When Darkness Loves Us By Elizabeth Engstrom

When Darkness Loves Us
By Elizabeth Engstrom
1986 Tor Books
Paperback, 249 pages

 

                What an extraordinary book! Writing that flows as smoothly as a gentle stream, weaving tales of angst, horror and heartbreak with such compelling prose that the book is nearly impossible to put down. Iconic sci-fi author Theodore Strugeon, with whom Engstrom took a writing course, provides a forward here where he says he saw her greatness early on. And boy, was he right! The two stories contained in this book are unlike anything else I have ever read and both of them satisfied me one hundred percent.

 

                “When Darkness Loves Us”, the first story, clocks in at around 70 pages but effectively covers a huge timespan. Newlywedded Sally Ann is watching her husband plow the fields and slips down some stairs into a tunnel below the woods, a place where she played as a child. While down there, someone closes and locks the safety doors at ground level, leaving her lost in complete darkness. And she is pregnant. What happens from there is an amazing story of adaptation, loyalty, fear and evolution, all expressed brilliantly within that short page count.

 

                Clocking in at 164 pages, “Beauty Is…” tells the story of Martha, born without a nose, shunned and abused by her father, loved by her mother (a healer) and left mentally challenged after an incident during her childhood. Now an adult living on her own, she is childlike in a small town of people who look out for her. But Martha has a drive and despite her disabilities, she has a will to learn and love and be loved. When young Leon comes by to help fix up her house and stays on, she develops a closeness with him that seems to open up new feelings and lost abilities. But surely that creepy asshole who knows she has some money in the house will louse things up for our protagonist.

 

                I must admit that both stories reeled me in completely and held me tight. I got all of the emotions while in Sally Ann’s and Martha’s bleak worlds. I felt all of their pain and their triumphs, their determination, and plenty of heartbreak. Engstrom is an incredibly effective writer and she pulled me in hook line and sinker. I find her writing in this book right up there with Michael McDowell in her ability to transport me into another place completely. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

 

                Luckily, Valancourt reprinted this book as part of their Paperbacks from Hell line and kept Jill Bauman’s amazing cover from the Tor paperback (which illustrates “Beauty Is…” rather than the titular story). According to the author via her website (http://www.elizabethengstrom.net/), both Spanish and German translations are forthcoming. Muy bueno! Sehr gut!

The Resurrected By Guy N. Smith

The Resurrected
By Guy N. Smith
1991 Grafton
Paperback, 223 pages

                This book is dark. I’ll admit to having squirmed in my seat a few times. At first, I thought it might go a little bit like Johnny Craig’s amazing story “Till Death” in EC Comics’ Vault of Horror #28 (Dec. 1952) which has a somewhat similar set-up but no, GNS takes things into even darker territory.

 

                Merryn is dying of a brain tumor at 28 years old. Wanting to get in as much as possible before her end, she marries her boyfriend Bernie. Together, they face the end with love and commitment. Bernie knows a white witch who can offer no help but an ex-colleague of hers gives him a call and offers an ominous chance. Bernie must take that chance. Enter Richie Howe, another witch. But his magic is far darker than the white witch’s. His work begins right after Merryn dies.

 

                Careful what you wish for, Bernie. Richie sure does bring Merryn back, but she isn’t quite the same woman anymore. She is distant, a little smelly and super horny. If Bernie can’t handle it, Richie can. In fact, Richie becomes quite close to Merryn, and she is his showpiece; a “living” example of his power. Richie’s boss is Old Scratch, and he likes what’s being done but would like a few lives sacrificed in his name as well. What the hell have you done, Bernie?

 

                Bernie had the best intentions but what he got back is a cold, uncaring whisp of an undead wife whose only function seems to be to cause him pain. Merryn is a wonderfully off-putting character. She’s beautiful but slimy, delicate but hard. She is just a pretty vessel full of selfish lust and hatred. Bernie holds out romantic hopes, but he knows it is far too late. GNS plays both sides beautifully. The early pages shows a devoted couple with heartbreak hanging over them and with limited time. Their “after” lives are filled with tension, torture, regret and fear and it all revolves around Richie and his master.

 

                This is absolute top-shelf GNS in my opinion. He could have played it easy and just schlocked away a good idea with cheap, gooey scares, but he makes it much more; a tragic relationship story from hell with enough pathos and both hope and hopelessness mixed in with the sleazy scenarios and demonic doings to really push this one into greatness. Luis Rey’s cover is just beautiful, too, giving this one my highest recommendation.

Incubus By Ray Russell

Incubus

By Ray Russell
1977 Dell
Paperback,251 pages

 

                Ray Russell will always have a place in my heart for writing the story ”Sardonicus” and adapting it for the screenplay to Mr. Sardonicus, William Castle’s 1961 masterpiece. That story first appeared in Playboy where Russell was the fiction editor. Fifteen years later, it seems that Russell may have drawn on some of the more salacious elements of his Playboy gig when he was writing this novel. Incubus is, as the Washington Star reviewed it, “not for the squeamish”.

 

                A series of brutal rape/ murders are terrorizing the small coastal California town of Galen. The victims have been torn apart down yonder, bludgeoned by a massive member and covered with semen. Well, yuck! Police investigations turn up nothing and the local doctor rules out many of his male patients as suspect because he knows they aren’t packing that kind of heat. Only Julian Trask, an anthropologist who is back in town (he was a Galen teacher) to help figure the crimes out, has an inkling as to what is happening. His theory is supernatural and is not taken seriously by most. Until there is no alternative. As in many books of the era, much Scotch is consumed throughout the proceedings.

 

                Sound sleazy? Sound perverted? It is both but Russell’s prose are so polished and readable that it really doesn’t read as lascivious as it sounds. It is a mystery story, trying to figure out just who the incubus might be. The cast of characters are all well fleshed out and while many are not very likeable, they still convey enough emotion that I got invested in them. Many of the adults seem like real prudes (BJs are the devil’s work!) and despite many strong female characters, a story like this can’t help but have a thread of misogyny going through it. The attacks are brutal, gory and disgusting and even locking up all of the women in protective custody (see what I mean?) doesn’t keep out the sexual evil spirit.

 

                In 1981, the book was adapted into a film directed by John Hough. Some key changes were made to the story making it stupid, like the incubus attacking males as well. Kind of makes the whole “male demon raping women to prolong its bloodline” part of being an incubus obsolete. The movie is lame, the book is great (if you have the stomach for it) and I highly recommend it to purveyors of putrid pulp.

Entombed By Guy N. Smith

Entombed
By Guy N. Smith
1986 Arrow Books
Paperback, 191 pages

 

                              

           Arrow, 1986. Art- Les Edwards                                             Dell- 1987. Art-?

                When I was a kid, my mum took me to Howe Caverns, a 150 foot deep hole in the ground in Schoharie County, New York. It is a massive underground cave with a subterranean river and there is a lovely tour that you can take. The rock formations are lit with beautiful colored lights, yet the scenery (and cool air) can feel a bit sinister. I loved it so much, I took my own kid there when she was 10 or 11. With that, I think I might have gotten a little more out of Entombed than I might have had I never been that far underground.

 

                Priest Simon Rankin has been questioning his faith after a failed exorcism. To clear his mind, he packs up with his girlfriend Andrea and heads to Cwmgilla in Wales. The town’s claim to fame is a retired slate mine that has been opened as a show cave, taking tourists down into the caverns for tours. Rankin wasn’t keen on taking the trip down but acquiesces to Andrea’s suggestion. While down there, he senses an evil presence, and it all goes to hell (quite literally!) from there. His faith, whether or not he knew it, is enough to shake up the evil in town.

 

                A kid wanders off and disappears in the mine. Workers going to look for him have the roof cave in and trap them. Mysterious children’s voices, visions, and Satanism all rear their evil heads. Andrea is demonically raped and possessed and Rankin’s faith had better be damn strong to fight the kind of nastiness that now runs rampant in Cwmgilla! The power to the mine is gone so nobody gets in or out unless you happen to know a spelunker. Luckily, Rankin does.

 

                Obviously, the claustrophobia is massive in this book. The scenes in the mine, with its uncharted depth and underground lakes is a labyrinth of dark, airless fear. There are many chilling moments of anxiety and agitation. That said, at about the three-quarter mark, the narrative started to slow a bit for me. But I never doubted that GNS would pick it back up and, holy shit, he sure did! The prose approaching the climax is amazing, especially when the Satanist group is gorging on the blood of a sacrificial victim. “Like maggots in a jar, a grotesque entwinement of all that was vile.” It doesn’t get much better than that.

 

                Obviously, if you have read the Sabat books, some of this might sound familiar. Rankin seems to be a tryout for Mark Sabat, whose first book came next from GNS. (The first publication of this one was from Hamlyn in 1982.) Both are ex-priests and exorcists, there is a violated church, a body exhumed for Satanic reasons and other similarities. Overall, Rankin is a more likeable hero than Sabat. As much as we all love our Hamlyn Horrors, hold out for any of the Arrow reprints to relish the amazing Les Edwards cover.

The City By Richard Haigh

The City
By Richard Haigh
1986 Grafton
Paperback, 191 pages

                The City is the second in Richard Haigh’s (Laurence James’) proposed trilogy of killer pig novels. The first chapter here even refers to the trilogy! Unfortunately, that third book never came out. This first sequel to 1984’s The Farm brings back the Buckland Whites, the breed of killer pigs that were, along with scores of other animals, chemically altered in the first book. The set-up is absolutely amazing.

 

                Britain’s biggest ever agricultural fair is being held at Wembley Stadium. Farm equipment, livestock; everything you would need to have the farm of your dreams under one roof. Including thirty Buckland Whites, “the killer pigs from Hobbs Farm in Wales” as a chief attraction. Fun for the whole family. As expected, an animal rights group ANL (Animals Need Life) plan to disrupt the show with demonstrations and the freeing of the caged animals.

 

                Our hero, TV journalist Jill Wallace is pretty bored with her assignment to cover this dull show but she’s there anyway and cover it she will. Also in the building is a model super-modern farm home with all the bells and whistles, including a family living in it for the duration of the event, a children’s TV show broadcasting live, a surly, racist guard who isn’t afraid to kill, an SAS unit of the army on premises, food vendors (lots of bacon) and, of course, the demonstrators. James really ratchets up the wait, giving you many characters that you need to see become pig chow and holds off for two-thirds of the book until you’re ready to burst.

 

                Then, he hits you with it. Hard.

 

                I haven’t read this much of a book aloud to my wife in my excitement in a long time. You see, Laurence James is an excellent writer, and his bloodletting can be downright poetic. This next passage is worth the cost of this rather hard-to-find, expensive paperback, as the wife in the model home is about to meet her maker… “Her last coherent thought, before she became preoccupied with the mystery of her own dying, was how very loud the crumpling bones of her skull seemed to sound.” Goddamn, that’s good. This book is far less mean-spirited and has less graphic sex than the first one but it too is a corker.

 

                While we enjoy reprints of the first two killer pig novels, (The Farm reprint was released in Spring 2026 by Valancourt Books!), we can dream about what James had in mind for the third book. The ending of The City is a cliffhanger set up for it, but apparently it was never written. James died in 2000. Perhaps, one day, the manuscript for The Continent or something will be found in a drawer and the killer pigs will return. Until then, get and enjoy the first two. Essential reading.

 

                An amazing full view of Les Edwards’ cropped cover painting for this book can be seen in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell (Quirk, 2017). (Update 2: The full cover is also on Carboard Coffin Press’s upcoming release of The City!!!!!!)