Book Review | Cold, Black & Infinite: Stories of the Horrific & Strange by Todd Keisling

Cold, Black & Infinite: Stories of the Horrific & Strange is a fantastic collection of sixteen macabre horror stories that’ll give you nightmares! These tales give me Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks vibes, and I love the otherworldly feel of the settings and the characters. The writing is evocative and makes me feel immersed in the stories. This is the kind of book for people who wish it were winter all year.

Most nights, the imagination runs wild from a lack of stimulation, filling in the gaps with mirages. It’s sort of like how the synapses fire one final time as the brain dies, illuminating one’s consciousness with a fleeting euphoria until entropy takes hold and all those pretty lights dissolve into nothing.

— 2:45 to New Xebico

There are stories about dangers at work. In the disturbing The Smile Factory, an employee relays the history of their workplace that drains their workers in all kinds of ways. 2:45 to New Xebico explores the dark side of night shift work at a bus terminal. Black Friday is a gory and suspenseful take on the zombie trope set in a supermarket, while a babysitter faces an unexpected foe in Solve For X.

The desire for something more is another common line in this collection. In Midnight in the Southland, the narrator feels a pull towards an old radio show. A woman would do anything to have a child in Afterbirth, while a young girl prays for a saviour in The Gods of Our Fathers. Happy Pills sees a man searching for happiness, to his detriment. A woman tries to run from her past in The Happytown Yuletide Massacre. The final story, We’ve All Gone to the Magic Show, describes the lure of an old building that is not as it appears to be.

I appreciate that the stories come with story notes for background information (which I found interesting!) as well as content warnings for readers who need them. A must-read for horror fans looking for something fresh!

About the author: Todd Keisling

Photo by Hayden Scott