McAllister's Mates Twenty Six
Hi all
Two horror pieces today, both deliver scary premises while also contemplating the nature of the soul. Please enjoy this fine work from LiudmilaBrus1 and Derek James Kritzberg.
These reviews are part of Reviewstack run by the great writer and pillar of the Substack Community : Thaddeus Thomas
McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.
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Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.
You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.
This is a horror story that may or may not have supernatural elements - the point is left deliciously ambiguous. It is, however, a deeply emotional and psychological story. The story explores the terrible effects of love’s absence and the devastation created by the desperate hunger for it.
The story effectively acts as a three-hander, with an involved but clear headed narrator, a secondary protagonist hopelessly entangled in the steam of events, and a mysterious third character. This provides an excellent framework combining both the clarity and observation of a third-person perspective with the intimacy of a first-person one.
The story’s greatest strength is its ability to use classic gothic and horror imagery not just to instill fear, but also to inspire sadness. We move through a landscape of dense, choked forests and dilapidated buildings, while the text certainly raises dread and hints at the horrors hiding in the wreckage - it also invites us to take pity on these neglected, even abused spaces. These descriptions foreshadow and enhance the story’s events. Heaped physical detritus echoing the years of dark memories and bitter emotions haunting the characters. We see how terrible events have shaped these fascinating and nuanced people. The past is another character in the story-both visceral and ethereal. Some events are told in minute heart rending detail, others remain vague ghosts on the periphery of the characters conscious - ever present but impossible to pin down. This is another hallmark of the writing, a dance between vivid depiction and sparse detail. My mind was kept fully engaged, walking through a tangible, living world, but with plenty of places to project my own imagination and emotions. The most powerful horror writing is an exercise in knowing when to leave spaces and this story demonstrates the rule perfectly.
The last point I would like to raise is the refusal to cast blame, judgement, or vindication at any of the characters involved. We are presented with events, histories, motivations, and emotions in a journalistic yet highly emotive and sensitive account of events. While we are certainly guided through the characters’ individual experiences - the story refuses to take sides, with many minor characters balancing, even challenging the main players versions of events. The story climaxes in a major decision - will you agree with the choice made? The journey there is thrilling, heartrending, and contains many layered questions - like me you’ll fly through this succinct and gripping tail, but no doubt will be haunted by its ideas for quite some time.
This story is one of Derek’s trademark exercises in surrealist fantasy horror. As ever though the more psychedelic elements are employed with discipline and restraint. Where less experienced authors would pile on paradoxes and telegraph Lovecraftian imagery, Derek keeps the fantasy elements subtle and mysterious, allowing them to truly shine.
The basic premise involves a man born with a psychic ability to instantly kill anyone he chooses (even if the desire is at a subconscious level). What develops from there is a twisting psychological thriller richly infused with melancholy. The story is presented through journal entries, grounding the more psychedelic elements in deep, often sad personal experience. This gives an excellent balance to the writing, as the story navigates powerful, even difficult territory. The stranger plot elements actually give additional weight to the emotional scenes, as we often move through the worst times in our lives in dreamlike and disassociated states, even if not dealing with the truly supernatural.
Both the “gift” and more mundane, yet darker familial secrets raise questions about how much of a person’s psyche is shaped by their early years. Is the dark gift a learned or genetic trait? Family environments at least initially set our values, self-worth, even our sense of destiny. Is this murderous ability the result of a rogue gene activating or a learned method of internalising rage from a poisoned environment until it spills out uncontrollably? We see the protagonist struggling under the weight of responsibility so as not to accidentally think his rivals or those who have hurt him dead. So we see a man struggling to be good, perhaps a truly good man because he must be. The concept of killing by thought raises some very interesting and philosophical questions. What if we were handed this power? Would we prove Nietzsche’s cynical musings right- that humanity is only moral through fear of consequences and lack of ability to realise their lower desires? I have many issues with Nietzschean philosophy but as a thought experiment it forces an unsettling look at the self.
The last element I’d like to point out is that there is a very subtle secret to be found in the relationships between the journal entries. To tell you more would be an unforgivable disservice to your enjoyment of the work. I simply ask you to pay very close attention, not one word, not one detail is wasted. This is yet another triumph for a writer I have had the immense pleasure of watching develop and mature. Derek has the rare gift of creating fantastical and terrifying horror, fantasy, and science fiction scenarios then throwing in real, complex nuanced characters with intricate webs of relationships, and living, breathing psychological issues. We may be walking through nightmare worlds of strange psychic powers but the faces looking back at us are all too human and familiar.
I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed seeing them and writing about them.
You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.
P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.
If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.