Happy Goat Horror

It feels like this whole place is infected, like someone buried something here and its roots were rotten and dead, and it’s coming up, and it’s growing. Soon enough it’ll sprout, and then we’ll be breathing it in.

A builder unearths a hand, buried on a building site; a woman with a unique way of speaking to the dead comes across her toughest client to date; a young man returns to his hometown, desperately searching for his missing sister.

In his debut collection, Daniel Carpenter explores places and the people who get lost in them. From Manchester to London, as well as the uncanny fringes of England, these are stories that span the breadth of the Weird.

Dark bleatings, my curious tribe. Today, I’m reviewing the debut short story collection from Daniel Carpenter, and I have to say – what a great book, especially for a debut! If this is how the author is coming out of the gate, I’m really excited to see what they do next.

It’s a collection of horrors set in England, no two stories are alike, and it explores some truly unique and weird ideas. Without further ado, let me tell you a bit about my 3 favourites…

HUNTING BY THE RIVER

Lee goes home to visit his sister, Kirsty, on her birthday, but she isn’t there. She’s gone missing, and apparently she doesn’t want to be found. We know this because she talks to Lee through other people – quite literally – he’s just sat in a cafe one day and a stranger starts talking, and he quickly realises that it’s Kirsty somehow using the dude as a mouthpiece. There are indications that she got involved with some sort of occult shenanigans.

This story works as a short because it gives us enough weirdness and mystery, and it’s basically the end of the road for Lee, who is our protagonist. However, it also made me crave an expansion from Kirsty’s perspective because it felt like the tip of the iceberg, like there’s a huge world here that I only got to glimpse at.

HABITUAL

A sort of horrible ode to the loneliness of London, and it made me feel really sad. A lonely man in his 40’s with an alcohol problem takes a job basically watching over an empty apartment building, which he gets to live in. I personally would consider that a huge perk, because I immensely enjoy solitude. However, there’s a huge difference between solitude and loneliness, and this poor guy definitely doesn’t need more seclusion.

STABBED IN THE NECK BY DOT COTTON

Who could resist a story with a title like that? It’s unapologetically British in that people who aren’t from the UK aren’t likely to know who Dot Cotton is or why the thought of her stabbing someone in the neck is so funny.

We get to see people through the eyes of the apartment building itself, a viewpoint that I really enjoy. I’ve had the pleasure of reading a couple of stories recently from the perspective of buildings and I love them. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of this apartment block, the building has ill intentions. It may have killed before, and it may be looking for its next victim…

Overall, this is a consistently well-written, enjoyable, and weird horror collection, which I would recommend to general horror fans. If you’d like to get a copy, I have popped the link below for you:

HUNTING BY THE RIVER

Bleeeat!