An Awesome Little Collection - And Zombie Dinosaurs

TITLE: We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories
AUTHOR: C. Robert Cargill
PUBLISHER: Harper Voyager
PUBLISHING DATE: June 12, 2018

FROM GOODREADS: From the critically acclaimed author of Sea of Rust and Queen of the Dark Things comes a hair-raising collection of short fiction that illuminates the strange, humorous, fantastical, and downright diabolical that tantalize and terrorize us: demons, monsters, zombie dinosaurs, and Death itself.

In the novella "The Soul Thief’s Son" C. Robert Cargill returns to the terrain of the Queen of the Dark Things to continue the story of Colby Stevens . . .

A Triceratops and an Ankylosaurus join forces to survive a zombie apocalypse that may spell extinction for their kind in "Hell Creek" . . .

In a grand old building atop a crack in the world, an Iraq War veteran must serve a one-year term as a punisher of the damned condemned to consume the sins of others in the hope that one day he may find peace in "In a Clean, White Room" (co-authored with Scott Derrickson) . . .

In "The Town That Wasn’t Anymore," the village of Pine Hill Bluff loses its inhabitants one at a time as the angry dead return when night falls to steal the souls of the living . . .

And in the title story, "We Are Where the Nightmares Go," a little girl crawls through a glowing door beneath her bed and finds herself trapped in a nightmarish wonderland—a crucible of the fragments of children’s bad dreams.

These tales and four more are assembled here as testament to Cargill’s mastery of the phantasmagoric, making We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories a collection of unnerving horror and fantasy will keep you up all night and haunt your waking dreams.

MY THOUGHTS:  I pretty much added this short story collection to my wishlist the first time I saw it based on the cover.  I mean, come on, there are tentacles so it was a must.  And then I started hearing some pretty good things about it so I asked that my library order a copy and was thrilled when they did.  Now I usually find short story collections hard to review so I made a few notes as I read this and want to mention each story briefly.  Let's hope this works

      THE TOWN THAT WASN'T ANYMORE - 5/5 Old WV mining town haunted by those the mine claimed.  (Snow, Faith, Fox)

      WE ARE WHERE THE NIGHTMARES GO - 5/5 Little girl takes a doorway beneath her bed and then tries to return (Feisty, Clowns, Lost)

     AS THEY CONTINUE TO FALL - 2/5 Man fights fallen angels who tormented him as a child (Dark, City, Feathers)

      HELL CREEK - 5/5 Dinosaur love story.  Triceratops needs a friend (Death, Blood, Zombies)

     JAKE AND WILEY AT THE END OF THE WORLD - 3/5 Good old boys drinking as the world ends around them (Drunk, Idiots, TV shows)

     THE LAST JOB IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST - 3/4 Man on a mission to kill people gets a big surprise (Bombs, Timing, Reapers)

     HELL THEY CALL HIM, THE SCREAMERS - 2/5 The Butcher carves people up for a living (Blood, Guts, Gore)

 

     I AM THE NIGHT YOU NEVER SPEAK OF - 3/5 Nighttime killer suckers a drink to come along for the ride (Nightbreed, VHS, Fantasies)

     THE CLEAN WHITE ROOM - 4/5 Man with a job to do questions his purpose (White, Friends, Enemies)

     THE SOUL THIEF'S SON  - DNF

Overall I felt this book was pretty solid.  My favorite story was Hell Creek closely followed by The Town That Wasn't Anymore.  It was nice to see a spooky WV tale.  I ended up DNF'ing The Soul Thief's Son because it was related to a series Cargill has written which I hadn't read yet and I had trouble getting into it.  Perhaps I'll revisit it someday as I definitely want to read more from this author.  "We Are Where the Nightmares Go" is a nice collection of all things spooky and weird.  I definitely think it's worth a read for any horror lover and I'd love to see this book get more attention.

MY RATING: 4 PAWS