Runalong The Short Shelves - The Dark Issue 123

Publisher - Prime Books

Price - $2.99 via https://payhip.com/b/iW07r

Bringing a little chill to the summer is the latest issue of The Dark with another five selection of horror tales.

They Must Be Angels by Elle Zi Dong - uses a sympathetic narrator to create a really effective dissonance. We hear they’re having strange visitors to their apartment and we get to hear about the very unglamorous life of a would be model. Is this a story talking about the dark side of beauty. Yes and no! Zi Dong makes us revisit what we’ve been told to turn the story into something much more disturbing.

The Ocean Vomits What We Discard by J.A.W. McCarthy - starts with a compelling image of young women walking into the ocean. Women who no one ever mourns. McCarthy hear then adds our narrator who is standing and bleeding on the beach and no one notices her. This is a story of family sacrifice as she keeps the beach area clean but what happens when that is felt too high a price? Watching the consequences when someone says I won’t do that comes vividly alive in gorgeous but disturbing imagery of beaches and pollution consuming everything. A very strong tale.

Husk by James Bennett - a powerful tale of a man’s dark and repressed side coming to life for revenge. Our main character is gay and growing up in a cruel world of school and family. Here self hate becomes an entity in its own life with a violent mind of its own but the key here is the ability to say to yourself it’s ok and move on and live. Horror with a twist of Hope.

The Taint by Anne Wilkins is a story of a family where one daughter is seeing ghosts and her sister tells us how it happened. A simple childhood fare involving a haunted well brings disaster and we watch someone change by seeing too much. The household is already troubled and things get even worse but Wilkins smartly weaves into the story a compelling way to get some justice. Really well told from a child’s point of view.