Nightmare“MAMMOTH” by Manish Melwani
“The Dark Devices” by Bruce McAllister
“Billy Blue” by Ally Wilkes
Reviewed by László Szegedi
“MAMMOTH” by Manish Melwani
A strange sect is influencing people and spreading their dreadful curse through the Internet. The premise of this short story feels like an episode from the X-Files. Unfortunately, only this premise is detailed, no characters are investigating the case, no witnesses the readers can join and connect to. Neither is anything explained nor told further; thus the idea of this story remains weightless.
“The Dark Devices” by Bruce McAllister
Pieter, a monk, discovers terrible things happening in his abbey. The place is “the province of Tasselt” which might be in an imaginary place, because the only almost similarly named province I found is in Morocco, but is spelled a bit differently.
What Pieter finds out about the abbot is terrifying, but not very interesting. We don’t get to know the characters, their motivations, or the world surrounding the monastery. The story is just like coming from a B movie, and as we find out what goes on behind closed doors, the readers can just move on, as nothing gripped my attention.
“Billy Blue” by Ally Wilkes
The author uses what Hitchcock did in his movies: the elements of everyday life turning into terrifying nightmares. Alice, a normal young woman expecting her first child, moves into the new apartment her husband bought. She learns what many young parents experience despite not being detailed in the shiny, happy-looking parenting books: childbearing can be a lonely and frightening experience. She is strolling in the sterile new building alone, suspects her husband of having an affair, and finds disturbing things in the attic. The whole atmosphere is creepy even though it mostly consists of no special effects: the bare surroundings of the freshly built condo, the strange elevator, the silence of the vacant building, and the despair of a soon-to-be mom. Sure, there is some supernatural element that makes the story more frightening, but it only adds to the tension. The way the author resolves the conflict is something many of us wish to do in our life, but we dare not, or don’t have the power to do so.
László is an SF enthusiast living in middle Europe, also writing songs in the attic.