“Solace” is out in The Horror Library vol. 8

The Horror Library volume 8 is out today and my minimalist horror short story “Solace” is in it. The volume (and series) is published by Dark Moon Books and edited by Eric J. Guignard. It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Eric.

In “Solace”, a new graduate accepts the first job they can find, in a remote location that seems comfortable enough but oddly empty. And then there are these rules…

I always feel inclined to write “this story means a lot to me”, but that’s true for all stories. This particular story means a lot to me, because it’s one of several stories I wrote recently in which I think about what work means to me and what work has done to me.

It’s one of the first stories I wrote after I was laid off from a long-term job in the tech sector without notice, without being given credit, without severance pay. I had poured a lot of time and diligence into a particular project that was simply thrown away. I haven’t bounced back from that experience. But I’ll be fine, because I have horror. I can confront frustration, helplessness, and darkness in horror. I can put into horror my existential anger about having poured life-time into a project that someone in a position of power then threw away without as much as a shrug.

At the end of “Solace”, the narrator breaks free.

But at a cost.