Nightmare“Glimpses in Amber” by Adam-Troy Castro
“Inkmorphia” by Julianna Baggott
“Murder Tongue” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
There are three first published stories in the 110th issue of Nightmare, including one flash story. Overall, it was an entertaining collection.
“Glimpses in Amber” by Adam-Troy Castro
The strange visitor offers to leave a human eye in this short horror story. In return, the husband will receive a lucrative stipend. The only rules are not to hide the eye or press the button at the back of the clear case the eye comes in. The visitor assures the husband that the eye came from a living person and that the eye itself still lives.
The husband thinks the offer is crazy, but he needs the money. And when he discovers what the button at the back does, he remains convinced that he can resist pressing it. But the visitor is equally confident the husband will succumb to the temptation. After all, that is what the deal is all about.
The author has created a strange but entertaining story. And though the beginning was a little long, it wasn’t dull.
“Inkmorphia” by Julianna Baggott
She is eighteen when she gets a tattoo of a heart in this short fantasy/horror tale. She has her missing brother’s name scrawled across the heart. But the next day, the tattoo changes, and her sage tattoo artist says her grief at the loss of her brother eleven years ago is undone.
She begins a quest with her girlfriend for the truth, quickly realizing that she has suppressed the facts around Luke’s disappearance. The search takes her through many painful discoveries. Can she fix her undone grief after all these years?
Baggott’s story transcends the speculative genre and reaches for a universal category. A hard to put down character-centric tale that this reader feels blessed to have read.
“Murder Tongue” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
In this piece of horror flash fiction, he dare not speak because his words will bring murder. So fearful is he that he won’t even speak within his mind. And so, he has no notion of what language he would speak. Instead, he hides by day as a mute.
The author wrote this snippet as a what-if proposition without much of an actual plot.
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