Nightmare #144, September 2024

“What Happened to the Crooners” by Russell Nichols

“House of the Hidden Moon” by Sam W. Pisciotta

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

Two quietly chilling tales appear in this issue.

In “What Happened to the Crooners” by Russell Nichols, a singing quartet on their way to a comeback concert are lost in the middle of nowhere. After a disturbing encounter with the inhabitants of a mysterious diner, they face an eerie challenge that will determine their fates.

This story combines the feeling of a dark folktale with nostalgia for doo-wop and rhythm and blues musicians of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The four singers are fully developed characters, the people in the diner less so. The text ends with a footnote, resulting in an open-ended conclusion. Although the final scene, just before the footnote, is very vividly written, readers may be left wondering exactly what happened.

The narrator of “House of the Hidden Moon” by Sam W. Pisciotta speaks to several different ghosts of his dead mother during a lunar eclipse. They discuss the disappearance of his sister, who seems to have been abducted by fairies, and of his father, who tried to find the girl and never returned.

The premise of a haunting by multiple versions of the same person, each one at a different age, is the most interesting part of the story, and serves as a powerful metaphor for memories of the deceased. The addition of fairies to the plot, in the form of glowing lights, seems out of place in an otherwise realistic tale. The work has emotional appeal, which might have been strengthened if the girl and her father had vanished for reasons other than the supernatural.

Victoria Silverwolf just finished reading a novel by William Gibson.