Today’s short story you absolutely ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY have to read:
“Better You Believe,” by Carole Johnstone, first published in HORROR LIBRARY VOLUME 6, author and publication both previously unknown to me. It is the opening story of Ellen Datlow’s THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOL 10, first tale I’ve read in that collection.
The narrator is a mountain climber on an expedition descending Annapurna, one of the 8K peaks and a mountain with a much higher casualty rate than Everest. (“The summit to death ratio on Everest is one in twenty-six. On Annapurna, it’s one in three.”)
As happens in every mountain climbing story, things go poorly. You know that. You know that, if for no other reason, because this is a horror collection. But rarely have I read a take that so perfectly captured the worsening conditions, the growing despair, the constant calculation of diminishing odds, the cold, and so on, in language this persuasive, this compelling and sensual.
It reads like a horrific mainstream story. It becomes easier to classify as a genre work in its last few pages. But you know what? It makes that crossing in a manner so gorgeous, so gasp-inducing, so belatedly correct, that I urge even the horror-averse — and many of my friends are nothing if not horror-averse — to take the leap.
Honestly. Sometimes I praise horror with the subtext that this recommendation is only for horror fans. Sometimes I am addressing the rest of the resistant crowd, the ones who say NO NO NO I WON’T LOOK, to whom I must stress, “This isn’t what you picture. This is transcendent.” As I recently had cause to say out loud, among friends exercising the same reticence toward another horror iteration, I want to reach the point where you can feel safe in trusting me. This…is jaw-droppingly beautiful. This is a jewel. This is something you need to see. If you need to just pluck it off the shelf at your bookseller and read it in a brightly-lit and warm room, over coffee, then do that. TRUST ME.
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