9/10

Okay, now I continue my reviews of the short story anthology Dead Men Diaries. I’m clearly on a short story binge at the minute.

This one is sort of a pretty unique and fun(ish?) take on a grim Christmastime story, and it’s typically dark as one would expect with a Bernice Summerfield story. I do think that it gets a little bit too graphic in some places, but also again I don’t think that really surprises me at this point, lol.

It’s about the story of a young man, Tony, who was on an expedition to the planet Anibus with several of his classmates and his best friend, Steven. However, as a small joke on his friend and knowing how serious he was about technology, Tony sabotages Steven’s equipment while anticipating that he’d at least check it beforehand. It doesn’t go as planned, and while crossing a huge crevasse, the technology falters and Steven falls to his death.

His funeral is being hosted on the Braxiatel Collection where he studied, and Tony is obviously wracked with guilt as one probably would be if they were stupid enough to pull something like that.

However, midway through the funeral proceedings, Tony suddenly becomes terrorised by Steven’s spirit in the gnarled, grotesque form they found his body. It leads to him fleeing the funeral, and after realising nobody is able to help him, he resorts to attempting suicide by jumping off the clock tower of the Mansionhouse.

Bernice obviously stops him, as well as Steven’s girlfriend who was led up there by… another spirit of Steven?

Yes, it soon becomes apparent that Steven’s girlfriend, Vivian, had stolen an object from the native Anibusians that was used in their funeral traditions: a memory stone. They were often left with the corpse (in this case Steven) and a wearer of choosing, so that the wearer can grieve the loss peacefully. However, it had a very adverse effect on humans, which manifested the malevolent spirit that haunted Tony.

Eventually, the stone is smashed, and an inquiry is made into what happened on that expedition, but the whole event only reiterates how much Bernice hates Christmas.

It’s a very interesting addition into the anthology book, and also a little weird, but between this one and Step Back in Time, there’s been a pretty good streak of stories so far!

Next one,

The Door into Bedlam by Dave Stone.