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Issue #5, June 2009
Issue #4, May 2009
A Word From the Editor:
             Writer's Block
Greatest Movie Monsters
             of All Time
Storm Alert
Grocery Shopping
Accordion of Doom
Windigo
A Winter's Tale
The Tomb
The Second Time Around
A Ghost Story
Artist of the Month:
             Melanie Jackson
Issue #3, April 2009
Issue #2, March 2009
Issue #1, February 2009

Issue #4, May 2009

Welcome to the fourth issue of Dark Realm Review, an online magazine dedicated to bringing you the best in short horror and suspense literature. We're excited by this issue since it includes stories by some regular contributors and even one by Mark Twain.

In this issue you'll find stories by a wide range of writers, art by Melanie Jackson, and an interview with Dark Realm Review Editor in Chief, Brian Jackson. We here at DRR hope that you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

So, let us tarry no longer. Scroll down to view the contents of this issue or use the navigation bar links at the top of the page to learn more about the site or even submit your own works for consideration in future issues.

As is always the case, the material at this site is copyrighted by the artists. Feel free to contact us with questions and comments regarding the contents of this site.

A Word From the Editor: Writer's Block by Brian Jackson

One word at a time... until coming to a dead halt... seems I'm stuck again... oh no, it's writer's block!

Once encountered the question immediately comes to mind: How to make it go away, now?

Consider this simple two step technique for breaking writer's block: Swiss Cheese and Reward.

To Swiss Cheese a task simply punch holes in it to produce a series of smaller tasks that are easily achievable. The ease with which each smaller tasks can be solved is usually measured in time. Repeatedly swiss cheese a throrny task like writer's block until it's broken into small tasks that are easilly acheivable.

They have both thrilled and scared us through the years and for that we both love them and hate them. The following is our list of the greatest movie monsters of all time. Most of these monsters are great because they're scary, many are scary because they're so lovable. See if you agree. Check out the list.

#10 Graboids from Tremors

Remember the Graboids? They were giant worms in the first movie with tongues like nasty eels. In the second movie they turned into those heat seeking killer chickens from Mexico. The third brought us Ass Blasters that could fly. We all hated the fourth movie and can't remember a damn thing about it. Together they are the Tremors Trilogy featuring the Graboids, man.

Graboids are only somewhat scary but the movies were a whole lot of fun. Besides, you have to give some credit for originality. We find them slithericious.

Storm Alert by Daria Karpova

She was cursed.

Deirdre had raged about the unfairness of it, grown used to the bitterness of it, and at the end, accepted it.

What a lie, she thought, squinting against the heated glare of the sun. But she was a show-girl, after all. It meant she was very good at nlying. Especially to herself.

The dry, hot quiet of the New Orleans' cemetery calmed her frayed nerves. She stepped off the path. The battered gravestone and old grave stood behind the short iron fence. Dry dust had settled in the cracks running across the white stone. It had seen no rain for a very long time.

A flash of memory hit her, caught her breath in her throat.

The sky, black like the heart of night despite the high noon. The shining fork of lightning tearing through the air. Patrick's eyes widening in horror as the window broke into a thousand tiny glass knives. He had screamed then. Those screams, oh merciful God, those screams.

Grocery Shopping by JJ Ritonya

Phillip parked his 1986 Volvo in a slanted parking stall just next to the metal piped bins used for cart returns. It was 2 a.m. which is when he always did his shopping. The less people he had to come in contact with the better. He always hated dealing with people which is why he loved his job. Phillip was the graveyard shift Computer Operator at a local bank. His job was to make sure the processing jobs ran to completion along with printing bills which would be stuffed and delivered the next day. The best part of his job was that he was the only person in the building during his 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. The nights usually flew by. If the jobs processed without errors and the printers didn't break down he had plenty of time to read, surf the net or just space off if he wanted to.

His schedule had him working Tuesday through Saturday which meant he had Sunday and Monday off. Today was Sunday and Phillip liked to keep his sleeping schedule the same on his days off which is why he was doing his grocery shopping at 2 a.m. He had tried to live the double life, sleeping during the day during his work week then going back to sleeping at night during his days off. It didn't work. On his first night back after his weekend he always felt run down and tired and could barely make it through his shift without falling asleep.

Accordion of Doom by Brian Jackson

Billy Spangles stepped timidly into the back of the old antique shop expecting to find a mess of dust and debris and instead finding a cozy and warm sitting room. Apparently the pride the proprietor showed in the front of his shop spilled over into his storage area. Billy smiled as he breathed in the sweet smell of aged leather and furniture polish. Looking quickly around the room he allowed his face to register his concern at not immediately spotting the object of his desire.

"It's this way, Mr. Spangles," the proprietor purred, then led the way through aisles of merchandise to the very back of his shop. There stood a solid steel door set into a brick wall.

The proprietor removed a ring of keys from his belt buckle and used them to open the myriad of bolts and locks that held the door shut. As he worked, padlocks and chains were dropped to the floor. Billy smiled finding the precautions being taken to be more than a little ridiculous. Of course, the thing had a formidable reputation, but this… this was too much. Wasn't it?

Windigo by Steve W. Jenkins

I am the primordial embodiment of winter-the ancient incarnation of cold and starvation. I am famished and insidious. To the pitiable members of the Algonquian race who inhabit the bitter north, I am winter's savage rouge. My disease leaves men with the blood of their families staining their teeth and the flesh of their ancestry churning in their bellies.

The missionaries that came claim to have banished me as a heathen belief, but the words "God" and "Christ" are frail and weep against my primeval preeminence. My power is far beyond the faith man dreamed to dispel his fears after the creation. I am old as the earth. I am the bitter cold that steals fire and sustenance from clay pots stirred with sticks over open fire. I bring depraved desperation, starvation and the irrepressible lust for human flesh.

I am Windigo.

As light as air and colder than space, I have no conscience and no sense of decency, only the power to mold men's minds to disease-ridden mush. This is my charge and ancient purpose. Those who believe in grace and prayer are powerless against my wickedness. They end as the others do, gnawing the bones of their family.

A Winter's Tale by Melanie Jackson

Mrs. Drake's Senior English Composition Class
Room 18
October 29, 1976

A Winter's Tale
By Emily Jewell

This is supposed to be an essay about the scariest thing that ever happened at Halloween. But the scariest thing that happened to me didn't happen in October. It happened right before Valentine's Day so I am going to write about that instead.

Vermont isn't like Virginia. We lived in a town called Maple. It gets really cold there and it was the coldest of days that February has to offer. No snow on the ground but the earth was frozen solid and would cut right through your mittens and bruise your knees if you fell on it. On days like that my mother would sometimes let me wear pants instead of a skirt and tights.

The Tomb by Brian Jackson

Carson Caruthers, archeologist extraordinaire, stepped from the mouth of the tomb carrying the Head of Sumara safely tucked away in his dusty canvas valise. Upon exiting the shadowy tomb, he found himself first dazzled by the intense sunlight and then standing face to face with a dozen to one hundred Sumatran warriors. Scantily clad in loin cloths and bones, the natives tended to blend in with the surrounding foliage making them difficult to count to an exact number. Each of them carried either a bow and arrows or a long spear, and they looked as though they knew how to use them. Caruthers couldn't help but notice that all the armaments being brandished with apparent ill intent were without exception directed his way.

"Damn and blast," Caruthers intoned, scanning the line of primitives for the one most likely to be their leader. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he shielded his eyes from the blinding Indonesian sun the better to aid him in his perusal. Identifying the warrior who wore the most coloration on his contorted features, Caruthers directed an uneasy smile toward that man and gave forth a greeting in the best Sumatran dialect he could muster.

Dark as thick as balsam pitch hung around the 1990 Ford F-100 pickup. He could hardly see the fragile hands pinned to the steel bed of the cargo hold, but noticed that the left one was missing the tip of the middle finger. That didn't bother him as he ground his fat hips in and out between the writhing girl's thighs, looking into two desperate dark eyes above a mouth stuffed with his snotty handkerchief. When he finished, he kicked the girl over the open tailgate. She just lay there on the ground, sobbing in the blackness. He scrambled into the cab, started the truck and drove off into the warm Colorado night.

"Some job this turned out to be," Billy Wilier moaned, tugging at the collar of his over- stuffed flannel shirt. "First the rain and now we're stuck in this shit hole."

Wayne Fox stared across the table at his scowling partner. In the weak beam of the flashlight, Billy looked like a bloated statue of Buddha trying to pass a huge wedge of sharp Cheddar.

A Ghost Story with Mark Twain

I TOOK a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years, until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.

I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying foot-steps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind.

Artist of the Month: Melanie Jackson

Melanie Jackson author of twenty plus books is ecstatically happy to be married to the editor of DRR. She also loves gardening and volunteering at the local animal shelter.

Melanie used the Picture It "neon" effect to create the images in this month's issue. Melanie as enjoys painting, quilting, and oragami.