The Town That Feared Dusk - Short and Scary
I was excited to get the chance to read this newest release from Calvin Demmer because so far everything I’ve read from Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp Shocks series has been really good. Demmer’s contribution to the series, The Town That Feared Dusk, is no different. While the story itself is short, it still manages to deliver the sense of fear and awe that I expect from the series.
One thing Demmer excels at in this story and in his collection The Sea is a Fair Master (check out our review and interview HERE) is his ability to cram a tremendous amount of information into as few words as possible. It is clear reading his work that Demmer spends a lot of time on word choice because his writing is clear and concise yet descriptive.
This story revolves around a journalist name Sylvia who is investigating a number of suicides at a bridge that has come to be known as the Suicide Bridge. However during her investigation, she comes to realize that the deaths at the bridge were not suicides but the result of spirits or phantoms that appear in and around the bridge only at dusk each day. Instead of just reporting on the event at the Suicide Bridge however, Sylvia gets drawn into the story she is supposed to be reporting on and hopes that she can get rid of the spirits that live near the bridge.
Again Demmer proves to be a master at complex stories that are short and engrossing. He manages to fill this story with a few twists and turns that I personally didn’t see coming. And while the twists are present, they don’t feel shoved in or placed there just to shock the reader, but instead belong in the story and only work to enhance it.
This is probably one of the shortest reviews I’ve written, but if I pushed the review much longer, It would end up rivaling the story itself as far as word count goes. But don’t let the length of this story or this review deter you, The Town That Feared Dusk is a tremendous read and well worth your time. Pick it up now and give it a shot. Strong 4/5 on this one.
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