Extreme Violence

Sew Sorry by Aron Beauregard and Daniel Volpe

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Aron Beauregard and Daniel Volpe work exceptionally well together, seamlessly crafting a fantastic and surprising two-person anthology. Sew Sorry tells two vastly different tales that begin at the same fateful point in time. While the skin might be different between the two stories, there are underlying similarities in the meat that stand out.
We begin with Aron’s contribution, Charity’s Cackle. “Hurt people, hurt people” was the adage that ran through my mind the whole time I read this component of the book. Henry was a good kid, a bright kid, and it wasn’t his fault that his mother was a terrible, compulsive, and judgmental bitch. None of that stops asshole kids from being the assholes we expect them to be, as Henry experiences extreme bullying in response to his mother’s revealed behavior associated with her ignominious death.
The theme of damage radiating further damage is pronounced in this story, and it’s heartbreaking to have that additional layer to the narrative. I can’t say more, without giving too much away, but there’s a certain sense that fate was at work by the time the reader finishes the first half of this book.
Daniel takes up the baton with The Strays, diverting from the initial hostile confrontation we’ve already witnessed, but from a profoundly different perspective. The homeless man we first felt sorry for in Charity’s Cackle turns out to be a bit less sympathetic than he at first appeared.
Garrison is a broken man who has allowed regret from his past to poison him, turning him into a truly awful human being, assuming he wasn’t that way, to begin with. With Mary and Desiree in tow, Garrison’s only concern is for himself and what he can gain from those around him.
The way these two stories diverge and come together at multiple points is masterfully achieved by Beauregard and Volpe. Reminiscent of movies like Crash (not the Cronenberg film) or Magnolia, an interconnectedness between people is on display. Regardless of our seeming differences and backgrounds, the world has a way of forming collisions and coalescence that we’d never anticipate.
As graphic and vile as aspects of these two stories are–and there’s a whole hell of a lot of them–there’s so much storytelling skill at work that one can’t help but admire the literary talent both authors bring to the project.

Sew Sorry is part of the 31 Days of Godless event taking place for October of 2021 at http://www.godless.com. You can pick this up for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app. The link is below:

Sew Sorry by Aron Beauregard & Daniel J. Volpe

Snuff by Ash Ericmore

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The second installment of Ash Ericmore’s Smalls Family series is somehow more engaging and intense than the first. Previously introduced to Edward Smalls as he experiences some peculiar circumstances in his attempt to produce a snuff film for a client, we’re now introduced to Daniel Smalls. Daniel’s nickname, Snuff, has nothing to do with the sort of films his brother was making, but is rather because he is really good at killing people.
By the time you’ve finished reading Snuff, you’ll be convinced that he’s earned the nickname. The Smalls family is a dangerous group, for sure, and Daniel is almost frighteningly competent and nonchalant about taking lives.
The story begins with Daniel having drinks with Megan, a woman he suspects might be into him. There’s no reason to suspect things will go sideways, but they certainly do. All Daniel knows is that it has something to do with his brother, Michael, and Eastern Europeans.
The killings are fantastic in this story. It’s a short thing, but Ericmore packs so much graphic violence and death into these pages that it’ll feel like it has to be a much larger work.
Megan’s fate leaves a reader feeling gutted and there’s a particular death of one of our Eastern European antagonists that will really fuck with your head.
You have to check this shit out!

You can obtain this story for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app. The link is below:

Snuff (The Smalls Family II) by Ash Ericmore

The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon, Narrated by Bob Dunsworth

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It’s been a long time since I first read The Woods Are Dark. I was a teenager at the time. This version of the story is vastly different from the one I remember, but that’s probably because this is a different version of the narrative from the version I’d been exposed to back then.
Forty years after it was published, it doesn’t hold up as well as some of Laymon’s other material, but it was still fun to listen to the audiobook edition and reacquaint myself with the story.
Two groups of people stumble across the hideous secrets hidden away in the forests near the seemingly quaint town of Barlow, and their lives will never be the same again if they manage to escape.
Neala and Sherri stop at the diner after a harrowing experience on the road, only to find the patrons are planning to serve up something off the menu.
Lander, Ruth, their daughter, Cordelia, and her boyfriend, Ben, stop for the night at what they anticipate will be a peaceful set of cabins, but they soon discover they’ll never have a peaceful night of sleep again.
Facing off against the murderous, inbred, cannibal Krulls, the two groups of victims and an unlikely ally find themselves in a life or death struggle in the woods. But the Krulls aren’t the only things lurking in the darkness, as there’s something even the monsters fear out there.
None of this is pleasant or fun.
This is not that kind of story, and Laymon was not that kind of author. This short tale contains graphic depictions of violence of all kinds, cannibalism, dismemberment, murder, rape, and pretty much every awful thing a reader might expect to find.
Lander’s story is particularly awful and disturbing, showcasing an educated, well-read man descending into madness and depravity in no time at all. The trauma of the experience, the loss of loved ones, and the constant state of terror hardly seem sufficient to explain how one transforms from man to beast in such record time. This descent isn’t something unfamiliar to those who’ve read more of the author’s material. Laymon–as in much of his work–wanted to hint, not too subtly, that our pretense of civilization is more tenuous than we often fool ourselves into believing it to be. So, while it may be unrealistic and a bit absurd, it’s important to note that this is fiction, and Lander’s transformation is meant to be an extreme example, a caricature in a sense, of how primitive and bestial we are just beneath the surface.
There’s a brief, passing reference in the narrative to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (the basis for Apocalypse Now), and there are some intentional similarities to be found in The Woods Are Dark. Laymon knew exactly what he was doing when he crafted this story.
The narration of the audiobook, performed by Bob Dunsworth, was not the best I’ve heard. Dunsworth has the voice of a radio DJ, with clear, articulate, annunciation, but there’s little more that I can say about him. He managed to make the characters distinct enough that nothing got confused or jumbled along the way, but his delivery was lacking in several ways.

Killstreme by Rayne Havok

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We first meet Fiona, a single mother doing what she can to provide for her daughter. As the story unfolds, we learn just how far she’ll go to do precisely that, and to make the world just a little bit safer for her child.
Wesley is a depraved piece of work. Killstreme introduces us to a man who can’t get off without viewing snuff pornography–or what he believes to be snuff, since there’s some positively hyperreal productions out there. His wife has been neglected as he’s lost all interest in her, instead focusing all of his attention on the dark web where he spends far too much time and money.
When he receives a questionnaire from a contact online, he’s thrilled to discover he might be able to take his obsession to the next level. Wesley has an opportunity to star in his own snuff film.
Will he have his dreams fulfilled or will Wesley discover that some offers are far too good to be true?
Rayne Havok handily subverts the misogyny that goes hand-in-hand with the sort of people who want to see women hurt and murdered. In the end, even as a man, I can’t pretend there was a single aspect of this story that wasn’t deeply satisfying.
The graphic sexual violence is something one should expect when reading anything by Rayne Havok, but this is particularly extreme and so well described as to almost feel real. I’m sure this story won’t be for everyone, but it most certainly is for me.

You can obtain this terrific little tale by going to http://www.godless.com or by using the Godless app on your favorite mobile device. Unfortunately, Amazon has determined this title should be banned twice now. The link is below:

Killstreme by Rayne Havok

The Slob by Aron Beauregard

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Vera Harlow is a sweet lady, compassionate and kind. While she has certain quirks and residual coping mechanisms associated with a childhood stifled by unhealthy surroundings brought about by mental illness, she has managed to not only thrive, but to transform her trauma responses into strengths. The time we spend getting to know Vera, delving into her tragic backstory and the wholesome life she and her husband have built for themselves, ultimately makes everything else in this book all the more awful.
Going door-to-door, selling a new carpet cleaner with effectiveness only someone who prizes cleanliness could manage, Vera has built up a tidy sum. With a new child on the way, she has a limited interval before she has to stop venturing out like she has been. It’s her final day of sales when she decides to venture down the dead-end road to the ramshackle house where the titular Slob resides. Why do we call him The Slob? It’s an excellent question, one Beauregard spends almost three full pages answering, as he describes the man in vivid and repulsive detail.
As with Vera, as the keys turn in the locks that secure the front door of The Slob’s home, we’re trapped and plagued with an increasingly uneasy feeling that will prove to be all too prescient. The filth and madness of Vera’s early life prepared her for a great deal, but nothing could prepare anyone for being trapped with The Slob.
Beauregard’s vividly detailed and gripping narrative is a masterpiece of transformative pain and horror that will make you want to scrub your walls and floors until everything is spotless, but after reading The Slob, you will probably never feel clean again.

Seersucker Motherfucker by Jay Wilburn

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With Sally French firing a .45 slug through the window of the Harper house, aiming for Kelly Harper, but killing Coop Bainbridge instead, Jay Wilburn’s Seersucker Motherfucker kicks off a bloody feud that makes the Hatfields and McCoys seem quaint by comparison.
The unrelenting, stylized violence that unfolds in the pages of this story is the sort of thing that would surely give Tarantino an erection. In fact, it might be a good idea to get this story in his hands, because this is just the sort of thing he could direct without leaving his wheelhouse. All that’s missing is the banter, 60s & 70s nostalgia, and pseudo-witty dialogue, and we’d have a fantastic Tarantino film in the making.
Shifting perspectives as we follow one burst of bloodshed to another are handled so expertly by Wilburn that the reader never loses track of what’s happening as the tempo steadily increases. One might expect a sort of “fog of war” to gloss over the fine details, obscuring the brutality unfolding, but the clarity of purpose setting these families against one another is extended to the reader, and we’re blessed–or cursed–with an unflinching vision of the staccato rampage.
The old adage, often attributed to Confucius, might have understated things when suggesting one should dig two graves, at least when Wilburn is at the helm.

You can pick up a copy of this story from http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app on your favorite mobile device. The link is below:

Seersucker Motherfucker by Jay Wilburn