Doorbells at Dusk: Trick ‘Em All by Adam Light

To get into the Halloween spirit, I’ll be reading (and dissecting) the Halloween-themed anthology Doorbells at Dusk. My thanks goes to Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi and Corpus Press.

~𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓴 ‘𝓔𝓶 𝓐𝓵𝓵

He glanced at his carved jack-o’-lantern and silently lamented his lonely existence.

Synopsis: A boy’s newly carved jack-o’-lantern begins to speak to him, instructing him to do unspeakable things.

Trick ‘Em All held some gruesome delights, yet I wouldn’t exactly consider it inventive. It’s a trope that’s been done again and again – a disturbed, lonesome figure being targeted by an entity with ulterior motives. Unfortunately, it didn’t include anything that made it memorable – nothing extra – and I found I was able to quickly move past it. Perhaps I would have appreciated it with a little more meat on the bones, but as it was, Trick ‘Em All proved to be one of the weaker additions for me.

Rating: 🎃🎃

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Adam Light resides in northeast Florida with his beautiful wife and daughter, and their aptly, though perhaps not so imaginatively named Walker hound, Walker. He haunts a cubicle by day, writes horror stories at night, and virtually never sleeps. He is the author of several short horror stories, some of which have been published in his first collection Toes Up: Horror to Die For. He also has stories in the Bad Apples anthology series and Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love.