cover image We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories

We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories

C. Robert Cargill. Harper Voyager, $26.99 (448p) ISBN 978-0-06-240586-9

Cargill (Sea of Rust) explores the thin line between the living and the dead, and more, in this entertaining collection of 10 tales that embrace the best elements of old-school horror and dark fantasy. In the eerie, atmospheric “The Town That Wasn’t Anymore,” a dying, fog-drenched West Virginia town hosts the angry shades of more than 200 people killed in a mine collapse, and they now seek to inhabit the living. A sheriff, a priest, and their small posse try to keep the spirits at bay in an increasingly futile battle. In the terrific, terrifying “Hell Creek,” a triceratops and an ankylosaurus team up to fight a hoard of zombie tyrannosaurs and other undead dinos after a mass extinction event. In “The Last Job Is Always the Hardest,” someone who intends to bomb a passenger train gets a very unusual job offer, and in the title story, a girl finds a door in her wall leading to a place of dark wonders. Not all of the tales work: “Hell They Call Him, the Screamers” is simply stomach-churning. But Cargill has a gift for haunting imagery as well as exuberant gore, and most of his horror has a beating heart, albeit a bloody one. His fans will be thrilled by this strong collection. (June)