You Will Hear the Locust Sing: A Dark Gothic Horror Short Story

by Joe Hill

From the New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Horns comes this e-short story—from Joe Hill’s award-winning collection 20th Century Ghosts.

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . .

Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . .

Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .

John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .

 

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Audiobook, Adult, Fiction, Science Fiction

47 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2007

About the author

Joe Hill's debut, Heart-Shaped Box, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. His second, Horns, was made into a film freakfest starring Daniel Radcliffe. His other novels include NOS4A2, and his #1 New York Times Best-Seller, The Fireman... which was also the winner of a 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror Novel.

He writes short stories too. Some of them were gathered together in his prize-winning collection, 20th Century Ghosts.

He won the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long running comic book series, Locke & Key, co-created with illustrator and art wizard Gabriel Rodriguez.

He lives in New Hampshire with a corgi named McMurtry after a certain beloved writer of cowboy tales. His next book, Strange Weather, a collection of novellas, storms into bookstores in October of 2017.

Reviews

[Andrew Lennon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this was the first joe hill story I haven't really enjoyed.
It was a bit too weird, and not the good kind of weird.
Also I've read a story before in an anthology named "brimstone cleopatra " that's all I could think about while reading this, and all I could think was the other story was better.
I don't know which was written first, perhaps I just enjoyed the other more because I read that first.
I'm usually a huge Hill fan and I'm sure other people may enjoy this story.
This one just didn't do it for me I'm afraid.

All reviews can be found at http://lennonslair.blogspot.co.uk

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feels like a something that would come from one of Junji Ito’s short story collections. Bizarre, disgusting, and ridiculously weird just for the sake of being weird. The story alone wasn’t that great, but it’s a fun and jittery read for people that are terrified of insects.

[Beth Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is exactly what happens when you take children raised between the atomic bomb and the nuclear age, make them huddle in school hallways for "bomb drills", mix it up with scary giant-bug movies and then throw in the modern-day horror of school shootings by the outcast.

In other words, it pretty much hits on all terror cylinders.

It's also what happens if you expose the offspring of Stephen King to Kafka at too early an age. Most of us read it in either high school or college. Hill probably read it when he was 4.

Being Hill, it's of course 5-star caliber but it lost a star for me personally because I started reading while I was eating dinner. Seriously, dude - that's disgusting. I hate damn bugs.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange..

[betsy has lost her mind. · Rating 3 out of 5]

um.

[Jonathan Echevarria · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Will Hear the Locust Sing is a fun little creature feature that will remind some horror fans of the old 1950's black and white monster films. Do you remember those fun stories where nuclear radiation turns some poor helpless sap into a terrifying monster? If you do then you will probably be right at home with this fun little tale. If you have any fear at all of insects then I think you will find this novella more then a little disturbing.

Not much else can be said about this story without giving too much away. The gore factor is very similar to the 1990's version of The Fly. Complete with skin shedding off to expose the horrifying abomination be born underneath. This story is probably the goriest gem to be included in the 20th Century Ghosts collection. While the main protagonist Francis Kay is by no means a sympathetic character, I believe almost all of the enjoyment factor comes from the havoc he causes throughout the adventure.


Overall a fun little morsel that I am more then happy to award four out of five stars to.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty silly. Very much like something from an early Stephen King anthology. The bug stuff was kind of funny and gross at the same time. When it got more violent it got interesting but my favourite part was that which deals with the protagonist's childhood, eating bugs to impress his classmates.

[Сибин Майналовски · Rating 3 out of 5]

Не можа да ме зариби, въпреки че има доста потенциал. Гнусотиите са добре описани, но нещо му липсва - живец ли, интрижка ли, не знам... Явно когато го е писал, Малък Кинг все още се е мъчел да не прилича много на Татко Кинг - нещо тъпо, безсмислено и безнадеждно :)

[Jonny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I just don't get it. When Kafka wrote "Metamorphosis", it was a philosophical essay on the human condition. I wasn't expecting that from Joe Hill, an author that I really enjoy, but I was expecting a little more than this. I still enjoyed the story while I was reading it.

[Maggie Leroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't like it that much. Very much Kafka.

[Colin Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modern version of Kafka's Metamorphosis

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" retold as a straight-out horror story. Unlike Kafka's hero, the character in this story begins to enjoy being a giant locust! Horrifying and blackly humorous.

[SimplyCynara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read

I knew nothing about this story when i brought it and it was a roller coaster ride. A good read

[Erin Schable · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and sad, really.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eugggh hearing about eating insects and all kinds of things like that was enough to really creep me out. No me gusta.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 -- if you are interested in a twist on Gregor Samsa in the form of an insect-loving boy then check this out. It's gross and really interesting. Quick read, too.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the true successor to Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Joe Hill puts everything he has on narration power in this true gem of a story. Set in anywhere small town USA the horror starts with a boy turned into a bug, a locust to be exact. Will he suffer from this condition or what are his plans? What about his father, step mother and the other kids at school. Loved the horror elements, the references to the b-movies of the 50s, the bomb, the well carved characters and the ending. One of the best short novellas I read in quite a while. Outstanding stuff - highly recommended!

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Franz Kafka’s 𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘴 but with killing, cannibalism, and fatphobia. I like to believe Joe Hill wrote this because he wanted some sort of redemption for Gregor. Honestly well written, but I just don’t enjoy certain mentalities Hill puts in his writing at times which seemed to take me out of the enjoyment of reading this short story.

[Mayumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fanfic de Metamorfose escrita pelo Joe Hill. Gostei muito de como é diferente do livro do Kafka. Enquanto aquele é bastante melancólico, este é direto e agressivo. As consequências da transformação em inseto do primeiro são internas, as do segundo são externas. As duas histórias se complementam muito bem.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a 1950's Creature Feature with radiation, people living in a dry waste landscape near a military base, and the hard scrabble survivors scratching out a living. A young teenage boy wakes up one morning and discovers he's just changed into a giant locust and molted off his human skin. He decides to take his new self for a test drive.

[Michael Hetman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a parody of the metamorphosis by Kafka except it seems like it's set in the 1950s and the character revels in his transformation but discovers that there are biological drawbacks like not being able to survive off of "human" food. It was engaging up to what felt like a rushed ending.

[Whitley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a fucking weird short story of a kid turning into a grasshopper (?) then hiding out in a dumpster before going on a killing spree. Also, his farts can turn people into goo??? I don't know man, but I think I should have been high when reading it cuz it was a trip.

[Kaitlyn (ktxx22) Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one of those are you afraid of the dark stories. Honestly the collection Outside of the first story so far feels really young and for young racers but maybe it’ll switch up as I get deeper in. This was gross and interesting.

[Call me Jeeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those of us that remember when Moving Pictures by Rush came out, that is how we knew there were others like us out there. There are others that are hated or not understood, the ugly , the outcast. I’m sure Joe Hill is writing from a point like this. What a great short story.

[RaChelle Holmberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Downloaded from my public library, I'm freaked out. What a concept. NO SPOILERS, but suffice it to say this story isn't for the weak :-)

[Nick Katenkamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the story reads like a campy horror movie version of Kafka's Metamorphosis. It's so similar that it is unnecessary, and the story ends without really going anywhere.

[Emmalyn Renato · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story nominated for a British Fantasy award in 2005. A 1950's style after-the-nuclear-bomb-tests horror story. A teenage boy turns into a giant locust and terrorizes a town in Arizona.

[Aaron Mauricio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. This has 60s horror feels which is out of date.

[Baby Monster #563 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome . Joe hill is cool as hell. This story may finally push me to seek out that kafka story and read it. I have a feeling i may prefer Hills inspired take on turning in to a bug. So gory!

[Danielle Kempke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sort of reminded me of some episodes from that R.L. Stine show 'The Haunting Hour' the one about the boy who controls bugs and the 2 parter about the boy who becomes a bug...