Dark Screams: Volume Two
Edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar
Hydra
March 3, 2015
Reviewed by Tim Potter
The second volume in the Dark Screams anthology series from editors Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar is another success. It features stories ranging from about 20 to 45 pages from horror icons and new talents. Three of the stories are original to this release and are all three well worth your time. The two stories that are reprinted, from Robert McCammon and Richard Christian Matheson, are the real highlights.
“The Deep End” from McCammon is the first story in the collection. It first appeared in 1987 in the fourth installment in the excellent Night Visions series. A fantastic story deep with tension and emotion, it follows a grieving father as he tries to make sense of, and get retribution for, the death of his son. This story has a place in my heart as the first work of Robert McCammon’s I had ever read, probably when I was in junior high, and it holds up to the scrutiny of a reread all these years later. It’s really a terrific classic horror story.
Norman Prentiss’s “Interlude” is the second story up and the collections first original. A newer author on the scene, Prentiss has been doing top-notch work in the horror genre in recent years. I haven’t read as much of his work as I’d like and consider this story a treat. This story is one that thrives on emotion and the unknown, which can be scary and dangerous things.
While most of her work is in the realm of paranormal romance, Shawntelle Madison brings the reader a story rooted in reality and a classic tale of terror, which appears here for the first time. In “If These Walls Could Talk” she tells the story of a documentary television crew rehabilitating an old house to feature on their program. Revelations into the house’s history are made when a decades-old corpse is found in its crumbling walls. A modern and thoroughly upsetting riff on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” ensues.
Horror literature icon Graham Masterson contributes an all-new tale to the collection with “The Night Hider.” The creepy title is just the beginning of the edge-of-the-seat suspense as a story unfolds with shades of home invasion horror, possible hauntings and much more literally than in the previous story, ties to a monumental work of fantasy fiction.
Richard Christian Matheson’s ode to rock ‘n’ roll, “Whatever” rounds out the collection. First appearing in 1997, seeing this story back in print is a very welcome sight. The titular rock band’s story is told through a fictionalized Rolling Stone-like article, and manages to take on the feel of rock ‘n’ roll itself. It charges ahead with the unyielding pace of a chart-topping rock tune and the ugliness that seems to underly the beauty of rock ‘n’ roll itself.
- Midian Unmade – Book Review - September 30, 2015
- Wolf Land – Book Review - September 16, 2015
- Convalescence – Book Review - September 7, 2015
- Rage Master – Book Review - September 3, 2015
- The Art of Horrible People – Book Review - August 28, 2015
- Greasepaint – Book Review - August 26, 2015
- Bonesy – Book Review - August 17, 2015
- Dark Screams: Volume Four – Book Review - August 13, 2015
- Trust No One – Book Review - August 10, 2015
- The Monstruous – Book Review - August 3, 2015
