Shared Words, $2.99, ISBN 978-1370927975
Horror, 2017

I know, you may be thinking, “Are we in October already and someone hit me so hard in the head that I still believe it’s August? What’s with all this horror stuff?” I was planning to save all these for the spooky month, but each time I try to read or watch something more touchy-feely in a romantic way, I find myself cringing and going okay, need more gore and terror.

This, I suspect, is because I live in an incompetently-run country that has been in lockdown since March last year, and despite having kept everyone cooped up at home and making many people to lose their livelihood in the process, case numbers are still rising and the government only now does a semi-proper vaccine roll-out after sitting on their rear ends for almost a year doing nothing but mouthing banal platitudes. Even then, their bright idea of a vaccine roll-out is to have everyone gather in large numbers, often waiting for hours, to get their shots. Gee, case numbers are reaching record high numbers day by day? I wonder why. Right now, as cherry on top, the imbeciles in the government are locked in a power struggle, while the general population is basically forgotten.

So yes, horror it is. I need that catharsis bad.

Critical Mass and Other Stories is actually some short stories, which probably have been published elsewhere earlier if I were to judge by the copyright dates of these stories, bundled with a much longer story, so it’s a jumbo-sized kind of anthology in terms of length. As one can guess from the cover art, we’re going to Planet Cthulhu today, so buckle up and try to avoid the groping tentacles.

Kicking off the show is C Scott Davis’s Come into the Light, My Darlings, which is about a bunch of kids that sneak into an allegedly haunted house only to something far worse than silly aliens or ghosts. The protagonist doesn’t speak like a kid at all, and there is something off about her, like she’s an adult pretending to a kid. Hence, I’m quite disappointed that I don’t get to read about her gruesome end. Because of this, the story feels like a lightweight mosquito bite of sorts. While I’m reading it, I know it exists, but once it ends, I can barely remember what I’ve read.

Next is Infernal Ratio by Joel Byers. Brilliant artist Robert Angell is mad because Sterling Inc refuses to accept his bid to paint a mural to commemorate the opening of the new tower of that company. You see, Robert is all about how good art can’t be confined by silly things like deadlines, while the company prefers to have all artworks in place at the walls when the tower opens.

“But ART can’t be rushed, it has to be inspired and birthed. You can’t purchase true art the same way you buy a pizza. You can’t go online to a website and click on ‘magnum opus’ as a choice and request that it be ready by next Tuesday and as a side thought to please throw in some angels, a couple of cherubs and some naked dryads because the Chairman of the Board has a fetish for naked teenage girls.”

Why do I keep hearing that speech delivered in the angry, spitting voice of Daffy Duck?

Anyway, this is not good for Robert, because art gallery owner Claude Perriwater also fancies himself a gangster, and he insists that Robert owes him a lot of money. He wants to get paid, and he wants the money now. However, just when he is down on his luck, an opportunity beckons. Because this is a horror story, the opportunity comes with its own price, one that may be too high to pay.

This one is just way too long for what it is. So much time is spent on building Robert up to the biggest, dumbest, and most unlikable boor in the neighborhood, only to have him pushed aside to let a secondary character to be the main star instead. All that build-up, therefore, goes nowhere, especially when the second half of this story relegates Robert from central character to annoying, whining plot device to get the plot moving. Worse, the author loves his exposition too much for his own good, as it is common to come across a scene, only to have characters in the following scene discussing the events of the previous scene. Yes, I know, there is no need for all that babble, since the scene itself took place just a paragraph or two prior, so really, hush.

Worse, this climax is pretty predictable, and poor Hastur is done dirty here. He deserves a far smarter vehicle to showcase his awesomeness.

At any rate, this is one story that would benefit from tighter self-editing and a tighter focus on the main plot line. As it is, it’s just a meandering, self-indulgent mess populated by overwrought characters that would be more at home in a Hanna-Barbera production.

Deneen Ansley is up next with Wake. A… being, for the want of a better word, wakes up trapped in a human body. Much pretentious pontification on living and great beyond ensue. Still, I like this. This one is pretty short, but I think it captures succinctly the feeling of being trapped in a body, struggling with the limitations of a body that will no doubt become frailer and less dependable as time passes. Who knows, if I were as pretentious as the protagonist, I may suggest that this story is a pretty decent metaphor for being trapped in a body that one can no longer control fully, even as the brain remains functional, and the only solace that can be found is when one is asleep and dreaming of better circumstances. Even then, the fear remains—the fear of what happens when one’s time inevitably runs out.

C Scott Davis is back with Killing Me Softly. The best way I can describe this is that it feels dangerously similar to the thought processes of someone with severe schizophrenia and has not received any medical help. The protagonist’s talk of repeated committing suicide, only to come back to life, as well as killing various people but never seeming to attract any attention for their actions—well, I can’t help thinking of the recently diseased Kelly Karl Sleight, who refused to get help and saw terrorists and death threats in everything up to his final days, and the infamous Terry A Davis, who died this month three years ago in a manner that still chills my soul each time I think about it. These people died alone, grappling with their inner demons to the very end, and I can only wonder whether we will ever find a way to help those affected with voices in their head find some inner peace.

So yes, this story by itself isn’t the most memorable thing I’ve read, but it leaves an impact on me nonetheless, strumming all the feels in my heart and making me feel all melancholic about humanity in general. I’m grateful to be blessed with a mind that works in ways to allow me to find some degree of contentment and fulfillment no matter how messed up the world can be sometimes. I can only hope that the people I care for will be similarly fortunate.

Next is R Eric Smith’s The Angel’s Seed. Now, this is a pretty long story, and it veers from one direction to another like a drunken sod on roller-skates. First, we have angel-like creatures appearing around folks, and no one knows what they are or why they are here. They seem harmless, though, so eventually folks just leave them alone and life goes on. A young girl decides that these are indeed the angels from heaven, though, and seeks one out in hopes of persuading the angel to tell God to spare her beloved grandmother (who is dying of pancreatic cancer). This sets in motion of chain of events that culminate with a killer tree rampaging around town sticking its victims on its branches.

Things are going well like a fun free-for all drunken party way, and the killer tree thing is deliciously ghoulish. However, the eventual appearance of two annoying wisecracking paranormal investigators really ruin my immersion. These two don’t react believably, with each adrenaline-charged scary situation disastrously deflated with misplaced quips that are nowhere as hilarious as the author imagines them to be. Why would the author take a sickle to the proverbial knees and ankles of this story like that?

And, what happened to the angels? They just fade out of the story just like that.

Sue Bowers then presents Ice Riders. A horrid protagonist talks about experimenting some “things” (he doesn’t even know what it is, honestly) on baby animals that see them being torn apart by others of their kind as a result. Lovely. I’m not sure how he gets these “things” to experiment on when he claims that they are somewhere in the ice, presumably in the Antarctica or something, but hey, who knows, maybe this whole thing is just the vivid imagination of someone with a mental illness that tortures baby animals because the voices in his head tells him to. A pretty disturbing story, all in all, which means it has done its work pretty well, but it has a most unsatisfying payoff. There’s a difference between leaving me hanging on a terrifying note and just leaving me hanging, and this one does the latter.

Finally, we have C Scott Davis’s Critical Mass, which clocks in at over 100 pages and hence makes up half of this anthology. Some bloke barely escapes with his life during an accident while he is having his lunch, and spends the bulk of his story cowering at the literary equivalent of jump scares.

This story reminds me of those super low budget horror films that, because of the lack of funds to create special effects, choose to rely on long, meandering scenes of people talking instead to fill up the screen time. When the handful of scary scenes finally appear, one can tell that they spent all the money on these scenes, and yeah, the money wasn’t enough.

This story, however, is not a low budget horror movie, and hence can’t use “Low budget, okay?” as an excuse. It’s not as if the author had to conserve brain cells while writing this story, after all. By the time things kick into high gear, I am bored and I just want the whole thing to end.

Now that I think of it, the anthology order should have been reversed, with the long story placed first, and the shorter stories to follow. That way, I won’t finish this anthology with a “Oh, it’s finally over, thank Nyarlathotep!” feeling.

Still, Critical Mass and Other Stories is a mixed bag that has its share of good stories, and the weaker entries are still on the semi-okay side, being mostly boring or meandering at worst. Yes, I’ve read better, but at the same time, this one can still hit a few right spots now and then, so it’s a serviceable cosmic horror tour all things considered.