Title: The Shivers
Author: Joe Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward and Owen King
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Pages: 174
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
All five authors featured in this collection were new to me. Nor did I have any idea that two of the writers featured in this collection, Joe Hill and Owen King, are the sons of Stephen King. How interesting to have so much talent in one family!
JACKKNIFE by Joe Hill
Dennis Lange, a professor at the University of Maine and the author of a bestselling book on celebrity scandals, is in the throes of a scandal of his own. His marriage has gone bust, after his wife discovered his sexting history with a female student, Parker Townsend, whose father raises a stink and gets him fired. Asked to leave by his wife, Dennis moves into an AirBnB.
Nursing the beginnings of an alcohol addiction, Dennis begins to take walks around the neighbourhood to control his drinking habit. On one such walk, he sees a tree with a knife embedded in it. He pulls out the knife, ignoring the words, Don’t Touch, carved into the bark, and inadvertently sets the tree free.
The tree starts moving about, unleashing a nightmare. By the time, Dennis googles the dates and names carved into the bark, and discovers its grisly history, it is already too late.
The story delivered the promised shivers. Joe Hill has written a story about a tree and filled it with menace. Names like University of Maine, Joe Rogan etc root the story in reality, reminding us that otherworldly menace can coexist with ordinary things.
Speaking of sexual abuse of children, the author writes, a lot of it was he-said, she-said, in an era when he-said carried a lot more weight.
The near parallels between Dennis Lange and Orville Shue adds an interesting touch.
+++++++++
THE INDIGO ROOM by Stephen Graham Jones
This is a story set in the real world with nothing supernatural about it.
Jennifer, a divorced single mother of eight-year-old Cole, has parent pick-up on the very day some decidedly odd things take place in the office. When junior associate Gracie turns off the light and lowers the blackout shades in the meeting room, known as the Indigo Room (Sharon, the boss, has named all the meeting rooms after colours), Jennifer has an unreal, disturbing vision which turns out to be a premonition.
It was a strange premise, and I liked the story, but it wasn’t really scary. The style of writing, though nice, took some getting used to and pulled me out of the story. The ending was confusing, ending on an inconclusive note.
In the end, we don’t know why Sharon, the boss, called them all to the Blue Room.
+++++++++++++++
THE BLANKS by Grady Hendrix
This was a horror short story that touched me deeply as a parent.
Rachel and Stephen, and their children, Zoe ‘Zee’ and Callum, aged 14 and 11, residents of Brooklyn, escape every summer to Jeckle Island where they own a summer home. They have been doing so for 16 years. It’s always been fun until it isn’t.
The Island is home to the Blanks, otherworldly creatures you must never acknowledge or lock eyes with. If you look at a Blank, your life is over. They will come to get you. There is no escape from them. Once you lose a loved one to the Blanks, it’s as if they become tainted. No one wants to have anything to do with them.
But then one of their own stares at the Blanks. What would be the consequences of that action?
The horror, for me, lay in the fact that people continue to court disaster, despite knowing the danger they are exposing their loved ones to.
A reference to men’s ‘caveman compulsion’ tells us about the burden that Stephen will carry all his life, his inability to do anything. Particularly when fathering comes naturally to him.
The author does a marvel with an ironic foreshadowing when one of the kids insists that children should be allowed to vote because they are the ones who are going to live in the future.
+++++
NIGHT AND DAY IN MISERY by Catriona Ward
On the eighth anniversary of the deaths of her husband Frank and two-year-old son Sam, depressed and lonely Stella decides to kill herself at the very place where their deaths occurred. It’s a place in Missouri, a place that an unhappy local refers to as Misery.
Checking into the very room at the hotel where they last stayed, Stella prepares to jump into the river at the bottom of which the bodies of her husband and son were found. She blames herself for their deaths, for the liquor found in Frank’s blood.
For eight years, she has suffered, and now she hopes to join them, and find peace. But as she sleeps, on her last night, she has strange dreams that feel real, blurring the line between truth and the supernatural.
This story was beautiful, with a paranormal element. The writing was beautiful. Once again, I found myself hooked on the story, as a mother.
+++
LETTER SLOT by Owen King
Blake, the son of physically challenged and ailing single mother Wendy Price, is used to living a difficult life. But when he sees his mother in pain, yet forced to work two jobs, he is torn. Following up on a school assignment, he writes an anonymous letter, talking about his troubles, and drops it through the mail slot of an abandoned show house. He expects nothing to come of it, and is surprised when he finds a response to his letter, asking him to volunteer the name of one person he hates, in exchange for good fortune.
Blake succumbs to the temptation and is rewarded by good fortune. But the granting of his wishes only leaves him wanting more. And soon there will be a reckoning, particularly when Blake notices a horrible side effect to the granting of his wishes.
This story had an interesting premise, but it could have been a little tighter. Also, the ending felt a little tame. A reworking of the conclusion could have hit harder.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
