

Trying to remember where I parked, I stumble over a leg, an arm, body parts strewn across the dirt. I peer down; a torso. The inside gleams silver—chrome, like a luxury car, a high-end appliance. He'd always said that we were just the same, that he was built just like me, no matter who had put him together. They all think that—they're programmed not to know about the emergency kill switch hidden behind the earlobe. One quick flick and I'm widowed. "Ah," I sigh, kicking a limb aside. It clatters like a tin can. "There's the car."

Ms. Linden wasn't bothered by state moratoriums against trick or treating. At night, a child's soul would travel to her cracker house in the woods where she fed on their innocence. Many years later, the grown child would feel as if there was something missing, become depressed, maybe die.

We have done too much to them. They keep this place running— cleaning up the dead, aerating soil, sparking fruits and seeds... and how do we repay their efforts—their millions of years of a right to existence on this world? With poison, pesticides, and disgust. We—the destroyers of this world.

Well, no more.

They come at every single human soul in a teeming, buzzing, skittering wave that flows once around the planet, following the rising sun. They bite into skin and eyes, crawl into mouths, shred lungs from the inside. Do what they have always done.

Clean up.

At the swank Orlando hotel on Halloween, the costumed guests receive a warm jazz piano greeting compliments of Leonard. While his fingers glide along the keys, he slips from his body to caress skin, listen to hearts, learn buried histories. They slip him bills. He sows his dark, secret seeds.

Sharp claws cut slivers of soft flesh. Humans taste better served rare, while their pounding hearts still beat, their thick blood seasoned by adrenalin. The best hosts can keep meat alive for hours.

But I never claimed to be the best host. Besides, my guests are far too hungry to wait. And my new bride hungers for much more than food. She makes the deepest cut, the resulting gush turns her white dress scarlet.

The hunk of meat voices one final scream. It dies, watching my beloved gorging on its guts. Beautiful.

We consummate our love on a bed of bowel and bones. Demon seed passes between us. It will grow and grow until it kills me.

I'm a lucky devil.

My pumpkins went to rot the day after Halloween. I woke the first November morning to find them transformed in the night. They slouched like old men on my doorstep, flabby and lean-to. White fuzz crawled all over and the carved face wept a watery yellow. These were no longer the doorway guardians of late October. Perhaps I should have carved scarier faces, perhaps I let the little tealight blow out too often, because I have not succeeded in warding off any evil spirits. I've given them a home. And I fear what happens when decay collapses their roofs.

Stuff to get out the way

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

The review

Dark Country is a combination horror and crime novel. It follows Esmé Snydera, investigator of occult crimes, as she tries to catch a serial killer who intends to become a god. Esmé works for Snyder International Religious Crime Investigative Services, or SIRCIS, an organization sometimes consulted by the Pretoria police. As the investigation continues and the body count rises, Esmé finds herself a target. Meanwhile, her personal life (even apart from sorcerous attacks) grows increasingly complicated.

Snyman calls the novel, set in modern-day Pretoria, South Africa, "a fictional tale with one foot in reality." I knew nothing of muti before starting this book. According to Wikipedia, muti is "a traditional medicine practice in Southern Africa." The same article mentions muti killings. It is obvious from early on in Dark Country that the supernatural is real.

Point of view switches between Esmé and the killer. Snyman, a Bram Stoker Awards nominee, follows Stoker's example by collaging in news stories, crime reports, and other documents. Usually this is done to good effect, but some of these pieces go on too long.

The main ideas of the novel are intriguing and the action scenes are well-written. Unfortunately, Esmé is only about the third most interesting character in the story. Ahead of her is the mysterious killer, and ahead of them both is Esmé's enigmatic grandfather, occult researcher and founder of SIRCIS. Another important character is Esmé's colleague and romantic/sexual partner, Howlen. The romance seems like a distraction, and Howlen's dark backstory is heavy-handed for my taste, but I'm a jaded old curmudgeon.

I was told my copy was an uncorrected ARC, so some of the snaggly bits might have been smoothed out by publication time.