Today I am reviewing a series of six short, free-for-Kindle Original Stories that I read recently from Amazon featuring some real powerhouses in modern supernatural horror storytelling. They were all enjoyable – and I decided to pick these up because of the recognizable names that contributed to the series (Hill, Hendrix, and Tremblay), while also being blown away by some names I had never heard of that I really need to check out (Baker).
The Pram by Joe Hill
“Children don’t know how expensive they are.”
This is the darkest and best of the stories in the six-story Creature Feature collection (which was free to read on Amazon Prime), as far as I’m concerned. Joe Hill is a master of the short horror form, effectively delivering genuine scares while crafting emotionally deep, three-dimensional characters.
A terrifying foray into the torture of losing a child, The Pram is not only a spooky story but also a heavy meditation on the pain, resentment, and fear that cripples a couple after a tragic miscarriage in their Brooklyn apartment. In an attempt to heal, they buy an idyllic home in the backwoods of Maine. Instead of recovery, we witness the firsthand degradation and dissolution of their marriage, as well as the husband’s own psychological unraveling.
Their ruined future seems to follow them into the woods, where they find themselves isolated, save for a small-town grocery store and a local group of religious fundamentalists known as the Sin Eaters. What truly makes this story stand out is the perspective through which we experience this slow-motion train wreck—it is told through the eyes of the husband, who is entirely helpless to make progress, save his wife, or even save himself.
By weaving ancient, sinister folklore into the raw grief of pregnancy loss, Hill highlights both the vulnerability and the invisible exploitation that can happen in the wake of tragedy. It is a great, scary, and deeply depressing novella, and a remarkable experience from a master storyteller.
Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix
“Every single one of them told me two things: my father was a liar, and I was not going to grow up to be like him. Turned out they were wrong on both counts.”
This is an incredibly effective boogeyman story that also touches deeply on the scars of intergenerational trauma. Grady Hendrix is a wildly successful modern horror writer, and for good reason—his ’80s-vibe stories have been flying off shelves as much for their narrative excellence as their nostalgia. His newsletter and his brilliant book Paperbacks from Hell provide ample evidence of just how well-read he is in the vintage pulp paperbacks of my childhood.
In this piece, Marcus has spent his entire life living in the shadow of a childhood family tragedy. Ever since Marcus was six, his dad’s story never quite added up. While everyone else assumes his father is simply a murderer walking free, the old man insists his wife was actually taken by a literal monster living under the bed. He always warned Marcus: never get out of bed in the dark, never dangle your feet over the edge, and never stand beside the mattress with the lights off.
These obsessive rituals have followed Marcus into adulthood, complicating things just as he starts optimistically dating Tess. But when he begins to hear familiar rumblings from the dark space beneath his bed, it looks like he may be forced to relive the horrors of his family’s past.
Hendrix does a fantastic job taking the classic “monster under the bed” folklore and spinning it into a visceral, real-world scenario. It’s a great, incredibly well-written story that masterfully examines generational trauma, the tragedy of being disbelieved, and the ease with which society leaps to sensationalist conclusions.
It Waits in the Woods by Josh Malerman
“Most myths have one foot in a reality so distressing mythic decorations are necessary to hide a greater horror, even as they keep the story alive.”
Driven by loss and grief, aspiring filmmaker Brenda Jennings sets out to discover where her younger sister vanished, documenting her search along the way. In the deep woods, she encounters an unknown entity that hunts humans and steals their faces to maintain its bloodthirsty, generations-long reign over a local bridge. The creature is Opso, a faceless demon that announces its presence with mournful cries and the clicky-clacky of its hooves.
Malerman presents a living, breathing forest of horror. He doesn’t just rely on a standard antagonist; instead, he constructs a gritty, terrifying atmosphere that heavy-handedly presses down on the reader, reinforcing the story’s ancient, folkloric feel. While it wasn’t my absolute favorite in the collection, it still stands as an effective, atmospheric showcase of survivor’s guilt and a grief that simply refuses to heal.
In Bloom by Paul Tremblay
“There are always truths submerged within stories, and her job is, if not to dredge them up, then to invite them onto her own chartered boat, guiding them so that they may uncover those truths from the murky waters for themselves.”
Paul Tremblay’s In Bloom is a fun, wonderfully bizarre entry in the Creature Feature collection. My favorite aspect of the story is the nebulous, deeply unsettling nature of the creature, paired with the Cape Cod setting.
As someone intimately familiar with the locations described (the brief, couple-sentence characterization of the messy bridge situation is hilariously on point), as well as the very real, constant threat of algae blooms in the local freshwater ponds, this hit incredibly close to home.
The unique, highly creative monster threatening this idyllic Cape life is made up of relatively innocuous elements combined into a massive, terrifying danger. It strongly reminded me of some of the weirder, highly imaginative stories I love on the Pseudopod podcast—only this one features elements that feel deeply familiar, rather than conceptual or foreign, to a Massachusetts native.
Best of Luck by Jason Mott
“It’s about time that I got my luck back.”
This one opens with a hostage situation that comes about because two lifelong best friends, Will and Barry, realize that life and their relationship are coming to an end at gunpoint. Why? Well, some guys have all the luck… But you’d have to be crazy to think that luck wasn’t entirely some random gift from the karmic gods, and that people can manipulate it, right?
This is the story, told mainly in conversation during these terrifying moments, of two men coming to terms with the supernatural horror of the choices we make and how they affect others. It’s as if there is some jar of good fortune we are all born with that must be protected at all costs and used effectively.
This was perhaps one of the more cerebral stories, told in hindsight and conversation between these characters. As each reveal comes, the question becomes whether or not we can stomach the truth—and whether the lengths they each went to in order to accomplish certain things in their lives were worth it. Inventive, this was one of the shortest in the series.
Big Bad by Chandler Baker
“Love is fear.”
This was a favorite of the series, and interestingly, it took about halfway for me to start liking it. I mean, the title and the cover really give the story away in terms of who and what the baddie of the story is, but there is a gorgeous, character-driven story that drives the gimmick. This one is not one to miss—I didn’t care for it, and then it shot to the top.
A man is a stay-at-home dad to a woman who is a famous, well-known, successful academic and lecturer. He must raise his two children alone and carry deep resentment toward his wife because of their marriage. Because of this, like any family struggling with trust, equality, equity, and responsibility, there are major issues with everything, from trust to truth, caregiving, and fear, and everything in between.
His little girls fear their dad and his anger, and everyone seems to be in a bad place. With Dad’s career aside, and a local mudslide driving the wolves of the town’s forest into habitable zones, a stranger arrives, and a variety of truly surprising twists show that Baker has a knack for not only surprise developments in a story, but also the ability to use the engine of a bad marriage and its various hidden truths to effectively tell a really great story.
Let me tell you… From personal experience, there is something so gratifying in this short. Children sometimes choose the parent who is unknowingly the monster they love. The one who harbors strange conceptions of what they are entitled to in parenthood and marriage, the rage that simmers because of what they are owed without giving, the resentment, the big bad monster inside. The image of what is right and true. Someone has to pay for it, and ultimately, unknowingly, it is the children.
After all, they note what “helps them be good…” even as they discover what that means.
Garrett Zecker 