Number 13 E - I can Taste the Blood - Vision V - John FD Taff

And on to the final story in this excellent collection.

When I see the editor's name in the contents list as a contributor, the cynical part of me always asks "I wonder if XXX the editor puts as much quality control in when choosing XXX the author's story.  This is grossly unfair and based on a bad experience with a small (micro) press publication I once had a short story published in, where the editor inserted 3 stories of his own, one in his own name and two under pen names.  However his writing was so bad, and so very distinctly bad, that this was blindingly obvious.

I digress, sorry. Back to the book in hand.

The presence on the front cover of a second editor's name relieved some of my fears, and the rest of my fears were well and truly expelled, given a kick up the backside and told never to come back, when I started reading John FD Taff's contribution.

This is an fantastic closer to the collection.  Different again to the other stories in the collection, this one features one of the most original concepts I've seen for a long time.  The story follows Merle, a waster in small town America who, after falling ill and losing an entire day to sleep as a result, finds strange things happening to his hands. To say more would be a spoiler.

At one point I thought this was going to be a variation on the vampire myth but, while some tropes are present, this is so much more.  The final explanations give a truly horrific view of small town America that Stephen King would be proud of.  Indeed King is probably the best comparison I can think of for this story, with the deceptively workmanlike prose, remarkably easy to read yet indepth character studies and an intimate portrait of the town.  And all in 65 pages.

On the strength of this I am certainly going to track down a copy of John Taff's collection "The End in all Beginnings"

I really can't pick which of these five stories is best, or which is the least best. This entire book has been a pleasure to read from beginning to end- in that special way that horror fiction is a pleasure even when it's dredging up and contributing to your worst nightmares. A couple of minor niggles which were mentioned in the other reviews, but other than those, no complaints from me.

Easily 8.5/10

Apparently there is a follow up to this coming out called I can Hear the Shadows.  I can't wait to get my grubby mitts on it.