Release date: June 24, 2016
Subgenre: Horror anthology
About Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories:
GUTTED: BEAUTIFUL HORROR STORIES – an anthology of dark fiction
that explores the beauty at the very heart of darkness. Featuring
horror's most celebrated voices, as well as a number of exciting
new talents: Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul
Tremblay, John F.D. Taff, Lisa Mannetti, Damien Angelica Walters,
Josh Malerman, Christopher Coake, Mercedes M. Yardley, Brian Kirk,
Stephanie M. Wytovich, Amanda Gowin, Richard Thomas, Maria
Alexander and Kevin Lucia.
What is beautiful horror?
Awe meets ache.
Terror becomes transcendence.
Regret gives way to rebirth.
Edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward. With a foreword from Cemetery Dance magazine founder Richard Chizmar. Interior artwork by Luke
Spooner. Cover artwork by Caitlin Hackett.
“Truly one of the best anthologies I have ever read.” – Paula
Limbaugh, Horror Novel Reviews
“As the title says, Gutted really is a collection of Beautiful Horror Stories that isn't afraid to look for light in the strangest of places,
even as it embraces the appeal of the darkness.” – Bob R Milne,
Beauty in Ruins
“It's a book for readers who love language as much as story, who
understand that horror can be beautiful, ecstatic and revelatory as
well as down-right scary.” – James Everington
Excerpt from "Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave" by Brian Kirk:
The box he kept her in was five-and-a-half feet
long. I got a glimpse of it as they hauled it from the house, three large
policemen lifting on each side as though carrying a heavy coffin to a hearse.
Wanting, I suppose, to be a part of history. To take a proverbial brick from
the Berlin Wall. They all broke into sheepish grins as the cameras began to
flash. Like best men walking down the aisle at a poon hound’s wedding. As if
they’d done something noble or heroic, rather than finally follow up on the
third tip dropped by a neighbor, who they’d locked up several times for petty
crimes.
Five-and-a-half feet long. She was
four-foot-nine when he took her. Would have been five-seven now if not for the
stooped neck. If not for the stunted growth. But I guess her unattained height
is the least of my concern. Or maybe it’s all summarized in that stolen inch.
Here’s how I found out they’d found
her. I’m driving home from a gig—I live in Jersey now, I lived in Connecticut
then. I’m listening to 96.1 The Thump on the FM dial—which was Meagan’s
favorite station. Back then. The one she made me listen to while driving her
to-and-from school. It played six minutes of pop songs sandwiched between
sixteen minutes of ads for Clearasil and maxi pads. You’d think I would have stopped
listening to the station after she was gone, but I couldn’t. In the six years
she was missing, the station changed format eight times. Went from pop to
oldies to NPR back to pop to sports talk to classic rock back to pop to
contemporary rock, which I think just means bland music. It’s terrible, but,
then again, I’m not really listening.
They interrupted a Bryan Adams song
with one of those screeching AMBER alert sounds. Then, from the ethereal
airwaves sent from some turnstile station, I hear:
We have breaking news to report to
you right now.
Oh my goodness we do.
Yes, my goodness. Meagan Towser, a
young girl from the tri-state area who was reported missing six years ago, has
just been located.
Amazing, just amazing.
Amazing is right. According to sources
on the scene she has been held captive all this time in a house mere miles from
the home she was allegedly abducted from.
I imagine the radio waves streaming
through the air like some toxic breeze. Birds falling dead from the sky in
droves. The voices get huskier, grave and earnest.
Reports indicate she may have been
held captive in a box.
Oh, God, that’s terrible.
Terrible.
Oh, God.
God, that’s terrible. Just terrible.
Terrible, God.
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