After losing her brother Jeffrey in a car accident, art teacher Sierra has a dream in which Jeffrey is raised from the dead by a sinister man in a black suit. It later turns out that this was more than a dream: Jeffrey really has been resurrected, and both Sierra and Jeffrey’s boyfriend Marc catch sight of him around town.
Naturally, however, Jeffrey did not return from the grave without paying a price. He has brought death back with him: his touch causes objects to decay and people to wither and die. Furthermore, Jeffrey is not the only one to be granted deadly abilities. A number of other people in Sierra’s life have undergone weird transformations, and proceed to leave trails of destruction. Sierra and Marc – each blaming each other for Jeffrey’s death – must look beyond their animosity to work out what is going on, and where Sierra’s dream of the mysterious man in the black suit fits into events.
Continue reading “They Kill by Tim Waggoner (2020 Splatterpunk Awards)”
Following a special merge, part of Hell has bled out onto Earth. Only a comparatively small part – enough to fill Lake Misquamicus in Florida, to be precise – but even a fraction of Hell is bad news for us on the mortal realm. With the lake now occupied by six billion gallons of infernal effluent, and a prime location for visits from demons, damned souls and other denizens of the underworld, the US government has little choice but to construct a wall around it and forbid any crossings.
One day, out of the blue, Ted receives a telephone call from Justin, a childhood friend who has not spoken to him for three years. The two meet up in Justin’s squalid abode, and Ted is soon distracted from the problems in his own life – including the terminal state of his relationship with his wife Shelly – by the utterly bizarre story that his friend has to tell.
Ansley Boone is getting ready for a wedding, with her sister Shay marrying fiancé Nathan. But alongside all of the typical stresses and excitement that come with preparing for the special day, Ansley has personal issues. She is coping with the aftermath of mental and physical trauma and is now reliant on medication: “I was cutting my last benzodiazepine prescription down, mobbing my way into low dose Diazepam, as per strict, hellish instructions. Aprazolam, Lorazepam, Clonazepam, you name it, I’d been overprescribed it and its other mellow kin.”
Newlyweds Grant and Lindsey celebrate their marriage with a trip to a mountainside cabin owned by Grant’s family. During their journey, Lindsey’s libido begins running out of control: she suggests such erotic adventures as having sex beside a country road, or getting jiggy in every state of the country. But their most extreme exploit begins when they meet a man named Jorge – and Lindsey shoots him with a tranquiliser so he can be abducted and taken back to the cabin for a round of torture.
Mike Ashbrook is struggling in life: his wife divorced him, he boss fired him, and his two daughters – one a teenager, the other approaching that point – are growing away from him. He has to find new work, not an easy task as a 45-year-old with no collage degree. He settles for becoming a janitor, and even then he draws the shortest straw: his new job involves cleaning up human remains. Picking out the shattered skull fragments of a man who committed suicide with a gun to his mouth, mopping up the blood of murder victims – all in a day’s work for Mike.
Doris V. Sutherland 