horror

The Ruins by Scott Smith, Narrated by Patrick Wilson

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Scott Smith pulls no punches with The Ruins, delivering an increasingly disorienting barrage of horrors until the reader arrives at what can be the only conclusion this story could have. There will be no ersatz happy ending shoehorned into the tale Smith shares with the progressively uncomfortable reader. I must rip that bandage off right away. The Ruins is a horror story that mingles body horror with the terror of isolation and the unknowable.
While on vacation in Mexico, two couples befriend a German tourist who was on a holiday of his own with his brother. When Mathias’s brother doesn’t return from an archaeological dig he’d ventured off on, the two couples and another tourist–one of a trio of Greeks who speak no English–join Mathias in his search. The journey takes them deep into the jungle of the Yucatan, far from the beaches and resorts crowded with revelers.
Following a crudely drawn map, the group manages to find themselves approaching a vine-covered hill where Mayan locals accost them for unknown reasons, though seemingly attempting to keep the tourists from venturing any closer to the mound across the clearing. When one of the tourists backs into the vines while trying to capture a photo of the language barrier-hampered exchange taking place, the Mayans’ attempt to keep the six of them from approaching the hill transforms into a merciless bid to keep the tourists from venturing back across the clearing.
As misfortune and decreasing odds of survival strain the group’s optimism and belief they’ll walk away from this misadventure unscathed, it gradually becomes clear that they’re facing something insidious and terrifying that defies comprehension. Discovering the truth behind the Mayans’ desperate need to keep the six of them confined where they are, threatens to push the group of friends and acquaintances beyond the limits of what they can endure.
Scott Smith does an excellent job of balancing the threats, making the experience feel as claustrophobic and intense as he can without placing the reader in similar circumstances. Between the Mayans patrolling the perimeter of the hill, the diminishing supplies, the environment itself, and the terrifying life inhabiting the mound, it’s always up in the air which hazard will prove to be the deadliest.
Patrick Wilson’s narration is both professional and competent, effectively differentiating the characters and articulating the narrative. He also successfully tackles Mathias’s accent and aloof character without dropping the ball.

Zola by D. E. McCluskey

/ MeltdownMessiah / 2 Comments

Anthony Zola was a terrible person. One need only look at the cruel joke of a name he saddled his only son with, Gordon. Gordon Zola, a childish gag and a pointed jab at his wife’s obsessive cheese consumption. Unfortunately for Andrea and Gordon Zola, that horrible appellation is the least of Anthony’s transgressions against his wife and child.
Years of abuse and manipulation from her husband had compressed Andrea’s life to the extent that her world revolved entirely around her monster of a husband and her socially isolated son. Just as she finally began transforming herself into a woman she could recognize when she looked in the mirror, a horrific discovery sent her life spiraling out of control. Anthony’s bonding time with their son has a far more sinister purpose than Andrea could have imagined, and the only solution is a drastic one.
Unhealthy codependence and unspeakable appetites become the crux of mother and son’s relationship, inexorably drawing Andrea and Gordon into further segregation from the world around them. As barbaric solutions become the only way the two of them can survive, Andrea and Gordon devolve into a bestial existence of filth and isolation that escalates until the heartbreakingly inevitable conclusion.
McCluskey provides readers with a poignant tale of family and intense psychological trauma through a medium rife with absurdity and graphic depictions of revolting inhumanity. Zola is a coming-of-age story for the perpetual adolescent; a depiction of acute arrested development in the form of Gordon Zola, a boy who grew into a man without ever having a chance to develop any life for himself under the aberrant safekeeping of his traumatized mother.
As easy as it might be to write this story off as being a steadily intensifying gross-out narrative–and there’s a lot to gross the reader out–there’s a whole lot of sadness and distressing truth to be found in these pages as well. McCluskey tells us the tale of a man who never had a chance to be anything but the monstrosity he became, all because of a father’s cruelty and a mother’s misguided love.

You can find this title at http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Zola by D.E. McCluskey

Bibliophobia by Allisha McAdoo

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

The concept of bibliophobia is anathema to me, both as a writer and an avid reader. Being scared of books would be a nightmare for me, and it’s a nightmare Evan has suffered through his whole life. Unable to bring himself to touch a book, he made his way through most of his life by pretending he had an allergy to binding glue. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it worked.
Unwilling to leave the town where he grew up, Evan experiences the perverse cruelty of fate in finding himself working the only career available to him, the town librarian. It’s in that role that Evan discovers something miraculous, a book he can not only touch but that he craves. Under the circumstances, it’s only reasonable that he might be developing a bit of an obsession with not only this book but its author.
It should be no surprise for readers of Allisha McAdoo’s stories that things only get stranger from these already strange beginnings. The author has a knack for packing a whole lot of weirdness into a small number of pages, and Bibliophobia: The Fear of Books is no exception.

You can pick this up for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Bibliophobia: The Fear of Books by Allisha McAdoo

Vanitas by The Professor

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

The Professor delivers more than we could have hoped for with his epic poem, Vanitas. With this Robert Browning-inspired poem, he manages to create a vanitas of sorts. Both in the narrative conveyed within the poem and from the reading of the poem itself, the reader is subjected to a consideration of the contrast between life and death.
Subtle nuances in the still life painting of his wife send a Duke down meandering and shadow-cloaked pathways within his bitter and jealous imagination. As the Duke becomes increasingly certain the Duchess has been seduced by the painter, he determines that there might be a bit of artistic sensibility in himself as well.
Was the Duchess scampering through the maze, seduced by whispering promises of what the artist would give her if only he could? Did seeds of this infidelity take root in the soil of her heart where they germinated, decaying the love for her Duke?
Perceiving this rot inside her, the Duke had only one course of action. Of course, it’s always possible the Duke is simply a madman driven to extremes by a jealous nature and bitter envy of the painter’s skill. The truth is something we might never know.
Could this latest release from The Professor serve as a prequel of sorts to the Browning poem, My Last Duchess? Are we reading the sordid details of what transpired before Browning’s poem begins? The Professor may be revealing to us the telltale unfaithfulness captured in the Duchess’s slight blush, sending the Duke reeling toward horrific conclusions with fatal consequences. I, for one, choose to accept this as a canonical antecedent.

Vanitas can be obtained by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your preferred mobile device. The link is below:

Vanitas by The Professor

Abigail by Daemon Manx

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Adrian had a spectacular night on a date with Mike, who might be the man of his dreams. His life might be changing, and he’s feeling a sense of optimism when he arrives home to find an unexpected package at his front door. Fearing a basket filled with venomous snakes, Adrian instead discovers that his life is indeed going to change, but in wholly unexpected ways.
The gray-skinned, tiny-horned baby with violet and silver eyes is nothing Adrian could have anticipated. Nevertheless, he finds himself immediately in love with the peculiar child and desperate to protect her. As a gay man, he knows precisely how cruel the world can be to those who aren’t like everyone else.
Shut away from the outside world, devoted to caring for his unexpected daughter, it still doesn’t take Adrian long to learn that Abigail has a strange effect on people. Deciding it’s time to stop dodging Mike’s calls, Adrian hopes the doctor and potential lover might be able to answer the numerous questions he has regarding this bundle of joy.
Daemon Manx manages to surprise readers with a twist that’s so subtle in its build-up that no one is going to see it coming. It’s a challenge to craft such a surprise in so few pages, but Manx pulls it off admirably well. The reader will find themselves wondering how they could have missed something so huge, only to wonder why it’s such a colossal revelation in the first place. For a story that focuses so heavily on preconceived notions, it’s a spectacular feat that Manx forces the reader to evaluate their own preconceived notions by the time they reach the end.

Abigail is a short fiction nominee for the 2022 Splatterpunk Awards taking place at KillerCon Austin 2022 in August.

Musings of a Sadist by Ryder Kinlay

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Musings of a Sadist (David Longbottom’s Misadventures) collects the first four stories Kinlay’s written about our favorite Australian Patrick Bateman impersonator. Kinlay successfully crafts something that feels less like a collection of separate stories but serves as more of a sequence of vignettes about Longbottom’s life over a specific period. There is an assortment of self-referential moments throughout the included misadventures, reminding readers that each installment is sequentially consistent.
Naturally, this begins with Longbottom’s Thailand honeymoon from the story that introduced us to this depraved maniac, Bloodymoon. I’ve already reviewed this story, so I’ll refer you to the following link if you want to see what I had to say:


https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/08/05/bloodymoon-by-ryder-kinlay/


We move on to an installment that is of personal interest to me, as Ryder Kinlay incorporated a character named after me in the debauchery and cruelty taking place. Again, I’ve reviewed This Is Not An Exit previously, and you can find my thoughts at the following link:


https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/09/13/this-is-not-an-exit-by-ryder-kinlay/


Next up, we have Dia De Los Death, wherein David feels like he might have finally found a woman he can love, and we learn just how perverse his devotion to his mother happens to be. I’ve reviewed this story previously at the following link:

https://meltdownmessiah.com/2021/10/28/dia-de-los-death-by-ryder-kinlay/


And finally, we come to Hot Shots, the newest Longbottom tale and one exclusive to this volume. When David’s best friend, Dakota, calls him in a panic, seeking assistance because he’s in an apartment with a dead man he’d only recently been intimate with, Longbottom resigns himself to helping out. Readers have the distinct pleasure of learning new facts about biology and the biological functions that can transpire post-mortem, so it’s educational. Of course, the excitement doesn’t stop there, and everything turns out splendidly for Dakota and David as they jump into a bonding experience and set the stage for future misadventures.

You can obtain this omnibus collection by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Musings of a Sadist (David Longbottom's MISadventures) by Ryder Kinlay

Shattered Skies by Chris Miller

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

The Foreword provided by Patrick C. Harrison III accurately captures the most impactful component of Chris Miller’s stories collected in Shattered Skies, suspense. There is an underlying sense of suspense to these tales, sometimes bordering on dread and other times sweeping the reader away with excitement, but ever-present just the same. Combining that anticipation and tension with masterful storytelling, Miller has assembled an amazing cross-section of what he’s capable of as a writer.
Instead of delving into each of the stories, as I often do, I’m choosing to focus on the handful that left the most lasting impression on me. This is not to say that anything is lacking in the others, just that I’m going to be spoiling things in small ways, and I’d prefer to avoid doing so with everything in this collection.
Kicking everything off with 10-35 At First United Bank, Miller thrusts readers into an all-too-plausible sort of horror as an elderly bank security guard finds himself caught up in circumstances he can’t control as he desperately tries to save the lives of those he loves. The bank heist trope receives a refreshingly sincere treatment that’s sure to be heartbreaking for readers.
Behind Blue Eyes was a story I’d already thoroughly enjoyed when I read And Hell Followed, an anthology of the end times. Miller’s portrait of a world going progressively more mad with each pressure wave of the horns blasting to signify the end is something that propels us toward a conclusion that feels simultaneously unfair and fitting. This one is a story of guilt and remorse over the way little things can have a profound and lasting impact on our lives, amplified in the recollection.
An attempt to relax with a house full of family transforms into a confrontation with a looming and mysterious terror enveloping the protagonist’s world in Horror On Lonesome Lane. Discovering what awaits on the other side has rarely seemed this awful and sinister.
Road Kill Gods provides us with a glimpse into what might be required of us to hold nature at bay as we carelessly and callously slaughter our way through our lives. Unwilling to accept the price to be paid, will our protagonist release a wave of horror upon the whole world?
As a child, there was no one in my family with whom I spent more of my time than my grandfather. In my case, it was my maternal grandfather rather than my paternal, but that doesn’t change the way Miller devastated me when I was reading Farewell. I was lucky enough to be in my 20s before my maternal grandfather passed away, and I can only imagine how much worse it would’ve been if he’d gone when I was much younger. Farewell is a touching and heartbreaking story, but it’s also a story of how tragedy can sometimes bring families closer and establish new roles for us as we seek to fill the void left in someone’s absence.
A Magnificent View brings us back to the same event from Behind Blue Eyes, or a similar enough event that we can assume they might be the same. Forced to witness the world collapsing into chaos from miles above the surface, a lone astronaut measures his life by oxygen percentage, knowing that he might still be the last survivor of the human race when all is said and done.
Wrapping up this collection with the M. Ennenbach co-authored Neon Sky was an excellent choice. We experience another story that, at its core, is about family and the risks we’ll take to save them. We’re gifted with another tale of a heist gone wrong, this one in a near-future cyberpunk dystopia. Fast-paced and endlessly exciting, Neon Sky is a fascinating juxtaposition from the somber tone of 10-35 At First United Bank. Miller and Ennenbach deliver a thrill ride populated by police drones, horrifying machines that keep the city functioning, an army of mafia killers, hackers, and confusing firearms.

Shattered Skies is a finalist on the ballot for the 2022 Splatterpunk Awards to take place at KillerCon Austin in August of 2022.

Insatiable by Rayne Havok, Narrated by The Professor

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Insatiable is, at least for those who listen to the audio narration, a match made in Hell. Rayne Havok’s tale of uncontrollable lust giving way to hunger that bleeds into gluttony is, on its own, a spectacularly visceral story. When one includes the eloquent and superbly articulate narration provided by The Professor into the mix, it serves to take the story to an entirely different level. His voice lulls the listener into a receptive state with an almost soporific cadence that belies the sinister undertones hinting at what’s to come. Even as we arrive at the tale’s vile and blood-drenched conclusion, we’re still held captive by the strangely soothing, borderline palliative quality of The Professor’s voice.
Havok captures the all-consuming nature of obsession with Insatiable, portraying in literal terms the insatiable need of our narrator as well as the object of that attention. Insatiable feels like the result of what we’d discover if one were to eavesdrop on a sexting exchange between the smuttiest members of the extreme horror community; this story could be the adaptation of that cruel, visceral, and uniquely erotic conversation. With The Professor’s narration in the mix, the listener might be forgiven for suspecting that they’d dialed into the phone sex line of the damned. For those old enough to remember the late-night advertisements promising forbidden pleasures with real live participants only a phone call away–and some ungodly per-minute price. Ungodly is certainly an appropriate term in the context of this story, but the price is far more palatable.

This title is available from http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app. The link is below:

https://godless.com/products/insatiable-by-rayne-havok-and-the-professor

The Pale Ones by Terry Miller

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Is Audrey Tipton plagued by night terrors, those nightmare visions and impressions that remain after she’s opened her eyes? Or are the pale, sinister beings she sees peering in at her and walking the halls of her house at night really there? If it’s not Audrey’s imagination getting the best of her, what could these creatures want with her parents or with her?
Terry Miller crafts a surprisingly atmospheric tale for how brief the narrative is. It’s a chilling plunge into the deepest shadows of the night that transform our otherwise familiar homes into strange places populated by stranger creatures. Just as horrific, Miller explores what it means when familiar faces feel like hiding places for foreign entities. We’re left to question every minor inconsistency or out-of-character behavior as potential revelations of sinister life venturing from darkness into the light.

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

The Pale Ones by Terry Miller

Time by Todd Love

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

It can be difficult living in the shadow of one’s father, especially if that father is particularly successful and celebrated in certain circles…or maybe pentagrams.
Time is a quick and brutal story of a son determined to show his father that he’s not only ready to take over the family operation but that he can be both inventive and innovative in doing so. By the time the story reaches its satisfyingly grotesque conclusion, it feels like we’ve been there for a while, but that’s the nature of forever, I suppose. Time loses all meaning when there’s no end to it.
Choosing a pedophile as a victim is an excellent choice, as it makes it impossible for the reader to sympathize with his plight. It guarantees that we’ll be in it for the long haul, regardless of how vile and cruel the punishment becomes. We’ll be cheering at the sidelines, hoping to see more suffering.
By the time all is said and done, I’d certainly say this son has met or exceeded his father’s lofty expectations. It’s not every day a father and son celebrate by spit roasting a pedophile on their cocks, but in a Todd Love story, one really shouldn’t be surprised.

This title is to be released through http://www.godless.com on January 31st, 2022. You can obtain it for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the app to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Time by Todd Love – JANUARY 31st