Split Scream Volume Eight Review

Special thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC copy they provided. (Sorry I’m a tad late with this review. Eeek!)

I say it practically every time I write a review of a Tenebrous book, but Tenebrous Press never disappoints. And the Split Scream series? Oh now, that’s something special. The Split Scream books always land and always get me.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Maybe it’s my fond memories of 80’s style horror flicks, or just my overall love of the immersive experience of watching film, but the Split Scream horror double feature format smacks me just right every book. And volume eight just happens to be a bit more spectacular than most.

Split Scream Volume Eight starts out with Passing Glance by Sonora Taylor. The shorter of the works in this double feature, Passing Glance is instantly captivating. Sonora shows us a mirror, opens a door, and… we dare to walk through. All unknowing of exactly what that means.

Of the dangers of just that. This seemingly innocuous act.

How many times in a day do we open a door and walk through? Confident in the fact we will emerge on the other side right where we intend to be? Right where we know we should be, and where we can find our way forward from?

The answer is probably more times than we can count, or even consciously think about. Sonora gives us a story about the dangers of walking through a door, not knowing what it means. And not being able to get back to the other side, where we started from.

That world on the other side of the mirror? The place where everything is the same, but not, reversed, distorted? That’s the world where we find ourselves through no fault of our own, other than distraction and self-absorption. Which, let’s be honest, we’re all guilty of. If we weren’t paying attention to our own needs and wants we probably wouldn’t be alive.

And so this trap is all the more terrifying.

If we can become lost in other realms without doing anything overtly wrong, as thoughtlessly and easily as opening a door and walking through, then we’re all in danger.

And we all should watch our step.

Passing Glance gave me the true feeling of loneliness and despair that comes with knowing we’ve walked out of our world and there won’t be another door leading back. Open the cover of the book, peer into the pages, and see what does, or doesn’t, peer back.

If you dare. If that door doesn’t terrify you.

And once you’re done staring into the existential other, maybe take a walk out to the coop and see what the hens are laying.

Matthew Pritt’s Lash Egg is several pages longer than Passing Glance and several shades of different. First off, can we talk about what a lash egg is?? Because eww, I did not know that is a thing, and now I have a whole other reason to hate eggs and be disgusted by them. (Thanks Matthew, not only did you help Alex develop a fear of eggs during editing, you raised mine to new heights, I will never look at an egg the same again, I will forever squint at them in suspicion.)

If you don’t know what a lash egg is, I encourage you to look it up (if you have the stomach for it…), the knowledge will give this story new depths of horror. Believe me.

Lash Egg is infection and goo and the mucus hiding under uncertainty. It is the plague of our own creation that seeps through our mind when things are going just too well. It’s the surety our seeming facade of security and stability cannot, and will not last, and it’s only a matter of time before the predators will come stalking us again.

It’s the disease we unwittingly feed our loved ones, one word, one deed, one casual remark at a time.

The horror is in that fact we are the carrier, we are the one spreading our own worst fear, contaminating everything we touch.

Matthew managed to disturb me before I even reached the end of Lash Egg and walked face first into the theme of his tale, like the broadside of a barn I didn’t know was there, but that was so utterly obvious the moment I hit it. Not often a story will do that to me, and then turn around and bop me upside the head by making me cry.

The audacity of turning this creepy, gross little narrative into the most hopeful, melancholy thing imaginable… ASDFKDLKFDPFKPDK!!

Not fair, Matthew, not fair. And yet, nicely done.

You won’t see the ending coming. And when that one line that explains the whole thing comes your way to causally flick you in the forehead, you’ll know. You’ll UNDERSTAND, because we are all the carriers.

Split Scream Volume Eight is something to sink your teeth into. Step into the cursed places. Come to them… before they come to you.

You won’t regret it.

Probably.