My current read is Swan Song by Robert McCammon. Due to the length of that book, it will take me a bit to get through.
In the meantime, I decided to dive into some short stories from 3 newly acquired horror anthologies.
It’s quite an interesting mix of stories. I have Old School Splatterpunk, New School Splatterpunk and some literary horror by some well-known authors. I was excited to read all these!
1 – Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp & Craig Spector from 1989, Old School Splatterpunk (Contains Spoilers)
I read award winning short story “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned” by Edward Bryant. In this story, our main character is an attractive female waitress at a diner in the middle of nowhere, Colorado. The story starts with the government allowing people to kill and hunt zombies, as there is already a zombie outbreak. All this is happening while our main character and the town deputy have a budding romance on the horizon.
We learn fairly quickly why the diner does so well, as it seems like with most middle of nowhere places, there is one attractive female and all the men far and wide would like a piece or have tried to at one point or another according to our reminiscing M.C. The men who decide to bunker down in the diner end up getting drunk, rowdy and horny. In the middle of the men trying to rape our poor M.C. her very much undead-dead new boyfriend comes to save her. Except he is then attacked and killed (again). And the story ends with what I hope is our MC blowing her brains out as she reaches for her deputy bf’s loaded revolver, while a hoard of zombies have their way with her, who while they were alive wanted a piece, don’t forget.
2 – The Obituaries #5 – A Splatterpunk zine by Aron Beauregard, Daniel Volpe & Kristopher Triana (Contains Spoilers)
Special Guest Author– Bryan Smith wrote “The Sick Place” – This is another splatterpunk. This newest volume just came out last month. It does have all 4 authors’ signatures and is a limited edition to 500.
I think I expected more from Bryan Smith. I just felt like this story had a lot crammed into its few pages. Between the cannibals, the torture dominatrix, the twisted hospital, and then some black magic sprinkled in on top, it was a bit all over the place. There were 3 different characters (Point of Views) in this story. All their stories jammed into this one with this torture hospital being the main connection to all of them.
3 – McSweeney’s 71st Issue Horror Stories (Contains Spoilers)
I read two stories from this book, and I might read a third before today is over but I truly enjoyed diving into the deep depths of our fears with the two stories I have read so far. “The Refrigerator Cemetery” by Mariana Enriquez, is about kids playing inside of abandoned old places. If you have even a slight discomfort when you think about a claustrophobic death, especially when we were kids and let our imagination run away with us, this story will make you uncomfortable. It has a creepy twist at the end.
My 2nd read from this book was “Here & Now & Then & Forever” by Attila Veres. This story is basically a modern day mad scientist story. Our MC in this book is a woman who is struggling to become successful (even just trying to pay the bills), as a snake charm salesman, basically. She’s trying out a new (what sounds like a pyramid scheme) career path in which she sells hopes & dreams to terminally ill children’s parents. This all occurs in light of the fact that the world might be on the brink of societal collapse. This program then treats these terminally ill kids and they mutate into carnivorous immortal bird creatures. However, the focus of the story is not even on these scary, new monsters but on this success-driven MC who has totally lost her grip on reality, it seems.
I highly recommend people pick up some anthology books. They are my favorite books to leave around my house. You’ll be introduced to new authors without having to commit to a full length novel. Happy reading!
YouTube Review showing the books and talking about the stories in this post: Weekend Reads with Brooklyn Attic Books
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