Black Static #3

Black Static is a very stylized magazine, with an emphasis strongly put on layout, artwork, and design. On occasion, the white font against black background proves to be too straining on the eyes, but otherwise it’s a well put together product, offering a solid number of dark, edgy short stories that blur genre and subject lines.

Our nameless narrator in “The Pit” by Alexander Glass has always been haunted by the titular pool of nothing. He both hates and desires it, and his childhood friend, Sarah, claims that it only shows up when someone is ill or feeling down—only when unhappiness abounds—like when his parents were in the process of getting divorced. But now he’s grown up, happy, and unable to call the pit back to him. That is, until he learns that Sarah’s more dead than their promise to keep each other good and safe from the hungering unknown.

Vicious, depressing, and hopelessly surreal, “The Pit” kicks the latest issue of Black Static off to a great start. The image of a dark pit is rather simple and could’ve been used poorly, but Glass manages to place it in a child’s bedroom, allowing it to live there and fester, making the sacrificial abyss end-all creepy. Whether the pit itself is a metaphor for sinking feelings is up to the reader to decide, though. Regardless, it’s a fine story, well-crafted and entertaining.

Unfortunately, the following story, “The Mist of Lichthafen” by Seth Skorkowsky, failed to impress. In it, a deadly mist descends upon the city and everyone locks themselves inside out of fear of being driven mad…or worse. Well, not everyone. Kellek is a thief that has been waiting all season for the impending mist to arrive, knowing that the city is his once everyone takes to hiding. A job stealing from the Church has the means to make him rich beyond his dreams, and he plans to see it done no matter what the rumors say.

To compare the short story to Stephen King’s novella “The Mist” or John Carpenter’s The Fog would be easy. In all three entities, the weather is alive, harboring demonic powers, ghastly things, and human qualities. This just felt very routine. Whether the story taking place is set in a quiet fishing town or a supermarket or a sprawling city is not the point. Weather stories are still about the weather, making this one no more generic than the rest. The storm comes, the storm takeths, and the storm goes. Skorkowsky handles Kellek nicely, and the haunting images that the mist carries within are certainly disturbing, but this could have been so much more.

In “The Sentinels” by Tony Richards, a group of giant, cactus-like beings have Rick surrounded in the Phoenix desert. Or maybe he’s hallucinating; they could just be cacti after all. Of course, a pretty redheaded woman is behind it all. Since meeting Lucy at that bar—and subsequently falling in love with her ten days after—Rick’s been trying to leave the desert and find her, but the path always turns him around, keeps him stuck. And when the sun disappears and the desert truly comes alive, Rick will learn exactly what it means to be human.

“The Sentinels” is a very trippy piece that morphs the mundane aspects of the desert into something a bit more maddening. In a short period of time, Rick begins to lose his mind. This is done quite well, with a slew of tantalizing images, and cacti might never look the same again from here on out. As is common in these sorts of untrustworthy tales, answers are not given outright. Richards concludes the piece, though, with Rick’s time in the desert reaching its culmination and him finally seeing what he’s been all along.

At first, “The Difference Between” by Ian R. Faulkner looked to be nothing more than a war story, a solid showing of prose that had nothing speculative going on. Instead, as the young corporal Arthur Watts soldiers on (pun intended), dodging bullets and grenades as best as he can, wishing to get back to his wife, he discovers the battlefield has a new set of players. Women, garbed in tattered, bloody rags, are stalking those that fight on. Some men seem them as angels, others as death-bringers. Watts will learn firsthand the truth of the matter.

I enjoyed this one very much, especially once the uncertainty of what was happening around Watts came into full stride. But this isn’t David Drake military SF, no. “The Difference Between” mixes horror with gritty realism, and the outcome is astounding. You really get a sense of camaraderie within Watts’s unit, even if no one really likes each other. Read it; I promise you’ll be affected in some way or another.

In “The Morning After” by Carole Johnstone, a man is hurrying along down five hundred stone steps to catch the eight-twenty train. The night before had certainly been eventful, what with him anxiously meeting up with Stacy, the woman he yearned for, only to be introduced to Frankie, her new bloke. Things only worsened from there on, but he hasn’t time to dwell on those matters, not with a train to catch. However, as he stumbles and makes his way, he begins seeing clues, items that reveal what really happened and why he felt so horrible the morning after.

The story is nicely written, but not that surprising. Having guessed the ending a few paragraphs in, I took pleasure in the scenery of the train station. Only then did I see that what was happening was arbitrary, and that this man’s suffering was of his own doing. By the time he realizes it on his own, the train is ready to depart.

“The Fantasy Jumper” by Will McIntosh takes place in a sprawling city where there’s a kiosk for everything. One can revisit their dreams from the night prior, buy a puppy guaranteed to live for three days, or discern truth from lies. The focal point of the story, though, is the fantasy jumper kiosk, which pumps out artificial (and customizable) bodies that only want to jump from rooftops. The story follows Rando on his disappointing date with a girl, a neurotic and lonely man named Abbet, and Cloe and Violet, a young couple harboring hate for one another.

This reminded me so much of the wonderful Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee, a novel that takes place in a utopian society where citizens off themselves for fun, knowing they can get a new body later on. Fantasy jumpers here aren’t asked to leap from buildings for fun, though; Rando goes so far as to see his mother take the plunge, releasing inner demons as she hits the pavement. However, one thing that was unclear was McIntosh’s descriptions of his characters; they were all compared to animals, being very animalistic, having shark faces or being cute as a chipmunk, and it became difficult to tell if they were, in fact, people at all. I suspect they were. “The Fantasy Jumper” has a good handful of disturbing images in it and, despite its length, manages to connect all its players in a natural, permissible way. Weird and well-recommended.

Ed McCarthy, a modeler of toys, is being sued by his former employer in “The Toad and I” by Matthew Holness. So he goes to, hopefully, make nice, but it quickly becomes clear that Mr. Kenyon is not going to budge from his stance, not unless Ed makes with the hurting. What at first seemed to be something far from a speculative fiction story surprisingly takes a turn down New Weird Lane three-fourths of the way through. I can’t honestly say I understood this one, though. And the toad from the title? It plays a small, unexplainable part at the end, which left me puzzled. Unless I missed something, this vindictive and uncomely tale of obtaining revenge made no sense whatsoever. Maybe that was the point.

[Disclosure notice: The Fix is brought to you by TTA Press, publisher of Black Static.]