Blood Bank is the rare horror anthology in which most entries offer carefully crafted prose that goes beyond the superficial. Several stories are top-notch, and one could be a masterpiece. Best of all, a portion of the proceeds supported organisations that benefit youth literacy and people struggling with poverty.
The diverse offerings range from absurdity and humour to gritty realism that conveys the hopelessness stemming from the loss of a loved one. Fantasy and reality collide when a father encounters a young woman playing a princess at an amusement park and childhood traumas resurface. Schoolgirls discover magic within a jar and a candle. A newlywed couple finds an apocalyptic toad.
The compilation does have minor flaws. One entry proves that an uncommon narrative technique is not enough to revitalize an overdone topic. A couple of otherwise compelling stories fizzle toward the end because of an unrealistic twist or a devolution into esoteric nonsense. And there are the passages where authors fall so in love with the sound of their own writing that they lose track of the story.
Fortunately, the anthology’s offerings more than compensate for its shortcomings. Lighter favourites include Neil Gaiman’s eloquent, albeit absurd “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale”. The protagonist who hires an organization to kill someone can’t resist a good bargain.
A story about two people having dinner sounds lame, but not in Jeff Strand’s hands. When the gentleman in the dialogue-heavy “First Date” shares his secret identity, his companion responds in a surprising way.
Some of the more sombre stories involve a distraught character waiting and watching. “Clown Doll” by Jo Kaplan opens the compilation with an agoraphobic tale about a woman who looks down from her apartment to a courtyard where a stranger shakes a laughing clown doll. The story gradually reveals the severe anxiety from which the protagonist suffers and her subtle connection to the doll.
Kealan Patrick Burke’s “Doorwatch” has a similar feel. A recently widowed older gentleman discovers in his yard a black door that cannot be seen unless the viewer sits in the red chair facing it. Sensing something dangerous on the other side of the door, he takes it upon himself to sit and watch it. Visiting neighbours intensify the sense of unease (and add some comic relief). It is an unsettling piece that comments on grief and finding purpose after the death of a loved one.
Max Booth III’s “Every Breath Is a Choice” and Jay Wilburn’s “The End of Time on Rosewyld Lane” also tackle grief along with guilt and loss of meaning. The former, about a couple that experiences a tragedy, offers a slow but compelling build to a powerful one-word ending. The protagonist of Wilbur’s story drives in circles while steeped in the pain from a lack of closure regarding his missing son. Changing his morbid routine means accepting that his son is gone.
The story that rises to the top is Lucy Leitner’s “They Say the Sky is Full of Snakewolves”, a title with implications of hearsay and the possible presence of some preposterous creature. A woman locked in her bedroom reflects on the brutal things her husband has done to her. This is compounded by an outside threat. While the story says something about men’s oppression of women, it can also be interpreted as an allegory about internet overinvestment. If all the other stories tanked – they didn’t – this story would still make the anthology worth it. That’s how good it is.
Blood Bank achieves its success by evading the monsters that pervade the contemporary horror scene and instead tapping into the things we don’t want to think about and boldly proclaiming the horrors that need to be expressed. It is well worth the investment. Douglas J. Ogurek ****
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