by tony jones “Childhood and the supernatural are superbly balanced in this excellent anthology” “Bones: a Collection of Monsters” is an excellent anthology of the published works thus far of Andrew Cull, featuring three short stories of decent length and one outstanding 100-page novella. All four are also available as standalone purchases on Amazon, and if you’ve never come across this author he is well worth investigating further. This particular collection can also be found on Kindle Unlimited. All four stories are unique in style to each other; what they have in common is great storytelling, unsettling connections to childhood, suspense, believable characters, original settings and plots which linger in the memory long after the tale is concluded. This anthology has a certain charm and Cull is an author who I suspect is only going to improve and we are going to hear much more of as time goes by. The forty pager, “Did You Forget About Me?” is the dark as night opener. Cam Miller and his sister return to their childhood home to settle the estate of their estranged and recently deceased father. Neither brother or sister have seen him in 23 years, as he was violent to their mother and when they were kids they lived in terror of him. Over the years he wrote to Cam, following his career as an aspiring actor, but these letters were never read by his son and remained unanswered. Returning to the house is a haunting experience for the siblings who try to overcome their memories by getting pissed, however, there is something else lurking around their unchanged former home. There are childhood connections in “Hope and Walker” the second very quirky story which also has considerable charm in its beguiling 35 pages. Set in the small town of ‘Hope’ in the Australian Outback, Em Walker is the ten-year-old daughter of the owner of one of two funeral homes the town has. The bizarre reason there are two funeral homes dates back to a feud which split the company in half, with the argument being passed down a couple of generations, albeit half-heartedly. Soon the town is rocked be a terrible crime, and Em who may have a supernatural gift, finds herself in a whole lot of trouble as the plots converge. Set in 1991, “The Trade” is the third decidedly unsettling story in this highly original collection and once again a child’s point of view takes centre stage. A seven-year-old boy is looking forward to the long summer holidays when one morning a brutally mutilated cat is found on their doorstep. This death really unsettles the child who swears he can still smell the death rising above the scorching summer heat. Just when he is beginning to recover a dead dog is found close to the same location. The backdrop of the story is pivotal to the development of the plot, the marital problems of the parents which turn to violence in the extreme heat. The worried boy, imagination running wild, believes there is a monster lurking in the pipes of their old house and as his parents argue his psyche begins to crack. This is a particularly haunting story with an outstanding ending which stays with the reader long after the final page. It makes the reader recall the occasions we checked under our bed for monsters, because for the seven-year-old child they are always real, no matter what the parent reassures. Excellent stuff. Coming in at a nerve-tingling 100 pages in which not a word is wasted is “Knock and You Will See Me” is the centrepiece of the collection which I enjoyed tremendously. Packing some decent scares into a clever tale of a grieving mother who receives messages, in the form of letters, from beyond the grave. For the reader, the plot is a convincing balancing act between a potentially unreliable narrator and the escalation of supernatural occurrences, maybe.... The story is told in the first person by Ellie Ray, who reveals in the opening pages she has always had a knack of knowing the impossible; an example she refers to is knowing the location of the body of a drowned little girl from her own childhood. Ellie Ray is a great narrator and Cull does a convincing job of painting the picture of a grieving single parent trying to raise three boys on her own whilst protecting her sons from something she and nobody will ever understand. When the frequency of the letters increases, and their content gets more disturbing with Ellie truly believing her father is still alive, you’ll have a hard job putting “Knock and You Will See Me” down. The family interactions are painfully realistic and the sequences at the graveyard (and in the grave) are true nail-biters with powerful emotional punches tied to the pain of loved ones. Right up until the end the ambiguity is terrifically balanced. Michael Sieber previously reviewed “Knock and You Will See Me” for Ginger Nuts of Horror when it was released as a standalone novella. Michael also gave it a great review, which you can read here: http://gingernutsofhorror.com/fiction-reviews/knock-and-you-will-see-me-by-andrew-cull The collection concludes with a bonus four-page story which is omitted from the contents pages “The Rambling Man” which loosely connects the ‘bones’ theme of the title and is a fine piece of flash-fiction which could easily be expanded into something more substantial. The story opens with Emse being tied to a fence, close to a forest, she is about to be sacrificed to a being known as the Rambling Man but is too young and naïve to appreciate what is truly going on. However, even within a mere four pages the tale takes an unexpected twist. Great stuff, which delivers much in four short pages. Cull seems to be a busy guy and has his first novel “Remains” in the pipeline. Back in 2010 he wrote and directed the horror film “The Possession of David O’Reilly“ which you can currently catch on the SHUDDER horror channel. This guy obviously has horror in his blood and I recommend “Bones” wholeheartedly. Tony Jones   VIDEO GAME REVIEW: DREAM ALONEComments are closed.
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