The Night Belongs To Us and Other Stories by Jess Landry

 

Release date: March 31, 2023

Subgenre: Horror, Short Fiction Collection

 

About The Night Belongs To Us and Other Stories:

 

 Sometimes the deepest wounds are from those we hold the closest.

In her debut collection, Bram Stoker Award-winner Jess Landry blurs the line between genres, magnifying the darkness in the spaces in between, and confronting those relationships that are nearest and dearest to us in the most horrific ways.

A mother and her daughter escape Nazi Germany, boarding the Hindenburg under the promise of a new life. An abused musical protégé discovers that her rage fuels much more than her cello-playing abilities. A hardened police officer finds something unexpected in the rising flood waters of her evacuated hometown. A woman ventures out onto the sea, in hopes of finding a mysterious mist where the dead roam freely. A strange tar infests the home of a young girl, swallowing everything in its wake, including her mother. Two broken women form a tragic bond while searching for a missing person in the dead of winter.

Mothers. Daughters. Sisters. Friends. No one is safe.

 

Excerpt:

 

I

Mary dangled the necklace in between her fingers, letting the closed locket spin. It reminded her of when her daughter, Laura, was young, how they would dance and twirl and fall onto the patchy brown carpet in their shitty rundown apartment, the one that Mary paid an arm and a leg for in rent.
Simpler times, she thought, when they would laugh about nothing, Laura’s giggles enough to break even the coldest of spirits; when they knew what each other was thinking; when they would disappear together into make-believe worlds of Laura’s doing—anything to escape their reality, a reality that grew bleaker every passing day with Mary unable to work and her government payments barely putting food on their second-hand table.
The light coming in through the only window in the room hit the gold at just the right spot, casting a glint in her eye as the locket continued to twirl. Inside, a picture of Laura, maybe five, maybe seven, of that Mary wasn’t sure. Laura had found the gold necklace on the street and given it to Mary as a gift, placing the only photo Laura could find of herself inside. Mary had sworn to Laura that she’d never take the necklace off, that she’d wear it around her neck, hanging at her heart, for always.
But that promise had been made a long time ago, when Laura was little and still believed the white lies that Mary often told.
Mary tucked a strand of her long, raven-black hair behind her ear and looked to the window, the glass shattered from neglect and time. Snow drifted behind the broken pane, the occasional flake finding its way into the room, softly fluttering down the peeling wallpaper and rotted wainscoting, the only memories of what this space once was. She’d assumed it had been an office, given its size—the office of someone important, until they’d abandoned this building like all the others in the area. Mary watched a single flake twirl onto the grated floor, only to disappear at the first touch, absorbed into the metal like it had never existed.
The metal grated flooring, as far as she knew, was a recent addition.
She’d spent the past few days in this room along with three others, all spread out across the uncomfortable floor. Days without a proper meal. Days without a hot shower or clean clothes or contact with the outside world. Just a broken window to remind her what was out there. A reminder of everything she wanted to leave behind.
She’d come to learn some of the rooms’ little secrets—the sloped secondary floor underneath the metal one, the one that caved in the centre, leading into a drain that travelled deep into the depths of the building; the muffled voices, sometimes sounding like screams, that rose from the drain pipe, finding their way into her ears while she tried to sleep; and the impenetrable rusted steel door, the one that led to a safe place, a quiet place, somewhere she could live out the rest of her days without having to worry about food or shelter…or Laura.
It was the whole reason she was there, after all. The whole reason any of them were.
Beyond the rusted door was where they needed to go.
It was where they belonged.
From behind a less important door— a weak wooden one that led back to humanity—footsteps echoed, growing closer and closer with every passing second.
The others in the room, women like Mary, cast out from society, shunned by their families, women looking for something more, something better—despite knowing the steep cost—all sat up, ready for their awaited visitor. A visitor with either a gift or a curse. Mary was never quite sure which to expect.

 

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About Jess Landry:

 Jessica Landry is a Canadian screenwriter, director, and Bram Stoker Award-winning author. Her collection, THE NIGHT BELONGS TO US, is being released by Crystal Lake Publishing; she co-edited the Bram Stoker Award-, Shirley Jackson Award-, and British Fantasy Award-nominated anthology THERE IS NO DEATH, THERE ARE NO DEAD; and has an original story in ALIENS VS PREDATOR: ULTIMATE PREY, released in March 2022. Her original horror feature, MY ONLY SUNSHINE, was accepted into Whistler Film Festival’s Screenwriters Lab in 2020 and is in development with Jessica set to direct. She was accepted into the CFC/Netflix Project Development Accelerator with her original horror/comedy series, CATASTROPHE QUEENS; as well as NSI’s Series Incubator Program with her original limited drama series, GHOSTS OF LAKELAND. Jessica has written several MOWs alongside Neshama Entertainment, including LIST OF A LIFETIME, which was nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Made for Television Movie. She’s also worked in the development room for the CBC show STRAYS; has written on FAMILY FIRST, a sitcom with Eagle Vision; 7TH GEN, a factual series with Eagle Vision and APTN; A DANGEROUS GAME, an original MOW with Vortex Productions; HEARTLAND HOMICIDE, a true crime series with Farpoint Films; BENNY, a WWII biopic feature with Sir Harry Films; and is currently adapting the novel APRIL RAINTREE as a limited series, among other projects in various stages of development. 

 

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