Nightmare #155, August 2025“Swallow Test” by Angela Liu
“Bunny Ears” by Kristina Ten
“Eight Ball” by Martin Cahill
Reviewed by Axylus
“Swallow Test” by Angela Liu gives an unsettling account of a visit with a speech therapist. It is very brief, and written in second person POV. The story provides us with an interesting set of mysteries: why is the protagonist seeing this particular therapist, when his disorder is clearly far more severe? What events led to an apparent crisis in his life? Do others perceive the severity of his case? Repeated references to alcoholism plus boorish and uncaring mistreatment of female family members supply the sins to underly the horror. There is brief mention of a rising threat to (and perhaps from) the protagonist; however, the stakes are not clearly defined. Who or what will be harmed, and in what way, if his dire syndrome reaches a critical point? Without this emotional anchor, the story loses focus and tension.
The witty descriptions and painful insights strung together in “Bunny Ears,” by Kristina Ten, make this tale of a girl going to a week-long summer camp very effective in presenting voice and characterization. The story progresses to a sufficiently gruesome turn. At novelette length, however, there is space for characters to take action in many ways to sharpen or deepen the emotional impact of events. They do not. Plot structure and pacing do not ride along a series of increasingly intense cause-and-effect events, each one separately its own example of creation and release of tension, toward an emotional payoff. The protagonist has no active goals, never faces concrete obstacles, never struggles in her choice between good and evil. The theme of choosing her own family is only minimally mirrored by external events. What emerges is stylistically deft writing with a potent dose of awkward teen angst, followed by a turn to horror. Many readers will find “Bunny Ears” deeply appealing because of its skillful depiction of the protagonist’s feelings of abandonment, inadequacy and alienation. Others will find it vaguely unsatisfying or incomplete due to the dearth of active events or decisions that warrant, foreshadow or intensify the conclusion.
“Eight Ball” by Martin Cahill is a very short story which leverages the human failing of emotional distance between lovers to present a grisly means of communication. Despite length restrictions, this imaginative tale could have benefited tremendously from rising suspense preceding some traumatic emotional peak that drove the protagonist to actively join his or her lover’s bizarre world. For maximum impact, a strong motion in a new direction works best when preceded by an equally strong motivating force. As it is, the protagonist’s decision loses salience.