I’ve had my second short story published by Bewildering Stories. This one was put on the website around Halloween, and it’s my goofy ode to Lovecraft and Poe.
Here’s what the editors of BwS said about “Graveyard Carnival”:
From the Grave is an old-fashioned horror story filled with long-dead cadavers rising from their coffins, suitably decayed and menacing; atmospheric cemeteries in the dead (pun deliberate) of night, in howling wind and, the ghouls notwithstanding, otherwise deserted; and an appealing young protagonist, too curious or valorous for his own good. It’s the kind of story that appeals especially around Halloween, grisly enough to please but not serious enough to truly frighten. There’s a deliberately Gothic, Hollywood B-movie feel about the piece, the sort of tale one might tell around a campfire while eating Smores, i.e., the fun-ish kind of horror story. There’s a somewhat surprise ending, a bit of a twist, though one often used in this genre (it all turned out to be a dream, a nightmare, or was it?), which works well enough, and an attempt, again familiar in this genre, to explain the unexplained by invoking fashionable psychiatric illness a la Carl Jung. Although there are some inconsistencies here and there (e.g., Why hasn’t anyone else ever come across corpses rising from the grave in this cemetery? How could all the racket accompanying the live burial of the protagonist not wake the surrounding neighborhood? How do those risen from their graves rebury themselves?, Why is the protagonist described at one point as having closely cropped hair only to later be described as pulling dirt from the “strings” of his hair?), given the fact it may all have been a dream largely, if not perfectly, covers this multitude of sins. From the Grave is entertaining.
Here’s a link: “Graveyard Carnival.”
Enjoy!
