Fearsome Five: Five Books to Keep You Out of the Water

Summer is rapidly approaching, and many readers are already considering where they can find a spot of sunlight to bask in while enjoying a good book. However, the sun might be warm and bright, but many folks are still aware that out to the horizon lies a cold, dark sea that is just as willing to embrace them. This is why horror is great beach reading. When reading about the deepest, darkest oceans, it’s always good to have a reminder that there’s always a way out, always the brightly-lit surface just above your head. For readers that long to do a deep dive into something terrifying this summer, here are five stories that remind you why it’s better to stay on the beach and read.

5) Duma Key by Stephen King. Begin with a man struggling to overcome a terrible accident through rest, relaxation, and art therapy. He soon finds an inspiring oasis on the Florida island of Duma Key where he meets an assortment of colorful locals. What he also meets is a supernatural, underwater-dwelling entity that seeks to use his art, and the powers it gives him, to harm those on the surface. The creator of Castle Rock, Maine fills this Florida island with quirky yet three-dimensional characters even as he explores the breakdown of a man who’s slowly drifting away from sanity.

4) The Devil and the Deep edited by Ellen Datlow. I enjoy anthologies because it gives me a chance to sample new creative voices and tantalizing terrors, and Datlow is well-known for editing anthologies that serve as a showcase of horror’s most talented. This anthology offers up tales tied together by the sea, from a man trapped on a very special deserted island to a woman discovering her legacy lies beneath the ocean. Featuring stories by Stephen Graham Jones and Christopher Golden, this is a great way to savor some bite-sized chunks of horror goodness that could lead into lifelong love affairs with an author’s works.

3) Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant. Mermaids don’t always sing with animated sea life or offer something tantalizing and forbidden to sailors who have been at sea too long. Mira Grant’s series follows a ship and its documentary crew out to prove the existence of mermaids. The production brings the standard equipment for capturing the perfect shot, as well as women dressed as mermaids complete with realistic-looking fish tails. However, the crew is ill-prepared when the real thing comes along. Fans of disaster flicks will love to watch this trip spiral out of control and the next book in the series Into the Drowning Deep delves deeper into the mystery.

2) The Deep by Nick Cutter. Nick Cutter as an author is like Stephen King with a more sadistic streak, willing to inflict emotional pain and nausea-inducing description on his readers. A master at coming up with the most beautifully poetic sentences describing flayed corpses and nightmarish monstrosities, Cutter pulls his readers deep underwater, deep beneath the Marinara Trench, where the ocean is no longer blue but black, where Luke, brother to certified genius Clay and father to missing son Zack, is trapped miles under the ocean with an ancient evil while a disease rages topside. The dark and the pressure of the ocean become as physical and soul-crushing an obstacle as Luke does his best to survive with his sanity intact.  

1) Jaws by Peter Benchley. Don’t act surprised. Not when most recognize the tagline “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” from the movie adaptation of this book. Ignore the movies that used more of the rubbery-looking shark and bad CGI, forget the hurdles of logic that hurt your head when you thought of a shark specifically seeking revenge, and read the original tale of man vs. nature. Looking for a more modern tale and a bigger shark? Give Steve Alten’s Meg series a try. And yes, the crew looking to capture this shark will definitely need a bigger boat.

Have You Read This? Infidel by Pornsak Pichetshote and Aaron Campbell

Horror stories, like any story, does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it is influenced by not only the author but the time period in which it was written. Dracula, for example, isn’t just about a supernatural being that controls rats or drinks blood. Critical pieces abound that mark the eponymous vampire as a symbol of Victorian repression, the encroaching modern times, the fear of the other, etc. There are many horror stories that reflect the era they originated while also exploring universal terrors that keep us all up at night (or up during the daytime, if you’re a vampire). One of these stories is the graphic novel Infidel, a seemingly by-the-numbers ghost story that explores prejudices and xenophobia that shows up on way too many media outlets.

Writer Pornsak Pichetshote’s story has a building haunted not just by something supernatural but by a recent bombing that has many of the residents on edge, including Aisha, a Muslim woman. She is marrying a non-Muslim and trying to get along with her mother-in-law, who hasn’t always been the most open-minded. On top of that, there’s something that visits her at night, something that feeds on hatred and fear.

The story follows the template used in other ghost stories. It begins with the protagonists, singular or plural, person or couple, moving into a haunted place, the haunted place attacks but in ways that can be dismissed as imagination or a more logical explanation. Later, as the attacks worsen, the protagonists realize what they up against and by then it may already be too late. Another aspect, especially for stories that stand out from the rest, is that the people trapped usually bring their own issues to haunt them. For Aisha, she is being assaulted from disapproval from her parents for marrying a non-Muslim, as well as anger from her husband Tom who is not ready to forgive his mother’s mistakes. The spirit haunting their building feeds on these strong emotions, the hate and fear that Aisha and others produce. Far from the standard ghost story, the spirit, drawn as a surreal, hateful monstrosity by artist Aaron Campbell, goes beyond just wearing a sheet and surreally nightmarish mosaic of human parts into grotesque (think Goya paintings made into a collage) constructions. Adding to this is the lettering of the creature’s thoughts that it broadcasts to its victims, a litany of racial slurs crashing together, depicting a relentless mental assault.

One thing that helps Infidel stand out is how it deals with the very contemporary issue of racial hatred and stereotypes, particularly how they travel and fester like viruses. The book deals with this explosive topic without being trite or didactic. The book explores how this isn’t a problem that will simply go away. Such ideas, such reactions, are buried too deep. Rather than simply saying that prejudice is ugly, it says that we can all fall victim to preconceived notions and solving the problem will only come after both sides try to understand the other, no matter how horrific the other seems.

New Arrival: Wounds

One of the biggest complaints I hear about collections is the unevenness of the quality therein. Some stories might be ones that linger. They may be haunting tales that make you check the locks on the doors and the lights in your hallway. Some are the equivalent of a gas station sandwich: it filled you up, and you might have even enjoyed eating it, but it did very little beyond filling your stomach and hours later, you are left hungry. A truly rare collection is one where all stories satisfies (or terrifies) equally. Also rare is the collection where the stories don’t feel like just one tale but an interconnected chain, one that binds together a universe. Nathan Ballingrud’s collection Wounds: SixStories from the Borders of Hell links together not only a universe but an actual mythology.

The book begins with the tale “Atlas of Hell,” which feels almost like urban fantasy, especially  with its central character, a rare book dealer (“rare” meaning books not written or inspired by human being) is commissioned/forced to recover a rare artifact, a whispering skull that serves as the reason for the story’s title. Far from being a demonic Google Maps, in keeping with cosmic horror, its mere discussion of Hell’s geography has adverse effects on those who listen to it. And the demons who populate this realm? Far from the red-skinned, pitchfork-wielding mascots on boxes of cinnamon candy, these demons, as well as angels, come in a variety of forms while not conforming to the traditional Judeo-Christian idea of angels and demons. This tale is brought full circle by the last story “The Butcher’s Table,” a tale that’s basically Pirates of the Caribbean done by Clive Barker, which will leave the reader both satisfied and slightly uncomfortable.

“Skullpocket” seems to be an outlier story that doesn’t mention hell specifically, but it does have monsters, monsters who not only have their own mythology but their own traditions. In this case, it’s the Skullpocket festival that brings together ghouls and humans in a game where the loser’s prize isn’t just a second place trophy. The imagery and creativity in this story, as well as in the whole collection, hearkens back to Clive Barker in his heyday, especially in the story “The Diabolist.”

The standout story in this book is “The Visible Filth,” which is soon to be a movie. It begins with a bartender, after a bar fight he witnessed at work, discovers a lost smartphone.  Stored on that smartphone are images and videos that upset his own world while leading to others, and to the powerful being inhabiting them. Much like Joe Hill’s “Twittering from the Circus of the Dead” and Koji Suzuki’s Ring series, Ballingrud employs now commonplace technology as a storytelling device. Like the technology in these stories, they become participants. Simply pushing “play” on the screen suddenly becomes like opening the basement door in a haunted house or the lid of the vampire’s coffin.

The stories in Wounds show a fevered imagination as well as a knack for storytelling conventions that grounds explorers willing to travel in Ballingrud’s hellish vistas in reality thanks to convincing character motivations. Some of those within come to hell through desire or through curiosity, but what may bring readers to this collection may be the beauty Ballingrud describes his own version of the world beyond.

New Arrival: Gideon Falls

Any writers or those knowledgeable about literary conventions are likely familiar with the MacGuffin. Described by Wikipedia, it’s “a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation.” The article goes on to say that the actual object itself isn’t important to the plot but its effects on the characters is. From the Citizen Kane’s “rosebud” to Roland’s Dark Tower, characters will go to any lengths to pursue these items. In the world of horror, of course, the pursuit of a particular MacGuffin is to risk madness and death (not necessarily in that order).  Gideon Falls: Original Sins, which is volume 2 of the series, explores the series’  MacGuffin, the Black Barn, while also leaving readers with more questions that keeps the reader reading.

Jeff Lemire, author of Sweet Tooth as well as superhero comics for Marvel and DC, has created a double narrative that is seemingly tied together by the mysterious barn. In one narrative, taking place in Baltimore, Norton Sinclair obsessively digs through trash to discover the meaning behind the Black Barn. Meanwhile, in the small town of Gideon Falls, Father Fred, a disgraced priest, discovers the Black Barn as he encounters a murder. The Black Barn might loom large in this series, but like any good MacGuffin story, it is the characters that draw people in, from Father Fred and his guilty conscience, to Norton, who sees shadowy enemies who try to thwart his efforts. What seems like paranoia at first for Norton is actually part of the story’s conflict.

The story is intriguing, but what makes Gideon Falls truly haunting is the artwork, particularly when readers are taken into the Black Barn and see that the reality within the Barn does not conform to logic or sanity. From surreal images to the size and placement of panels, readers are immersed in the bizarre world that brings to mind the Twilight Zone and its promise of entering another dimension.

The story itself is ongoing, but it already has me hooked. MacGuffins can turn cliché in inexperienced hands, but strong characters and surreal images in Gideon Falls shows not only great character development but a great mesh of words and art.

Screen to Scream: 1408 and Will Haunt You

If you’re reading this, you probably understand that people like to be scared (and that might even include you). For examples of this, go to any theme park and see all the rides that take people through loops, hairpin turns, or vertical drops. There are also in some parks, maybe off the Midway, the haunted house, a place that promises a different kind of fear. Rather than stripping you of control and treating you like a sock in a washing machine, haunted houses add to the terror by letting a series of threats, both supernatural and psychotic, have at you. Just like with most thrill rides, we know there’s no real danger. Just like rides are rigorously tested to make sure they stay together, the threats in haunted houses are simply costumed actors told to act as scary as possible. But what if the threat wasn’t just an act? What if the threat was real? And what if you couldn’t escape? Consider the movie 1408, based on the short story by Stephen King, and Brian Kirk’s recent novel Will Haunt You. 

1408 puts writer Mike Enslin, who writes about supernatural places but is himself a skeptic, discovers the reputation of room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel and investigates (or rather goes there to churn out another nonfiction bestseller). But this room holds a great deal of supernatural malevolence that begins with a countdown of 60 minutes and the playing of “We’ve Only Just Begun,” which is easily the most frightening the Carpenters’ music has ever been. The room not only has its share of ghosts but it also brings forth what haunts Enslin, his dead daughter. The movie is a gradual exercise not only in the gradual loss of sanity but in the loss of faith that the world is a sane and rational place. Mike soon can no longer trust what he sees and hears. The only thing he can do ultimately is keep his eyes on the clock, but even this is proven futile.

Will Haunt You employs a similar method of torture on its protagonist, Jesse Wheeler, frontman for a band formerly on top, former addict, and currently suffocating family man. What traps Jesse in his personal nightmare is not a room, but a book he had the misfortune to read. What began as a reunion gig descends into a nightmare where his will, his sobriety, and his love for his family is tested. Like Mike, who carries the loss of his daughter, Jesse shoulders his own mental and spiritual burdens, a life lived in excess that has hurt the ones he loves, and like the hotel room, the people after Jesse use their knowledge of his inner failings with a scalpel’s precision, slicing the things away that he’s earned that has made him a better man, if not always a happy one. Both book and movie offer a funhouse of frights, but these men bring their own demons to haunt them. The room/book just has to open these men up, show them a mirror, and let them see what’s inside.