I'm not really a horror person but I kickstarted this anthology to support short fiction presses, it would definitely count for bingo, and I was going to send a submission anyway so why not. If that sounds familiar
it's because it is. While I don't have a story in this book, I did find more highlights here than the last anthology!
My favorite story was "The River's Revenge," by Jen Mierisch, about monstrous two-headed eels appearing in the Chicago River and wreaking havoc. It's a delightful mix of humor with horror.
“We might get to name it, huh?” Suki said. “How about Wriggly Field?”
Was that a smile? “I’m thinking Muddy Waters,” Ron said.
“No, wait! I’ve got it. Eel Capone.”
***
Last night, Suki had gone to Navy Bier, the closest bar to the Chicago Sun-Times office and therefore its reporters’ logical happy-hour spot. It was incredible how much gossip you could overhear while nursing a Scotch and scrolling Instagram.
Yes, the location mentioned on Wabash Avenue is real, and yes, you should look it up after you finish the story. Lest you worry that this is mere one-sided political ranting, be assured that the the RL
Mayor Johnson makes a cameo to be like "everything is fine and under control" when everything is not fine or under control, Chicago's political machine is a thing. ;)
All of the authors are people who currently and/or formerly have lived in and around Chicago, so all the little place names and bits of local color were great. In the first paragraph of "Pedal to the Floor into Darkness," K. A. Roy shows off both the very Midwestern dialect of using "pop" for any generic soft drink (where other parts of the country might use "cola" or "soda,") and the obvious double entendre associated with Lake Shore Drive.
The first thing you need to know is that my sister died when I was fifteen and she was nineteen. Story goes that Lisa was driving too fast through the bendy part of Lake Shore Drive, you know the one, smack dab between Grand and LaSalle. She took that s-curve doing seventy, like she was running from something in her rearview mirror. Spun out. Hit the median like a spinning top, front passenger bumper crumpling like a stomped pop can. It was past eleven, which if you’ve ever driven down LSD at night, with all the lights and the trees and city on one side, the lake on the other, is something you never forget.
"Lives Matter," by Jotham Austin II, is set in Hyde Park, on the South Side. Over the decades, Chicago has been de facto very segregated; the North Side is predominantly white, the West Side Hispanic, and the South Side black. The University of Chicago (where Barack Obama was once a law school professor) is in Hyde Park, which is a comparatively affluent and highly-educated area amidst the surrounding South Side. I know and love this area, and Austin brings out the little details (the Carl Von Linné statue!) Turns out he's also a UChicago professor and specializes in electron microscopy!
Walking slow. Crossing 55th street. Down Lake Park toward MSI. Fast walking. Sirens scream in the distance. Stopping under the Metra station bridge. Stopping to catch my breath. Think.
Bigmom’s maxims reciting in my head. Pull that hoodie down, so you can hear and be heard. Show respect. Yes sir. No mama. No talk back. If you can, send an SOS text.
"A Good Kid," by Nick Medina, is about a Lego nerd and the mysterious murals in his neighborhood.
The shapes and sizes didn’t matter. The colors didn’t either. Whether he ended up with twenty 2x2s, thirty 1x1s, an equal mix of 2x3s, 1x4s, and 1x2s, or any other of the seemingly infinite combinations he could pull from the box, he trusted his fingers to build something worth bragging about.
There are several stories that lean into themes of discrimination and police brutality, etc. What I liked about this one was that it acknowledged the horror of, even in a great city in the wealthiest country on Earth, there are still people killed by violence that wasn't targeted at them, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There aren't easy fixes, but it's good to acknowledge that the police aren't just cartoon villains being evil for evil's sake, they're responding to real forces.
Speaking of police brutality, though. "Body Cam" by TJ Cimfel is an excellent use of form. It starts as a contrast between the supernatural horror of an unexplained Something, and the mundane horror of police officers manipulating evidence at black ops sites. We see an officer slowly watching a timestamped loop of bodycam evidence from a fatal incident three months prior, and at first it just seems to be bad guy cops trying to suppress the truth. Then it gets weird. A great example of what you can do with text that you can't necessarily do in another medium.
It’s at this point the impound lot camera footage jellies, smears to gray. A nebulous conspiracy has naturally formed around this. The CPD got ahold of the impound lot’s drive, wiped out Jackson’s involvement. Like there isn’t enough incriminating footage as it is. Besides, Campos had nothing to do with that. Not that he’s above such moves. Hell, those moves are why they hire him.
He could only stonewall for so long. The prying journalists and their relentless FOIA requests. The family, crying on the news every other day. Woke mobs spitting vitriol outside City Hall, shutting down traffic in the Loop. All of it so tiresomely predictable, so tiresomely effective.
"Lucky Charms," by Sandra Jackson-Opoku, depicts an interaction between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. A kid overhearing an "as you know, Bob" conversation for the readers' benefit is a little annoying, but what I like about this is that it doesn't just depict contemporary people reacting to something from the past (including an allusion to "
Leprechaun in the Hood," and if I have to know that that is a thing that exists, then so do you), but also characters from the past trying to make sense of the present.
Suzanne heard a rumble from the other direction, the stomp of marching feet. She turned to see a group from the opposite end of the road approaching in military formation. They were men and women in identical blue clothing carrying weapons and see-through shields.
One voice was magnified by the large cone he carried. “This is an illegal gathering. You are not allowed to advance beyond this point. You must disperse. I repeat, you must disperse.”
Suzanne could differentiate the groups by what they carried—their signs, their weapons, their manner of movement. Could these be the Yankees and British at war once again?
Not every story was a winner for me, but overall, I think if you love Chicago as much as I do, you'll probably find something to like in here!
Bingo: Published in 2025, Five+ Short Stories, Small Press, presumably will still be Hidden Gem for a while (the Kickstarter e-books just came out, so right now no one has rated it on Goodreads yet!)
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marthawells
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