Horror indie outfit Darkhouse Publishing gets off to an auspicious start with MIDNIGHT WALK, an anthology containing 14 “original tales of terror and suspense.” As editor Lisa Morton makes clear, its theme is not readily apparent, but all the authors hail from Western or Midwestern America. Their stories, however, are not about that region of the United States. Rather, they’re pretty global, encompassing countries and cultures from all over the globe. After all, knowing no boundaries, horror lurks everywhere.
The book makes a great first impression by leading with Armand Constantine’s “Monsoon Devil,” in which an American couple ventures to the other side of the world to perform some missionary work combatting HIV. The wife is brutally raped and killed, and the husband seeks revenge. But he also approaches a holy man with an unusual request: He wants to have all memories of his spouse wiped clean.
Rape also figures into “The Grieving Process,” by Hollywood SFX maven Mike McCarty. His protagonist has pretty much given up on life, after the incident that took his wife from him. His utter loneliness prompts him to strike up a conversation with a homeless man, leading to a surprising encounter.
“The Guixi Sisters” of Jodi Kaplan Lester’s story are three Chinese orphan girls, purposely prevented from being adopted for a year for a sinister purpose that will come in play later in their childhood. The Far East also flavors Morton’s own contribution, “Diana and the Goong-Si,” which contains a warehouse full of vampires — the hopping kind. From Asia to Africa, George Willis details “The Measure of a Man” when a young Zulu warrior has to protect his village from a ghost ship full of the undead.
ARMY OF DARKNESS actor Richard Grove presents a Halloween tale in “Silver Needle,” in which a picked-up child is forced by the neighborhood bullies to enter an abandoned house rumored to be haunted. Lisa Majewski’s “Inside Out” serves comeuppance to a vain male model (redundant) who’s just used and discarded one woman too many.
Dark Delicacies owner Del Howison makes quite an impression with “Alley Oops,” a story of a kindly old woman and the thug who dares rob her, primarily for its gut-punch ending. There’s a streak of dark comedy in R.B. Payne’s “Eddie G. at the Gates of Hell,” in which a man on a road trip with his wife and kids hears voices — like from the giant fly atop his car — telling him to kill his family. A Native American legend cleverly comes into play in “The Bear Who Swallowed the Sky” by Jason Light — full disclosure: a BOOKGASM contributor — when a printing plant worker feels wronged by management.
Other authors taking the MIDNIGHT WALK include Vince Churchill, Joey O’Bryan, Kelly Dunn and John Palisano, and you should join them. The stories may not deliver the “terror” as promised, but they are genuinely unnerving and bothersome, which is not easy to do. The collection is imperfect but impressive, immediately making Darkhouse — love the logo! — a harbinger of quality dark fiction. —Rod Lott
