Spotlight & Excerpt: SHADOW MASTERS: AN ANTHOLOGY FROM THE HORROR ZINE, edited by Jeani Rector

“Veteran editor Jeani Rector delivers the scares again! I have no idea how she manages to pack so much talent between her covers, but she does it over and over, and Shadow Masters is her best anthology yet. If you had doubts about the health of the modern horror story, doubt no more. Jeani Rector and her amazing stable of writers have got all the proof you'll ever need that the genre remains vital and compelling. I loved this book!” – Joe McKinney, author of The Savage Dead

 

“Read the first half of Shadow Masters straight through; it was like eating potato chips, I couldn’t stop! Didn’t bother pacing myself through the second half, either. Some old favorites in here, like Bentley Little, Christian Larsen, and Elizabeth Massie. I was also blown away by some new discoveries for me, like Yvonne Navarro and Melanie Tem. A great collection that hits all the big notes: demons, cannibalism, the dead and unquiet, and some subtle surprises. These people are twisted!” – Susie Moloney, author of The Thirteen

“When you’re stuck in a crypt with only a flashlight and one thing to read, make damn sure it’s your copy of Shadow Masters. Presenting stories from veterans of their craft, Shadow Masters is another winner for Jeani Rector and The Horror Zine.” –  Charles P. Zaglanis, Editor in Chief of White Cat Publications LLC

 

“This anthology is chock-full of wonderfully horrific stories from noted authors as well as talented unknowns. I especially liked “Reanimator” by editor Jeani Rector. It deals with a young widow whose loving husband has come back to life, and it explores not just the wrenching emotional issues surrounding such an experience, but also the enormous cultural, legal and societal issues that would be involved. And it has a powerfully flippant surprise ending!” –  John Russo, co-writer of the original film Night of the Living Dead 

AN EXCERPT FROM “THE CHURCH” BY MATTHEW WILSON

Sam was his only friend in a town of ghosts.

Liam could not go to war. He couldn’t defend his country in the face of gunfire and be a hero. But here he could make a difference. Here he could save his friend, if he could only find the courage to step off the sidewalk.

He cursed himself, wondering if it was enough protection to simply cross his fingers as he stepped through the mangled gate. He felt like he was crossing from one world to another, a lost explorer in the desert, low on water, hoping this first step in the dark was toward the right direction.

He ducked, expecting some kind of attack when an owl hooted in the air. It did not land on the dead tree, but instead chose to keep flying. Nothing good stopped here.

Walking cautiously on the church grounds, he felt the slight breeze as it rustled the leaves on the overgrown shrubs. The path was dangerous to maneuver in the dark, with uneven concrete pavers that alternatively sank and protruded. To the right and left of the path, wild trees grew at odd angles that had limbs untamed from lack of pruning.

By the time he reached the first granite slab that gleamed in the silver moonlight, the sound of digging assaulted his senses. Liam followed the sound, until he saw that Sam was bringing a spade up and down like a pick axe, breaking open the ground.

Liam paused, fearing what Sam might bring up from the bowels of the earth. A dead hand might reach up from the grave at any minute and drag him down. Liam silently asked mercy from whatever force looked after young men.

He had been stepping only on the pavers. He did not trust the poisoned earth. If the dead souls beneath it minded being trod upon, they had not grabbed his ankles yet.

Coming closer, Liam called, “Sam? It’s me, what the hell are you doing? Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Sam stopped digging and Liam could see him smiling in the moonlight. His eyes were closed, but he was talking. “It’s quite all right, Liam. I know what I’m doing. I haven’t gone mad. Remember, you’re the crazy one and I’m just the one with the bum leg.”

“Come on, Sam, let’s get out of here,” Liam repeated.

“I can’t leave. I’m buried here and now I have to dig myself up again. The church told me it would help me.”

Liam nervously glanced over his shoulder at the church. It still seemed to sleep. He advanced, one step, two…“Sam. You’re not buried in this churchyard. We have to leave this place. It doesn’t like us.”

“What are you talking about? It invited me here; it wants me here. It wants me to dig.”

Liam stopped walking. The spade was barred at him like a knight’s lance warding off a dragon.

“Sam! What are you doing?”

“I should never have thrown those rocks. You were right. I see that now.”

“You don’t see shit. Let’s go.”

“You want my body to rot down there? You don’t want me to breathe, to feel the sun? You’re just like your crazy father. He’s down there too.”

“My father is buried across town, not here. Listen, Sam, that’s someone’s grave. They’re gonna be pissed, you digging it up—whoa!”

Liam threw his head back like a boxer avoiding a KO blow. The head of the spade missed him by inches, cutting the tips off his hair which fluttered to the ground like autumn leaves. The hair frazzled and smoked like spent match heads, sinking into the earth like worms fleeing crows.

Laughing, Sam swung the shovel like a maniac samurai. Liam was afraid of the earth flinging off it, sizzling like acid as it hit the stones he stood upon.

The church tasted and woke. A blue candle came on in the window.

Stay away from the church, his father had said. Suddenly Liam remembered the rest of what his father used to say: Only the dead are welcome there, and you have so much life in you.

------------------------------------------

While most people go to Disneyland while in Southern California, Jeani Rector went to the Fangoria Weekend of Horror there instead.  She grew up watching the Bob Wilkins Creature Feature on television and lived in a house that had the walls covered with framed Universal Monsters posters.  It is all in good fun and actually, most people who know Jeani personally are of the opinion that she is a very normal person. She just writes abnormal stories. Doesn’t everybody?

Jeani Rector is the founder and editor of The Horror Zine and has had her stories featured in magazines such as Aphelion, Midnight Street, Strange Weird and Wonderful, Dark River Press, Macabre Cadaver, Ax Wound, Horrormasters, Morbid Outlook, Horror in Words, Black Petals, 63Channels, Death Head Grin, Hackwriters, Bewildering Stories, Ultraverse, and others.