Crossroads #14 February 1996
$4.50 ppd. from Editor/Publisher Pat Nielson
478 Waters Road
Jacksonville, NC 28546-9756

Entering its fifth year of publication, this modest little digest continues to put out three issues a year of short classic-style horror stories. In this issue, we get a sacrificial spring celebration from Sue Storm, a tale of a blind bluesman who beats the devil by C.S. Anderson and a sad and creepy tale of an elderly woman who uses the dark arts to bring back something of her husband from the dead. My favorite line in the entire volume comes in Charlee Jacobs' cannibal tale "Sweets," as a chef who specializes in turning women into marmalades and biscuits sings "a spoonful of sugar makes the carrion go down."

Barbara Malenky tosses the werewolf and a vampire into a love(?) story. Sheila A. Joyner surprises a fanged bloodsucker with a different kind of vampire and Kevin L. Donihe shows us a child molester conquered by... himself. And there are more, many of them simply fast snapshot vignettes of horrific scenes: a killer who can't scrub away the blood, a werewolf mom priming her young for the hunt, a heron who's beautiful flight circles a horrible mistake. Crossroads doesn't have "deep" fiction, but it is a fast, fun, and often creepy read.

Copyright © 1996 by John Everson. All Rights Reserved.