Polyphemus
by Zachary Ashford
When lead vocalist of Polyphemus Stephen Oaks’s near-fatal on-stage overdose leaves them under pressure from their label, the band’s remaining members must find a new vocalist, pick up the pieces and forge on without him.
Unfortunately, he’s fresh from rehab and desperate to reunite with his old band, In fact he’s so desperate that he’ll bargain with dark forces and sacrifice everything – and anyone!
After the final encore is played and the house lights come down, there is no telling who will remain or who they’ll be in allegiance to. For Polyphemus, obsession costs far more than mere murder.
5 out of 5 fairies
This was wonderfully dark and twisted, and more nuanced than I was expecting. Ashford somehow managed to draw me in with what should have been a fairly mundane opening. The characters had a lot of depth, and although they’re tied together through the band, they’re each so different, with their own wants, needs, and at times dark, desires. The story is very character driven, and even those that seem like relatively minor players are an important part of the whole in one way or another. The mix of heavy metal and darker things might feel a little on the nose given some views on that genre of music, but none of it felt cliché. Honestly, the whole story read like a fresh new take, even though it has some echoes of other stories running through it. (Faustian bargains, anyone?) If you like your horror to be more on the creepy side, you’re going to love this.
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Zachary Ashford is the Aurealis Award-nominated author of When the Cicadas Stop Singing from Horrific Tales, Sole Survivor and Sole Survivor II from Unnerving – and Autotomy Cocktail and The Encampment by the Gorge & Blood Memory from Demain. His short fiction has been featured in Dark Moon Digest, the Elements of Horror: Earth anthology, Trickster’s Treats 3 from Things in the Well, and Kyanite Press.
His new book, The Morass: Servant of the Fly God is available for pre-order now. (https://getbook.at/Morass)
Outside of that, he can be found listening to metal, hanging with his wife and kids, or watching as many schlocky horror films as he can.