Would your loved ones still love you if your darkest secret came to light?
Simon Hinch considers himself to be a Gore Reporter. He spends late nights in bad places hoping to record violence and disorder for a fee, selling this documented distress to the highest bidder.
One night, Simon stumbles upon a man, bloody and dying in the street. Knowing that the video of this man’s death will go viral on the dark web – on the gore sites – he decides to film instead of help, using his phone to capture the moment the dying man’s spirit leaves his body.
The video is a sensation, and life is good for Simon. Except, something seems to be wrong with his phone. His alarm goes off when it hasn’t been set, text messages are sent to Simon’s loved ones without him having any memory of sending them. His closely guarded secrets are suddenly at risk of being exposed.
He convinces himself that his phone is glitching, that he has been hacked. Because the alternative would be too hard for him to face. The alternative being that he didn’t just capture someone’s death on that late night, he may have captured a dead man’s soul.
Title: Viral Lives: A Ghost Story | Author: Felix I.D. Dimaro | Publisher: Library and Archives of Canada | Pub. Date: 1 November 2020 | Pages: 115 | ISBN-13 : 978-1999192228 | Genre: Horror| Language: English | Source: Self-purchased | Starred Review |
Viral Lives A Ghost Story Review
Most of us know not to keep incriminating evidence on our phone. Unfortunately, Simon Hinch never got that the memo. In this quick paced horror, Simon finds himself tied up in a hell of his own making. As a Gore Reporter, Simon patrols the streets for accidents that leave victims gnarly and on the brink of death. When one such event practically falls into his lap, he takes full advantage of his fortune and films a man’s agonizing death rather than call for help. That should have been the end of it, but karma had different plans.
Simon is someone readers will love to hate. As the layers of his personality are slowly peeled back, we discover that our protagonist has a load of nasty secrets just waiting to be exposed. Some readers may find an inkling of sympathy for him, but most will revel in his undoing. He comes to learn that severe actions have brutal consequences.
The horror elements don’t overwhelm the page, but rather, add delicious bits of gore and suspense sprinkled into the plot at exactly the right goosebump-inciting moments. Horror fans of Nightcrawlers and Black Mirror will delightfully find themselves stumbling down the revenge-filled rabbit hole created by Dimaro.
You can purchase a copy of this book via your normal retailer such as Amazon, but please consider purchasing it from a local indie bookshop instead.
Nico Bell is a horror and science fiction writer. Her work has appeared in The Second Corona Book of Horror Stories, Drabbledark Anthology and Horror Tree’s Trembling with Fear. She joined the Coolthulhu Crew in May 2018.
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