Horrors! 365 Scary Stories – A Full Year of Horror
07/15/2017 – 07/21/2017
The horror short-short isn’t easy to master, but more than 100 of the genre’s critically acclaimed authors & hottest up-&-comers have taken a stab at it in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, an anthology that contains a short tale for every day of the year. Steve Rasnic Tem, Wm F. Nolan, Tom Piccirilli, Yvonne Navarro, Peter Atkins, Brian Hodge, Martin Mundt & 166 others give you short, sharp shocks.
If you missed the first post you can find it here.
Hello and welcome back to this week’s round of small, frightful delights! So get ready to hide under the covers but make sure you bring a light. It’s dark under there.
Mother Lode – Ojvind Bernander
Synopsis:
Finn is amazed to find an egg in a hole in his lawn. He’s even more amazed when it hatches out a Griffin. A Griffin that eats junk an excretes gold. Finn thinks he’s hit it rich but he’s forgotten one thing. Where there are babies there’s usually a mother…
Review:
I loved this story and I’m jealous. I want a Griffin. Preferably one that won’t eat me.
Mr. Bauble’s Bag – Scott David Aniolowski
Synopsis:
Old clowns never die, they just wait in the shadows.
Review:
This was a very good, creepy clown tale. It’s not the usual serial killer clown or child eating clown. In fact, it’s a little unclear what it is that Mr. Bauble eats. But he seems genuinely disappointed that children fear him. Or whatever he is.
Mr. Brubaker Goes to Work – Lyn Nichols
Synopsis:
Mr. Brubaker jauntily heads off to his work. He’s a butcher, happily carving good steaks and he takes pride in his work. Just don’t ask where the steaks come from.
Review:
I started out assuming that Mr. Brubaker was a killer but it took a slight zig-zag that I didn’t expect. A wonderful twist.
Much More Than You Know – Brian A. Hopkins
Synopsis:
Love can make people do crazy things. Especially disappointed love.
Review:
it’s a story that has been done before but this caught my eye because it was well written. Almost musical in that it flows so well.
Mud – Juleen Brantingham
Synopsis:
A guy who’s rough on his women, especially the ones that can’t be bought with the price of popcorn and a movie, is leaving a girl in the rain as he drives out of the bayou. Little does he know that his friend Wes knows about the bayou, and what it will do for the people who care for it.
Review:
Loved, loved, loved this story. Great set-up and a great monster.
The Music Box – Lisa Lepovetsky
Synopsis:
Julia holds the music box that her mother treasured and would never let her open. Now, more than anything, Julia wishes her mother was there with her. She’s about to get her wish.
Review:
A very good story that did not turn out how I expected it would. It also, in a weird way, reminded me a bit of Hellraiser.
My Evil Twin – Brian Craig
Synopsis:
Two twins, separated by divorce. Assuming he is the ‘good’ twin our narrator has learned to keep from becoming what he thinks his brother must be. Deciding to track his brother down the narrator gets the surprise of his life…he may not be the ‘good’ twin, after all.
Review:
Another great story. It’s interesting to me how much twins are used in horror. No offense to any twinnies out there. There always seems to be a good one and an evil one. I have to admit that I have always found it pretty fascinating that a lot of identical twins seem to lead very similar lives. However, that rarely happens with fraternal twins. It kind of makes me wonder about genetics and whether or not our behavior is truly ‘individual’.
Favorite of the Week:
Oh, lord, do I have to pick? They were all really, really good. Even the Mr. Bauble one was good and I’m not usually gung-ho on clowns. They are creepy but the formula for using them in horror stays pretty basic. If I had to pick then these three are definitely the tops for this week: Mother Lode by Ojvind Bernander, Mud by Juleen Brantingham, and My Evil Twin by Brian Craig. They all had a little something more to them.
Well, this was a great week for stories. Let’s hope the awesome streak continues and I’ll see you guys next week for another week’s worth of tales to chill you.