Black Static #56, January/February 2017
“The Green Eye” by Scott Nicolay
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
This 56th issue of Black Static contains seven original stories, including three novelettes.
“The Green Eye” by Scott Nicolay
A twelve-year-old and his younger friend, Milo, go exploring along the railroad in this short horror story. They are curious to find the source of a siren, but are also afraid of running into the ‘spooklight’. When a train runs past, they lose their footing, tumbling down towards a ditch. Milo hits a metal ball, a cannonball from the Revolutionary War. As Milo holds it, his older friend sees the green-eyed spooklight appear and consume Milo.
Back at his home, the twelve-year-old discovers that Milo has been bed ridden for the last several weeks with a cancerous brain tumor. When Milo dies, he leaves his friend the old cannonball he found.
A strange tale that did not go far. It created several mysteries and left them all hanging with an ending twist that seemed out of place. The prose was not difficult to read. But it didn’t pique the imagination.
“Smoke, Ash, and Whatever Comes After” by Eric Schaller
Peter is helping his young daughter, Tracy, destroy her old bureau in this horror mystery. They discover a tattered doll Tracy made from old clothes in the bureau. After breaking up the bureau and consigning it to the fireplace, Tracy hands her father the old doll for him to burn too.
At first he refuses, thinking it is something she’ll regret later, or maybe he just wants to keep it. Ignoring his pleas, she throws it onto the fire. After he watches it burn he finds that Tracy has disappeared. He searches the house and then the neighborhood. She is gone. When she returns home from a shopping trip with her mother, Peter wonders what exactly did just happen.
The story flowed well and was easy to read. However, it did little to expand the horror or mystery genres. In the end, the mysterious disappearance of a child felt a little too simple.
“Border Country” by Danny Rhodes
In a blend of horror and mystery, Rhodes invites us to follow Rob’s attempt to spend a few days camping and bonding with his son, Max. They are at a no-frills campsite where the showers hardly function, the fishing ponds are overgrown, and the owner seems unable to manage after the tragic death of her son.
Father and son visit a local historic site called the witch’s cave. That night, Max goes missing when he walks to the shower block alone. Rob goes in search of Max. But when he finds a sack lying in a field he is horrified at what he finds inside of it.
The story was a run-of-the-mill horror/mystery. Once more, a child has gone missing in mysterious circumstances. Once more, the distraught parent goes in search and finds something that deepens the mystery by innuendo. This short story had a couple of sub-plots woven into it, but they weren’t enough to make it an engaging read.
“What We Are Moulded After” by Eugenia M. Triantafyllou
Eleni’s harsh husband, Andreas, is dead and she has used her witch powers to recreate him from clay in this short fantasy. The clay Andreas loves Eleni as his creator but he must stay in the house. If the villagers find him, it could mean Eleni’s discovery as a witch, followed soon after by her death. However, Eleni’s cousin sees him. The cousin thinks her secret lover is still alive.
Eleni is furious that her dead husband’s mistress has seen the clay copy. Now she must destroy her creation. But as she does, she holds back from the final killing cut and leaves the clay Andreas with no legs or arms, but still with its mind. She hides the clay lump in the shed.
Days later, the real Andreas returns, alive and just as cruel as before. Can the remains of the clay version somehow protect Eleni?
This was an interesting and nicely written fantasy.
“The Solitary Truth” by Charles Wilkinson
An elderly couple live alone in a town that seems to be deserted in this short fantasy. Neither of them has a grip on reality as they deny what has happened in the past. One of these past events is the death of their cat, buried a year ago, one of them claiming it lives since the cat food is consumed each day, the other sees the half skeleton cat coming by to eat but claims it died and was buried.
Trapped in their homes, the mystery is why they can’t leave. Maybe they are ghosts themselves.
This was a strange story with well-structured prose. However, the only draw for the reader was wondering why the old couple were so stuck.
“The Maneaters” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
In a blend of horror and mystery, Stufflebeam introduces the reader to Scarlet, whose family are flesh eaters. Her grandmother tells her about how she consumed her husband, Scarlet’s grandpa, soon after Scarlet’s father was born. As a child Scarlet bit off and swallowed part of a boy’s ear, an event that drove her mother to run away from her ‘monster’ family.
Now Scarlet is grown up and in love with Alex. Despite her Grandma’s dire warnings, she wants to live a full life with him. Is there something in her family’s history that offers her a way to get what she wants most in her heart?
The story was a little slow, but had enough intrigue to keep the interest going. It was an okay read.
“Stanislav in Foxtown” by Ian Steadman
Stan works for mean Mr. Sharples, in this short horror/mystery. In a dying town, Mr. Sharples runs the fried chicken shop, treating Stan contemptuously. Just as long as he has money to send back to his family, Stan continues to tolerate the abusive treatment.
When he spies a fox near his home, lonely Stan decides to befriend it, giving it leftover chicken bones. Soon, there are tens of foxes coming to his old house. The leader of the foxes seems to offer a pact with Stan. Could they help him with Mr. Sharples?
This was a nicely written story. The mystery pulled the reader through to the end.