The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror

by Tori Bovalino

They were so afraid of change, so afraid of becoming new people, they’d shackled each other to the corpses of who they’d been before.

And wasn’t that the worst part, every time? How the love and the caring stayed, even as everything around it rotted?

A safety pin and a Walmart candle, beer-silly and scared. Apparently, it was no sophisticated business, summoning devils.

Love wasn’t supposed to make you so nauseous that you couldn’t eat. It wasn’t supposed to leave you feeling empty. Constantly worried that you said or did the wrong thing. That you weren’t enough, and never would be. Love wouldn’t send you into a dark tunnel without a flashlight.

It’s just … it’s one thing to promise yourself you’re going to do something, and another to actually see it through.