Joseph Rubas - Shades: Dark Tales of Supernatural Horror

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Joseph Rubas - Shades: Dark Tales of Supernatural Horror (Parallel Universe, Jan. 2017)

Passing the Buck
Midnight
Aokigahara
Snowbound
Deja Vu
The Ghostly Hitchhiker
Just a Mask
Meeting Ray Bradbury
5051 Bartley Square
The Witching Hour
Potter's Field
The Warlock
Confessional
The Thing in the Woods
The Lake House
Chomo
The Traveling Show of 2016
Evildoer
A Perfect Life
Fury
Paint
Night of the Dog

Blurb:
Joseph Rubas began writing in 2002 after reading Stephen King’s The Stand. His earliest efforts reflected his deep love of that novel; he tried again and again to write a rip-off, but finally gave up around 2006 and resigned himself to writing original fiction. His first short story was published in May 2010 on the now defunct Horror Bound Online website. His second story was published in September 2010 in a Pushcart Prize nominated literary magazine for new and beginning writers called The Storyteller. Since then, his work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. His first collection, the now out of print Pocketful of Fear, was released by a small publisher in 2012. His second collection, After Midnight, appeared in 2014. His short fiction has appeared in: Nameless Digest; The Horror Zine; Eschatology Journal; Thuglit; Manor House; All Due Respect, and others. He has self-published three longer works: The Rocking Dead: Seasons 1-3 (a parody of the AMC series The Walking Dead); The Rocking Dead: Season 4; The Shapeshifter; and Dracula 1912, the latter a novel.

In addition to writing, he has also edited two anthologies: A Thorn of Death (2012) and The 3rd Spectral Book of Horror Stories (2016).

He currently resides in Albany, New York.

There is fast out of the blocks and there is Parallel Universe. Just three weeks into 2017 and the Riley's follow David Williamson's very recommended The Chameleon Man & Other Terrors with a second new title, and early indications are it's another cracker.

Passing the Buck: Fatally eventful ten minutes at the Mall for Kayleigh, who has been stood up by a mate. Kind by nature, she agrees to help a younger girl move a box from her car, even though she wonders what a kid that age - fourteen, fifteen - is doing driving. Had Kayleigh only read a few horror stories she'd be familiar with the cruellest lesson of all. It never pays to play the Good Samaritan.

Midnight: At 15 pages, one of Mr. Rubas' longer efforts, and my pick of the stories to date. Jeffrey Morgan, the new kid in town, is terrified he'll not make any friends. That the Jocks and Cheerleaders can't even be bothered to acknowledge Jeff's miserable existence is only to be expected, but it's come to something when even his fellow social misfits are stand-offish. And then, through a shared fondness for Magic cards, Jeff meets Andrew Cooper who invites him to join a Coven centred around Devilspawn, a live action role playing game. The Coven take Devilspawn very seriously to the point where they plan to summon Satan in the old cemetery off Fried Meat Ridge Road. Jeffrey is in two minds about accepting the invitation until comely Devilspawn babe Kayla Wilson lets on that she's taken a shine to him. The Cemetery at midnight it is!

Unfortunately, even Andrew has grossly underestimated his masterly of Black Sorcery. Not only does his spell unleash Satan but every damned rotting corpse in the vicinity. The ghouls invade the neighbouring communities where terrified residents are either tortured and eaten alive, or demoniacally possessed to swell the ranks. Jeffrey and Kayla somehow escape to hole up in a church, but how long can they keep the insatiable dead at bay?

Huge body count, extremely gory, and a whole lot of fun. Even the hokey ending suits. Pop culture reference fans are well catered for here and throughout: Kiss, Billy Joel, The Monster Mash, Carrie, The Stand: The Complete & Uncut edition, Bill Gates, Night Of The Living Dead, tentacle porn, Catcher In The Rye, Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction, Iggy Izala, Biggie Smalls, The Silence Of The Lambs.... Also features an all-too brief cameo from Ray Tomlinson, "Westernport's resident drunk," who prides himself on not having thrown up since 1991.

The Ghostly Hitch-Hiker: "Wonder what ghost butt feels like?" Halloween, and two slacker pals set off in search of the Ghost of Highway 45, a young woman killed in a car accident way back in the 'seventies. 'The White Lady' has been trying to find her way home ever since. And look - there she is!

Cute story even if, for once, I guessed the ending.

Just a Mask: (HalloWEEn Tales, Oct. 2016). Two twelve year old kids trick or treating. Jake Warner dares Tommy Wilford to call at the creepy house with the over-abundance of lame "spooky" decorations. Something waits within, bowl of sweeties at the ready.

Meeting Ray Bradbury: Dr. Paul LeMond prepares to test drive his time machine, destination Illinois, summer 1933. It has long been LeMond's dream to meet his hero, Ray Bradbury, before he was an author. What was Ray like as a kid growing up in Waukegan? The weighty contraption lands in the Bradbury's backyard ....

[To be continued]

Thanks to David & Linden Riley

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Aokigahara: (The Horror Zine, Oct. 2013, as The Suicide Forest). A proper creepy, best-of-book contender. Raised in America, Johnny Yun and Hendrio Takanowa return to the Far East and find it impossible to adapt to the Japanese way of life. Johnny is resentful that he should endure relative poverty, Hendrio, an eternal optimist, blunders by thanks to a genius for hare-brained money-making schemes. The latest is to visit the infamous Suicide Forest to pick the pockets of the dead ....

Snowbound: (Manor House Dark Audio, Jan. 2016). More ghoulish goings on. Philip Garner, psychic researcher, books in at the Wiltshire Bed & Breakfast, promoted by proprietors Fred and Martha Mansfield as the 'Most haunted inn in New England.' Garner soon realises his visit has been a complete waste of time. There's nothing remotely 'supernatural' about the place, and to make matters worse, he's marooned there indefinitely due to a snow blizzard. The Mansfields admit to a hoax, but offer in mitigation that it's what the public want. Their mischief rebounds with interest.

[benedictjjones]

this sounds right up my street - will have to try and pick it up

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5051 Bartley Square: "From Ghosts Of The British Isles by Chester Compton, 1937." An account of a spectacularly haunted house in South London. Very obviously derivative of Elliott O'Donnell's fanciful history of Mayfair's 50 Berkley Square. Mr. Compton's tenuous grasp of local geography suggests an over reliance on 'The London Map of Solar Pons.'

Déjà vu: Veteran SF author Richard Morgan has a bad case of it. How could he have prophesied Reagan's presidency, the assassination of John Lennon and the rise of ISIS in a series of stories he has no recollection of writing?

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Jan 25, 2017 10:13:40 GMT benedictjjones said:

this sounds right up my street - will have to try and pick it up

I like the way he mixes it up. Trad supernatural horror hokum, real nasty stuff, SF, micro-fiction, and sick and twisted Tales From The Crypt like the following necrophilia outing.

Potter's Field: Warsaw, South Virginia. Sam Potter, thirty, gets off on sex with with women in their death throes. Fifteen years after his initial murder of schoolgirl Karen Longwood, the urge again overwhelmed him and now his tally stands at seven and rising. Potter disposes of the bodies in a strip of wasteland owned by his father. Our man is driving the van there right now with the radio tuned in to a heavy rock station ("a program hosted by an ageing shock rocker with a woman's name") and latest conquest, Sherry, dumped in back. But on arrival at his destination, Potter senses something is terribly wrong ...

The Warlock: Florida. A bunch of youths led by Charlie Parker, Holyfield's champion juvenile delinquent, torch the woodland hovel of Keynard Mays, local weirdo and alleged witch. The old geezer dies in the conflagration but his charred 'n crispy corpse refuses to lie still until he's extracted revenge. Sheriff Dan Mars has the unenviable task of trying to identify the arsonists and their kin before the flame-grilled warlock can nail them.

Confessional: (The Literary Hatchet, Aug. 2015). Set in the early 'seventies. Catholic priest Father Thomas, 63, is obliged by his oath to suffer regular updates from gloating serial killer 'The San Francisco Slasher.' With tonight's taunting confession to a particularly hideous double murder - "it's too good not to share!" - the Priest takes matters into his own capable hands.

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The Witching Hour: (The Haunted Traveler, May 2015). Alexandru Anton, 30, investigates reports of Devil Worship, animal and human sacrifice in the woods surrounding a tiny Transylvanian village. Anton's mission is to infiltrate the Coven headed by Mayor Florin. The locals, brutalised by first the Nazi's, then the Communists, have turned to Satan as their protector. When Anton reports his findings to the Securitate, the order is given for Zela to be razed. Can the peasants rely on the Evil One in their hour of need?

Chomo: A convicted paedophile receives a taste of his own. Unseemly flash fiction.

Evildoer: (Dark Dossier, Sept. 2014). A plague lays waste to the entire population of American give or take a far scattered handful of survivors. God is not best pleased with the outcome and assigns mop-up duties to his loyal disciple, Danny Hotchkiss, religious nutter.

The Travelling Show of 2016: (Beyond Science Fiction, July 2015). King George County, Virginia. Julius Lazlow's Magic Circus sets up in Barnsfied Park for an Independence Day celebration. Sheriff Dan Parker's gut instinct tells him something bad is gonna happen. Sheriff Dan Parker's gut instinct is 100% correct.

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The Lake House: When wife Connie dies of cancer, author Jim Conner relocates to a dilapidated property in the wilds of Vermont to complete his novel. Bad move. The cursed house by the water is hungry for the next sacrifice.

A Perfect Life: (T. Gene Davis Speculative Fiction Blog, Aug. 2015).
Bill Wexler is playing happy families. Just for a moment his rose-tinted glasses slip revealing the appalling reality of his situation.

The Thing In The Woods: Two families on a camping holiday fall foul of Amu-Ne and his hooded cultists who have made it their business to procure human sacrifices for the Great God of the Forest. Jenny Warner, a precocious twelve-year-old is ideal for their purpose, but they'll need to abduct the girl before wayward Derrick Warner, seventeen, gets to share her sleeping bag. The midnight raid is only a partial success. Ex-army buddies Tim Warner and David Conner storm the cultists' cave taking down three worshippers in a hail of bullets. But even as they free Jenny from her shackles, the terrible deity drags its creepy crawlie bulk into the fray ....

Pop culture references still coming thick and fast. No matter how dire the circumstances it seems we doomed ones will always find time to listen to some metal/ cock rock/ AOR and, occasionally, Kayne West.

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Finally for Shades.

Fury: (Schlock!, April 2015). Tommy Simmons, 13, the new kid in Cedar Point. Timid little speccy four-eyes, verbally and physically abused at home by drunk dad, verbally and physically abused at school by all comers, chief among them Olympic standard bully, Butch Hargrove. In situations like this, a boy desperately needs to find a strange, metallic disc in the woods primed to unleash fury - in the form of a bony werewolf from outer space. Sergeant Parker tries to make sense of a murder epidemic as his town goes up in flames. More than a hint of Carrie in male drag (with an allegedly "tiny dick" and a passion for vampire and sci-fi novels) about this one.

Paint: A thrill-kill couple employed at a restaurant take advantage of a staff paint-balling excursion to settle grievances old and new. Sean Barnes, who couldn't think up a convincing excuse to cry off, is hunted as prey in a re-enactment of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game.

Night Of The Dog: Fredericksburg. Terror stalks the campus. Can Detectives Dean Whitehead and Deke Morgan spot the serial killer in their midst before he/she/it strikes again?


Aokigahara would be my best-of-book nomination, with Midnight, Paint, Potter's Field and the plain nasty Fury scoring highly in the sick entertainment stakes, but they all got something. Richard Laymon fans will likely appreciate all the carrying on in the woods (the aforementioned Potter's Field reads like a budget Mess Hall).