Trigger warning: This collection contains stories containing strong language, rape, incest, murder, disembowelment and a bit of gore.

Read at your own risk and use a pallet cleanser between stories.

Stories

There are a lot of stories in this collection which is both a good thing – as the more the merrier and the likelyhood increases of actually finding something awesome and scary – and also bad as some stories were not published due to how bad they were. I’ve liked quite a few and skipped over others but all in all I feel it was worth my time and I recommend this to others.

• “The Sanctuary” (originally published in Cemetery Dance, June 1989) – Awesome story – the dead keep coming back alive at night time and a family is terrorised by their young boy. A young girl has to perform the ritual with a bible and ends up pregnant with a thing that is birthed after two months and killed. Would have loved to read a whole book about it!
• “The Woods Be Dark” (originally published in Touch Wood Narrow Houses, Vol II, 1994) – Meh
• “The Phonebook Man” (originally published in Eldritch Tales #27, 1992) – Obsessed man can’t take no for an answer in trying to give out a phone book. The woman should have been less polite in her Nos
• “Estoppel” (originally published in 2 AM, Spring 1988) – meh
• “The Washingtonians” (originally published in Cemetery Dance, Fall 1992) – Super meh.
• “Life With Father” (originally published in Going Postal, 1998) – Holy shit this was awesome. My period ended a few days ago, and I know I was supposed to wash out my maxi pads in this week’s bathwater and then use the water on the outside plants and hang the maxi pads out to dry, but the thought of my blood makes me sick, and I just haven’t been able to do it. Story is about a young girl who lives with a super recycler and re-user to the point of madness. This is a horrific child-abuse story so don’t read unless you have a strong stomach.
• “Bob” (unpublished) – Loved this one too. Church ladies barge in into a guy’s home, call him Bob even though his name is not Bob, and he gets told about a woman of their group who is abused in her marriage and can’t leave. They want Bob to do a hit on the husband.
• “Bumblebee” (originally published in Cold Blood, 1991) – Meh
• “Lethe Dreams” (originally published in Night Cry, Spring 1987) – This was awesome with a double twist. I love double twists. The Couple has a newborn and they are sleep-deprived. Turns out the baby is a rag doll. And before you say anything else – the doll moves.
• “Paperwork” (originally published in The Horror Show, Winter 1988) – Papercuts to a new level. It’s good, it’s scary and it has a haunted feel.
• “The Idol” (originally published in Twisted, Summer/Fall 1991) – Teenagers having their virginity taken by James Dean’s lug wrench. They get found out by a set of guys who are looking for the wrench and find a shrine filled with sexy shots of women and they are “lucky” enough to witness a deflowering. I keep thinking what type of bacteria that tool had by now… UTIs anyone?
• “Skin” (originally published in The Horror Show, Winter 1988) – Creepy as fuck and super sick but no more than 3 pages. I loved it.
• “The Man in the Passenger Seat” (originally published in Borderlands 3, 1992) – meh
• “Comes the Bad Time” (originally published in The Horror Show, Winter 1987) – Loved this one too – faces in tomatoes caused by a woman who died at a couple’s farm. They end up being haunted by the woman and they end up killing as part of the psychosis. But is it?
• “Against the Pale Sand” (originally published in Grue #10, 1989) – meh – but there is a fingering scene on a toilet bowl if you’re into that…
• “The Pond” (originally published in Blue Motel: Narrow Houses, Vol. 3, 1994) – meh – People over Pollution
• “Roommates” (originally published in The Silver Web #9, 1993) – This was the funniest of all – the crap roomates a guy gets when advertising for a room to let. I was in tears by the end of it.
• “Llama” (originally published in Hottest Blood, 1993) . OCD with numerology but a meh from me.
• “Full Moon on Death Row” (unpublished) * meh
• “The Show” (originally published in The Horror Show, Fall 1987) – Snuff film with real-life people. Meh.
• “The Mailman” (originally published in The Horror Show, Summer 1988) – A guy is terrorised by his phobia – a midget mailman asking for a quarter. I’m using the term as it’s referred in the book so don’t cancel me. It might have been the beginning of the idea for The Mailman – Bentley Little Book Review
• “Monteith” (originally published in Expressions of Dread, 1993) – musings of a husband over a note found in the kitchen from his wife. He doesn’t confront her.
• “Pillow Talk” (originally published in Eldritch Tales #25, 1991) – Made me think of Big Mouth as I was reading it.. a guy can hear sexual innuendo from his pillows.
• “Maya’s Mother” (unpublished) * meh
• “Colony” (unpublished) * meh
• “Confessions of a Corporate Man” (originally published in The Fractal, Spring/Summer 1996)
• “Blood” (originally published in Cemetery Dance, Spring 1990)
• “And I Am Here, Fighting with Ghosts” (originally published in Eldritch Tales #18, 1988)
• “The Baby” (originally published in Spwao Showcase 7: Selected Works, 1989)
• “Coming Home Again” (originally published in New Blood 3, 1987) – Guy comes back from uni to find out his dad is now shacking up with a young boy. If paedophilia is not enough, there’s a lot of talk about dick sucking and pants being pulled down and it looked like everyone on that street had one of these feral kids as a house-wife/husband.
• “The Potato” (originally published in Borderlands II, 1991) – A potato is moving in the field and the owner of the field first uses it as a roadside attraction then sleeps with it.
• “The Murmurous Haunt of Flies” (originally published in Murmurous Haunts: The Selected Works of Bentley Little, 1997) – meh

So most of the stories are like freaking fever dreams but they were so intense and obscene and weird that you end up remembering them, just like HAUNTED – CHUCK PALAHNIUK. I liked some, I dreaded others and I can’t wait to read more.