Synopsis
Diabolic chompers. A getaway gateway. A ghostly inheritance. A cemetery daze. A terrifying lovebug. A case of bizarre Big Bend bloodshed. Look both ways before you crack the cover. Road Kill is back with stories from Stephen Graham Jones, Jonathan Louis Duckworth, Patrick C. Harrison III, Lauran J. Campbell, Mario, E. Martinez, Bev Vincent, and many more.
Review
Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Volume 6, edited by Madison Estes, is very much a mixed bag. For my taste, there is too much gross-out horror for its own sake, and too many of the short story writers did not bother putting in the work to make me care what happened to the characters. I’m sorry to say there were so many mediocre stories that reading this collection started to become a chore, and the copy editing was also a little uneven.
Nevertheless, I’m glad I persisted to the end, where a couple of true treasures are hidden. The standout of the anthology is “The House of Sad Sounds,” by Bev Vincent. A psychological horror story with a twist, this little gem reminded me of Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw.” Vincent’s story would not be out of place in a high-literary story collection, and not because of any fancy stylistic tricks or highfalutin language. The author blurb tells us that he also wrote The Road to the Dark Tower and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, as well as over 100 short stories that have appeared in Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s and Black Cat Mystery Magazines, and Cemetery Dance magazine.
The standout of the anthology is “The House of Sad Sounds,” by Bev Vincent. A psychological horror story with a twist, this little gem reminded me of Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw.”
Martin Berman-Gorvine
Another excellent little tale in Road Kill is Patrice Sarath’s “Caro Comes Home,” a classic, tautly written monster story. Her novels include “The Books of the Gordath” series, the “Tales of Port Saint Frey” series, and The Unexpected Miss Bennet, and her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Apex Digest, and Year’s Best Fantasy.
I also enjoyed “Cemetery Days” by Patrick C. Harrison III, which has a strong sense of place (Southern Gothic style) and character. He is the author of A Savage Breed, Inferno Bound and the Hell Hounds, 5 Tales That Will Land You in Hell, 5 Tales of Tantalizing Terror, and more.
