Spoilers: L. Marie Wood’s Horror Anthology, The Unholy Trinity: A Collection of 99 Stories is practically Tales From The Crypt in book form. So much so that I expected a wisecracking skeleton puppet to pop up from the pages and start quoting ghoulish puns.
Well that didn't happen but The Unholy Trinity carries many of the same great qualities that Crypt does: easy digestible stories of fears brought to life with spine tingling plots, graphic images, and engaging twists. These stories combine Wood's three previous horror anthologies, Caliginy, Phantasma, and Anathema. They are written to raise that slight chill in the back of the mind, the one that tells you that despite knowing that you are alone in the house while you read this book that maybe you should give that window, or that closet, or the door locks a second look. They remind us that watching horror is a fun and interesting pastime but reading horror lets your imagination fly off into dark and forbidden dimensions that turns your sleep into an unpleasant one.
All of the stories are terrifyingly well written and are certain to scare and delight the Reader but the best are:
“A Bat Out of Hell”-Right out of the gate, the first story is a mesmerizing thrill ride of shocks, scares, and screams of fright. Carly goes to the County Fair with her boyfriend and just can’t resist the roller coaster called A Bat Out of Hell.
This story draws the Reader right in with its atmosphere that promises fun and adventure but hints at something else. The Fair should be fun but there is darkness. The description and tone remind the Reader that these rides may be exciting but they also dare riders to defy death by going too high or too fast inside metal contraptions put together and inspected by people that may not be entirely trustworthy.
As if the regular suspense of a theme park isn’t bad enough, the roller coaster itself is far worse. The demonic Goth motif hints at its true intentions. There are bits of foreshadowing like the blood red seats and screams that sound less like the “fun to be scared” screams and more like the “being tortured and begging to be let go” screams. The final pages deliver the gore that reveals that this ride was literally meant to scare the Hell into you.
“The Dance”-“The Dance” mixes subtlety and eroticism. Gillian, the Narrator is mesmerized by a seductive dancer named Vanessa who fills her with desire especially after the two dance together.
This story is filled with descriptions of Vanessa and her dancing. She is beautiful and otherworldly. Her hair, body, face, and figure give off the impression that she is almost too perfect. Gillian feels stirrings within her that she ignored because of fears of being outed but they are brought forward the more she and Vanessa interact.
Vanessa awakens those longings that Gillian put away, the longings to be with someone without judgment, to be pleasured sexually and emotionally, and to feel that rush that one individual can bring to another individual. It is a truly erotic story that also serves as a metaphor for fulfilling one’s longings and living authentically.
“The Inn By the Cemetery”- This is a delightful, creepy, and surprisingly romantic story about the past haunting the present. Modern couple Sharon and Mitch go on a romantic weekend getaway to historic bed-and-breakfast. While visiting a cemetery, Sharon picks up an old bracelet. Meanwhile, Mitch has unexplained dreams of the past and visions of a ghostly woman.
This is a haunting, beautiful, and almost wistful story that delivers feelings of sorrow and uncertainty rather than fear. Sharon’s imagination is activated as she researches the past of the town for a book. The research consumes her to the point that she has trouble separating herself from the past.
Meanwhile Mitch’s encounters with the past are found by esoteric means. The images of the ghostly woman aren’t really scary. They emphasize her sadness and isolation from the world of the living. She inspires empathy rather than scorn. The couple’s visit practically makes them the unwanted intrusions instead of the ghost.
“The Black Hole”-As many know some of the best anthology stories are ones that like to offer social commentary inside a memorable story. In this story, a group of young African-American men are invited to a paintball tournament by one’s white co-workers. The true intentions of the night are revealed as the men find themselves running for their lives.
This story is very reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s movies by turning a supernatural occurrence into an insightful commentary on racism. The players are evenly divided in strength and athleticism but the white players have advantage over their black counterparts because they know the true meaning behind the game. The weapons become more realistic and the game becomes bloodier and more violent as we peer into the dark hearts of those playing it.
The black men try to strategize and work together to survive the night and maybe even fight their assailants. It’s truly gut wrenching as they get taken out one by one because they live within a system that does not value them as people. They are regarded by their hunters as nothing more than targets meant to be slaughtered.
“The Keeper of Souls”-This story is similar to a dark fairy tale that personifies Death as an actual being. The Narrator has been haunted by a creature that he calls The Keeper of Souls. Now at age 88, he fears that the Keeper is coming for him.
The Keeper’s dark clothing and silent demeanor deliver a slight chill. The overall impression is that of a character that you can barely see out of the corner of your eye and swear he was there a second ago. Then upon closer inspection, he’s gone at least according to your eyes. But somewhere in your heart, you know he’s still there watching and waiting.
The Keeper is like one of those fair folk who operate on their own rules and standards. He collects souls, that’s what he does. He no more has any feeling or compunction about it than he does about the heads that he carries. He is not someone who can be reasoned with, challenged, or argued against. He just is.
“Dear Monique”-This story is brilliant at subversion and shifting the Reader’s thoughts towards and then away from the characters. A long letter recounts the friendship between Monique and the narrator, Christine.
Christine’s narrative starts out sweet and nostalgic. She captures various moments that solidified the friendship between the two women through school, marriage, and motherhood. There is at first a sisterly bond between them that appears unbreakable. It’s sweet until we remember that sisterhood can have negative qualities as well as positives. For every March Sisters there is also Cinderella and her Wicked Stepsisters.
The letter takes a severe turn as Christine’s memories become more fragmented, darker, and more accusatory. Buried resentment and envy come forward and the two friends confront one another in a tragic conclusion. At first, it seems abrupt and jarring but upon closer inspection, the letter reveals that there was always something brewing under the surface of this friendship. Their end isn’t a surprise as it is inevitable.
“Baie Rouge”-This story is a continuation of and sequel to “The Dance” by carrying many of the same themes of sexual attraction and undying love. Sandra remembers her relationship with Vickie and still mourns her death. One night during her grief, Sandra gets a surprise visitor that completely changes her outlook.
The couple are very close and Sandra’s memories are pleasant. She recalls Vicki’s positive and negative qualities cherishing those former times as a means of holding onto her deceased lover. Sandra makes Vicki a real person and not a caricature or a model of perfection. That makes her death all the sadder.
The resolution is easy to predict but at the same time intriguing. Because of what we are told about their relationship, the results are not something to be feared. Instead it is seen as a triumph.
“To Die A Fool”-Like “The Black Hole,” this is social commentary wrapped inside an engaging story. Only this time religion is given this bitter satiric treatment. A religious man finds his beliefs tested when confronted with his own mortality.
This story is a savage and brutal takedown of religion and the willful blindness that it sometimes brings. The Narrator spends the first few pages trying to convince the Reader that his faith is constant and unyielding. He arrogantly describes his devotion almost to the point of parody.
The final pages counters the Narrator’s view and give him an ironic hell. It’s a complete contrast to what he talked about without understanding. It forces him to look at himself and learn that his religious behavior was just simply surface without substance.
“Last Request”-Some of the darker stories in this anthology takes the Readers into the mind of characters who are human and far more dangerous than any supernatural entity. Willie Dean Campbell sits on death row awaiting his last meal and execution.
Campbell’s story is one of using violent means to satisfy one’s cravings and desires. He is written as someone who has a hunger that needs another thrill to satisfy it. Those thrills start out minor and then get progressively worse. He is inhuman as he looks at his victims as simply means to satisfy those longings.
The most troubling aspects of this story are revealed when Campbell admits that he didn’t come upon his homicidal tendencies on his own. In fact, they were drilled into him by his mother. She created the desire and the cravings and got him started on the path. Campbell just simply followed it to its obvious conclusion.
“One Night Stand”-Some of these stories are flash fiction and have only one page or even a few sentences to capture a mood. In this one, a woman contemplates the aftereffects of a murder.
Despite the short length, Wood manages to capture a truly diabolical situation. The description is extraordinarily graphic and evocative in its violence. In a few short sentences a nightmare is created.
The final sentence is meaningful enough to be a twist ending. In this brief story, we learn as much about the characters and their situation as we would have if we had been given more pages.
“Issue”-This story is one that many authors may relate to, especially when their characters seem so real. While writing his latest mystery novel, Maurice White seems to feel the presence of Charlie Carver, his protagonist.
The story begins with many creepy moments like when Maurice begins speaking in the accent that he gave Charlie and taking on some of his mannerisms. He is afraid to look in the mirror or go about his daily activities because he thinks that he will see Charlie appear to him.. As the snippets of Maurice’s novel are meant to keep his readers in suspense, Maurice’s journey does the same to us. The Reader isn’t sure if Charlie’s fears are justified or we are reading the thought process of a paranoid schizophrenic. Is Charlie a fictional character or an alter ego that Maurice tries to suppress but is begging to come forward. Or more than likely could both be simultaneously true?
The ending spins the story in a different direction from entering the mindscape of a writer to blurring the lines between the real world in which they live and the fictional world that they create. Charlie Carver takes on a more demonic persona as he confronts his author. He is unfinished because his story is and he demands a resolution. This story shows that people, authors especially, can create their own demons and are often at their mercy.
“Noon”-This story takes a trip into panic during the end of the world. The Narrator searches through a zombie apocalypse for his brother, Corey.
The story captures the panic and tension that one would have in a situation where their entire world has ended. The Narrator recalls the moments when the creatures attacked the humans and chaos ensued. He’s still in shock and denial trying to reconcile the world that he once knew with the one before him. This leaves him defenseless when he isn’t adequately prepared for the new normal. All he can do is find his brother and hide.
The tension contrasts with the Narrator’s feelings towards Corey. His memories of the two raising each other and sticking together through hardships fill him with hope. He hangs onto those memories because they are all that he has. He wants to think of Corey as the man that he once was and not a corpse or worse. That hope turns to despair and fear when he realizes that the times have changed his brother too.
“Patty”-Unlike many of the stories in the anthology that cannot be found in reality, this one explores a monster that is very human and unfortunately very common. In this one, Patty recalls her unhappy and abusive marriage to her husband, Troy and the violence that ensued from it.
Who needs ghosts, demonic roller coasters, and zombie apocalypses when the fear of domestic violence is all too present and real? Patty’s marriage starts out badly even before the ceremony when she overhears Troy make disparaging comments about her appearance. Troy’s abuse towards Patty escalates from sharp criticisms, to outright insults, to gaslighting, to physical and sexual violence. The characters fall into a pattern that is frequently echoed in reality.
The worst part about the abuse is the toll that it takes on Patty. When we read about her, she is a faded withered woman who is deprived of the ability to think for herself because of the erosion of her self-esteem. She wears clothing, fixes her hair, and manages the household in ways that he approves of. She is not even allowed the privacy of her own thoughts without his domineering voice and harsh hands entering her mind. As with many abuse victims, she has lost the ability to fight him and in this case her obsession to please him takes on violent proportions. However, the story makes us side with her because Patty is not the monster. Troy is. He took her identity, mind, independence, self-respect, and left behind an empty shell. He did far more damage than any zombie ever could.
“Idol”-Many of these stories are at their core about obsessions, but none explore that concept more than this one. In a long monologue, Iris recounts her obsession for a famous woman to the point that she wants to look like her and goes to desperate lengths to achieve her goal.
The story straddles the line between darkly comic and extremely grotesque, Iris talks about her injuries and body mutilations like they are a day at the spa. She is alarmingly nonchalant about the fact that her complexion is burnt to a crisp,, that her hair and eyebrows are gone because of disastrous dying techniques, and parts of her skin has been hacked off to trim the fat. It’s terrifying and pathetic to imagine this poor woman putting herself through such torture to look like her idol.
This story is a commentary on the beauty industry and the lengths that people, especially women, go through to look perfect. In a world where eating disorders, plastic surgery addiction, compulsive shopping, and images and videos that exploit insecurities in the name of beauty are all too common, are Iris’ actions really that far off? Many destroy themselves to obtain a perfect image that doesn’t exist, that never existed. They just don’t do it as graphically as Iris does.
“Abstract”-If Art can capture life, then it can capture death too and that is what is explored here. Matthew and Cameron go to an art exhibit from a controversial artist whose paintings leave quite an impression on those who observe them.
The story starts out like one of those urban legends. Matthew and Cameron debate about the stories that they heard that they swore happened to a friend of a friend. Like other urban legends, this set up opens up a real fear but puts a story around it that is hard to believe. We may not believe the legend, but it scares us all the same.
Things take a turn when the duo look at the painting. It is not described very much, just in splashes of colors. It’s an abstract which one may look at in any museum and ponder its meaning, but leave it behind in pursuit of other works. With this one, it’s not so much the painting itself but how it makes the viewer feel. There is a haunting creeping coldness that symbolizes death. It can’t be expressed into words and barely into visuals beyond an abstract. It can only be felt and as it is felt, it remains.
“Skin”-”Folie a deux” means shared psychosis and is particularly felt among two or more people who work together to commit crimes. In this story, Karen, a former psychiatric nurse, recalls her troubled obsessive relationship with Jeremy, a patient.
Karen and Jeremy are like many killer couples, most notably The Joker and Harley Quinn. They fill a need for each other and those needs often end in murder. Jeremy lives for his obsessions and addictions that are only satisfied by killing and devouring his enemies. He lives on emotion and impulse and doesn’t care who he hurts.
Karen on the other hand is smarter and more methodical and calculating. She delivers certain things and pays favors to Jeremy to earn his trust. Then when she has it, she becomes an accomplice to his deeds. While Jeremy is not personally invested in the people he attacks, Karen is. She has a specific target in mind and puts them right in Jeremy’s path. In some ways, that makes her worse than Jeremy. He may live totally in darkness but she can control it.
“Worthington Court”-This is reminiscent of those old ghost stories or campfire tales about that person or that area in town which are cursed. In this story, the cursed area is Worthington Court and the only person who knows its dark devastating secret is Alma Roberson, a 96 year old resident who reveals the secret to Henry Goode, a skeptical historian.
There is a nostalgic old world quality to this story, the kind which is shared by a storyteller to their listeners. Alma tells the story with a compelling narrative that captures both history and horror. She tells it in a way that makes you want to listen even though you are afraid of the ending.
The story has a parallel point of view from Henry. After Alma finishes her story, he researches it to determine the veracity. He methodically and thoroughly searches archives, town records, newspaper articles, census reports. He is convinced that he knows the truth. He forgets that there is something out there that resists being researched and can’t be analyzed or understood by academic means.
“Detour”-This story has one of the usual stock endings found in horror but the journey to get there can’t be missed. Stuck in traffic, Cheryl takes a detour along the mysterious Palatial Lane only to get the fright of her life.
“Detour” is almost hypnotic as it describes the long drive with the roads and endless traffic. It’s meant to put the Reader and Cheryl into a false sense of monotony during an everyday situation in which we are all too familiar.
Palatial Lane is purposely the opposite of its name. Cheryl expects a wealthy road with big mansions, manicured lawns, and fancy cars. Instead, she finds an unkempt wood, old houses, dead grass, and an overall sense of abandonment. It is a place that fills her with fear and loathing and only towards the end does she realize that her fears are justified.
“The Morning After’-This is another flash fiction which takes two sentences to capture a mood, a thrilling creepy mood. A woman hears a singer’s voice on the radio and it causes her mind to wander to a specific memory.
In the brief time in which we are given, we are told what we need to know about the woman, the singer, and what happened. The information that we are given gives us the important details and lets our minds wander about the rest. We don’t know who they are, the motives, or what led to it. That is left to the imagination. All that is known is something horrible happened and the Woman is not at all remorseful. In fact, she is jubilant.
“A Glimpse”-This is a very strange story which leaves a lot to the imagination. A woman is frightened by the appearance of a stranger but there may be more to this stranger than she thought.
We aren’t given a long story, just a few paragraphs. Most of it is devoted to the woman’s theories about this figure so it’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t. This adds to the ominous feeling throughout.
We are led to believe one thing, but then we are told something else that pivots us into another direction. In the end we aren’t given any clear answers and are left with the unknown. In a way that’s what makes it scarier. We are left to our own interpretations and to make our own conclusions.
