Summer Bludgeon (Anthology)

Stories, art, and poetry included:
‘A Daughter’s Love’ by Ewan A. Dougall
‘A Swing and a Mistress’ by Jahmil Effend
‘Bag It Up’ by Allison Vincent
‘Benny’s Last Hike’ by Juleigh Howard-Hobson
‘Cerulean Pools of Arizona’ by Corey Lynn Fayman
‘Checkmate’ by Robin Knabel
‘Complicated’ by Elliott Orchard-Blowen
‘Consternation 2bb by Edward Michael Supranowicz
‘Coonhounds, For Instance’ by Justin Thurman
‘Crimes Against Fashion’ by Amanda Nicholson
‘Death by Porn’ by Amanda Nicholson
‘Dinner for Two’ by Ken Luer
‘Double Play’ by Bev Vincent
‘Evidence' by Frank William Finney
‘Gone Without a Trace' by H. Dair Brown
‘Help Yourself’ by Brandon Barrows
‘Hopelessly Devoted’ by Katie Brunecz
‘Nest’ by Mark Thomas
‘Nightshade’ by Edward Michael Supranowicz
‘Old Friends’ by Gay McKenna
‘P’ by Lee Pletzers
‘Rendezvous on the Riviera’ by Elyse Kallen
‘The Class Ring’ by Shannon Lawrence
‘The Dullingham Murder’ by Chris Wheatley
‘The Getaway’ by Brian J. Smith
‘The Glass Cage’ by Joseph J Dowling
‘The Last Summer’ by Christine Eskilson
‘The Tangled Web’ by Eric Knabel
‘This Small Matter About Some Diamonds’ by JM Connors
‘Song of the Summer’ by Jacob Steven Mohr
‘Stuck’ by Yvette Viets Flaten
‘Tony Rock n’ Roll, or The First Last Day of Disco’ by Sebastian Corbascio
‘Wasted’ by Cath S Nichols
‘Worse Things’ by Joseph S. Walker

If you enjoy this, check out our fall anthology, Autumn Noir!
Also love fantasy, horror, and sci-fi? Check out our spring and winter anthologies, Hope Screams Eternal and Still of Winter!

* * *


"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."
—William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

FOREWARD

Originally inspired by an earworm involving some song lyrics from the 1978 film, Grease, “summer lovin’” became “summer bludgeon.” Voila! A new collection was born.
We put out a call to the creative world, asking them to send us artwork, poetry, and stories that explore the dark corners of our hearts. And then we asked them to set their tales in the sunniest, brightest time of the year.
Undaunted, they invited us into workspaces and showed us people at odds. They pulled back the curtains and let us peek at broken familial relationships and strained friendships. They put us in the passenger seat next to characters navigating situations where romantic love has gone very, very wrong.
Had us a blast contemplating these works of art and immersing ourselves in these stories and poems. We think you will, too! Be prepared to reconnect with some “old flames” and to fall head over heels for some newer authors, poets, and artists on the scene.
Ah, summer love! Is there anything more exciting?
—Dair & Robin

* * *


"Evidence"
by Frank William Finney

That’s the knife he used
to butter up the boss.

The one he hid
beneath his bed.

The one they found
when the coroner came round

to pronounce
the both of them dead.


Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts. He lived in Thailand from 1955 until 2020, where he taught at Thammasat University. His work has appeared in The Plentitudes, The Thieving Magpie, Variant Literature, and other places. His chapbook, The Folding of the Wings, from Finishing Line Press is available now.

* * *


"Bag It Up"
By Allison Vincent

AIR. The word flashed in yellow against a backdrop of orange, rapidly deepening into maroon before fading to black. It ricocheted off the inside of Maria’s skull, startling her into consciousness as though she had been napping in the dry pantry between lunch and dinner service and someone had dropped a heavy-bottomed saucepan into the sink. Had she been napping, she would have shot off her stock stool and ran back to the kitchen to put out whatever fires Julian, the head chef, had started in her absence. But now, Maria had no sense of her body or where she was. She only felt the tightness in her chest, the blackness surrounding her, and her thirst for AIR. Maria tried to inhale. 
I can’t breathe. I CAN’T BREATHE. She sucked in through her nose, but only felt the futile flex of her throat and abdominal muscles. What felt like latex fingers protruded into her nose. Nothing filled the void in her lungs. Opening her mouth was difficult. The hinge of her jaw dragged against gooey resistance, like stirring molasses. When she finally felt her teeth part, something slick and chewy filled the gap of her mouth. It tasted black like chemicals, like plastic. There was no air here. 
Panic directed her arms and legs to do something. They, too, were stymied by the heavy yet pliable material that engulfed her. She could wriggle, but doing so only gave her the sensation of sinking. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. If I don’t do something, I’m going to die. Maria gathered all of her strength, rocked herself from right to left, and wrenched her neck to her shoulder. There was a wet POP as the ring of her mouth jerked free from the plastic. In this pocket of air, her lips felt no obstruction. In between gasps, her lungs ached as they inflated. Sweat glued her hair to the sides of her face. Tremendous pressure on her chest made it hard to breathe. So she negotiated the bellows in her chest and watched her heartbeat pulse in increasing red shots behind the blackness of her eyelids. She felt light-headed. This world, though dark, spun. She was slipping away, circling the drain of consciousness. 
It felt like a panic attack, which Maria hadn’t had since bread class in culinary school. All the pressure of generating the perfect loaf, so much of the chemistry beyond her control, her professor glowering at her proof. It was too much. But that was the point: to feel that stress before she was at the helm of her own kitchen. To be a chef was tough, especially for women. But Maria was tough. And she was a great chef. 
She was only a sous-chef, granted. But it was for one of the premier restaurants in New York, Julienne, the punny name derived from her shitbag owner and head chef, Julian. And with how frequently that drug-addled asshole was absent, she essentially was head chef. With her as captain, it was smooth sailing for Julienne. She could handle pressure. 
So breathe, goddamnit. In and out. In and out. She soothed herself back from the brink until her hammering heart eased to a fluttering against her breastbone. 
With her breath finally in check, Maria became aware of the throbbing in her left shoulder. It hurt. Badly. She also recoiled from the smell that enveloped her: rotting bones, rancid meat, and spoiled vegetables. She knew that smell. She was in the goddamn dumpster behind Julienne. 
No. Absolutely not. I cannot die here. 
“HELP!”
She meant to send her voice screaming upward like steam erupting from a kettle. What came out was a croak, barely audible to her own ears in her muffled cell. Her throat was ragged from labored breathing. Any hope of rescue from calling for help died with the pitiful bounce of her ravaged voice off the garbage bags entombing her. No one was coming to save her. She’d have to claw herself out.
Focusing all of her energy on her left hand, she wiggled her fingers. She could still move them, thank God. Maria formed a fist and forced it against her thigh, crinkling the plastic of the very heavy bags from the last few nights of dinner service. She bent her elbow and slowly wheeled her fist across her torso until she reached her left shoulder. Her fist hit something metal and sharp. It cut her knuckles. She hissed in surprise as the fist retreated, and then she gingerly reapproached, wrapping her fingers around the blade.... 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Summer Lovin? Try some Summer Bludgeon!

On the heels of their previous crime anthology, Autumn Noir, Unsettling Reads offers us the follow-up collection appropriately named Summer Bludgeon. The title is fitting, not only because it rhymes with summer lovin', but because violent crimes spike during the summer months. So violent crime rates follow ice cream sales, you ask? Nope, that's what they call a spurious correlation. But, one might say that my month's reading enjoyment correlates to releases from Unsettling Reads. Nothing spurious about that.

As is usually the case with short story collections, your experience may vary. There were a few stories here that didn’t really do it for me. But when a story did land, it did so like an Olympic gymnast.

My favorites in the first section were “Bag it Up” by Allison Vincent, “Help Yourself” by Brandon Barrows, “The Tangled Web” by Eric Knabel, and “The Nest” by Mark Thomas. I really enjoyed the voice in particular from Allison Vincent’s story. The plot was solid, but it was the character that really served as the bass line that carried my enjoyment. It’s also worth noting that I also enjoyed a previous story from Brandon Barrows in Autumn Noir. Both he and Eric Knabel cemented themselves as solid regular contributors here (Eric had a story in UR’s first short story collection). This is already getting lengthy, but I don’t want Mark Thomas to feel left out. What “The Nest” did for me was really solidify this first section as the section of the quirky twist for me.

I can’t really say my favorite stories in Part Two follow any particular theme. “Dinner for Two” by Ken Luer hooked me immediately with dialogue that was witty, full of personality, and great turns of phrase. I also really liked how the small action beats between dialogue were often subtextual cues rather than the more typical physical actions I normally see. I really vibed with “The Last Summer” by Christine Eskilson because it really captured that nostalgic lens that you might use to look back on a particular summer during your formative years. The story would have been solid enough just with that, but then we had the ending. Chef’s kiss.

Part Three really ended with a bang for me. “Hopelessly Devoted” by Katie Brunecz was one of those fantastic stories that accomplished two things that many stories struggle with: providing backstory with organic dialogue that didn’t feel infodumpy, and letting the reader’s imagination fill in parts of the story. “Gemini” by Dair Brown genuinely surprised me. I mean, I have enjoyed all of Dair’s previous stories, so I go into one with a certain degree of expectation. But somehow, she still pulled one over on me and delivered one of my absolute favorites of the collection with a story that’s a continuation of her short “The Block” from Autumn Noir. I’m not sure if a person might feel a little left behind if they haven’t read the prequel, but I would expect the cleverness of this story and the gorgeous turns of phrase to win them over anyway. It’s a fine line to walk, putting poetic lines into prose fiction without it feeling a bit out of place, but Dair did just that multiple times with this story.

This is getting so long, but now I have to talk about the story that ended this book with a bang. It seems to be a trend that I’m blown away by the last story in the collection. “Song of Summer” by Jacob Steven Mohr grabbed me and didn’t let go. I do question that a half handle of rum and a 12-pack of beer is enough to keep three college juniors oiled for an entire weekend, but all jokes aside, this story was fantastic. I can tell the author is a horror writer. This story just felt like a different beast compared to the others because of the dread that worms its way into the narrative.

As you can probably tell, I loved this collection. I would recommend it to anyone. Even if you aren’t a big crime reader, what better way to dip your toes into the genre than with a short story collection?" - Russel G.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Finding Summer Fun in the Darkness of the Human Heart.

This anthology was a treat, with a mix of art, poems, and short stories that found plenty of new ways to explore the horrors people can commit, and the reasons why they might. The varied length of the pieces worked well as a whole, with shorter ones full of punch to punctuate the longer, more immersive works. For example, "Benny's Last Hike," by Juleigh Howard-Hobson, captures a fleeting moment, but exactly the right one to evoke the tone of the anthology. By contrast, Justin Thurman's "Coonhounds, For Instance" tosses you into a young boy's point of view on a frightening night and leaves you thinking about what happened well into the next tale.

Another standout for me was "A Daughter's Love," by Ewan A. Dougall. The writer's voice is strong and clear, bringing to mind Chandler and Hammett as it follows a detective through a case that hits too close to home. The mystery is well-executed for a short story and makes me wonder what the author would be able to do with a larger canvas. And speaking of canvases, the art in the anthology definitely puts you in the right frame of mind to read the stories. Stark, weird, and full of sharp shapes, Edward Michael Supranowicz's work makes you feel just a little off-kilter. And the collage by Elliott Orchard-Blowen reminds me of poets Austin Kleon and Jojo Lazar in all the best ways.

Overall, this anthology is definitely worth your time. A little summer bludgeon really is a blast!" - Erica C

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Great stories well written, perfect for holiday reading. With the exception of one , I enjoyed all of these well written short stories. Finished reading in 2 days." -Mrs

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "A highly tense read, these stories will take you on vastly different journeys and through some unique experiences with some fun characters.

The thing I enjoyed most about his anthology was the diversity in authors. No stories feel the same and every author brought their best work to the table! This is a must read!" -Jahmil Effend