Stark Publishing, $2.99, ISBN 978-1393106074
Horror, 2020 (Reissue)
I’m surprised to discover that Mark Leslie’s Phantom Itch is actually a collection of a four short stories—very short stories, and none of them shares the same name as the anthology title.
Well, Phantom Mitch is close enough, I guess. In this one, Barry has had his left arm amputated, and he still feels the phantom itch between the thumb and index finger of his no longer existing arm. Well, he’s recently lost his wife Michelle, or Mitch, and well, that’s one itch that he also can’t get rid off…
This is what I’d call a slow burn story that seems like a more poignant tale than a scary one, that of a man that misses his departed wife so dearly, only to give me some delightful chills in the last few paragraphs. Nice.
The author definitely knows how to sneak up behind me and boos into my ear, so to speak, and it works. This story works.
Hereinafter Referred to as the Ghost, the next story, reveals that humans have contracts with ghostly companies to hire ghosts to create haunting that will draw in visitors. Alas, even after his death, renowned actor Patrick Collins learns that he can hit a bad rut in his afterlife acting career, and now he is in danger of having his contract terminated.
This one is a cute story. It’s not gory or frightening, but quaint in a pleasant, if unremarkable, way.
In Escape… okay, this one is just depressing. Kyle lost his daughter. and soon after, the gulf between him and his wife is too wide and she leaves him. Now the man spends time in his home, watching out his window and imagining that his daughter is still alive, riding on the swing out there.
No, really, it’s depressing. The ending is the darkest kind of bittersweet, because while the whole story is one long grieving process in stark, raw realness, the ending has a happy ending that is anything but happy.
Still, the author wrings out the feels from me so effortlessly in this short little thing, and I can relate to Kyle so, so much. In fact, I am Kyle for the most of this story, and it is until I reach the final act that I am once again the reader, this time with a heavy ball in my throat.
Being Needed is the final story. Peter visits his grandfather, who is living at a nursing home, every Friday, but of late, his grandfather tells him a strange story: a fellow resident, Norma claims to hear a baby crying from the house across the street. The house was the site of a brutal murder-suicide, the man having killed and chopped up his wife before cutting his own throat, but the couple’s baby was never found. Could Norma be hearing the cries of the baby’s ghost?
Okay, this one hits me in the feels too. It’s nowhere as stark and cathartic as the previous story, but this is also a bittersweet story that has a tad more sweet than bitter this time around.
By the time I finish this one, I can say that Phantom Itch is rather misleadingly marketed, what with a cover like that. The second tale is a bit of a light throwaway, and I personally would have placed it last if I had the choice to give readers a lighter fare to enjoy after three very heavy stories.
That aside, the other three stories are brutal, as they paint aging, grieving, loneliness, and alienation in excruciatingly real shades that make my heart ache so much. They are sentimental, but not sappy, and emotional, but not schmaltz.
Sure, there are paranormal elements here, but they are not agents of terror or carnage. Instead, they are vehicles of catharsis to deliver the hurting characters in these stories a sweet reprieve from their cold, cold existence.
Anyway, I won’t call these stories uplifting or inspirational, but they offer a great vicarious beating down of my emotions and it’s a most enjoyable experience.
Okay, I have some money, I think I’ll give some more to the author. What else does he have to sell me?
