Genre: Horror / Dark Fiction
Publisher: William Meikle
Publication Date: 17th May 2015
Pages: 34
MY REVIEW:
I picked up this copy of Blacktop by William Meikle a few weeks ago when it was going cheap
on Amazon. It may even have been free, I can’t remember. I wanted something
short to read so slotted it in. Generally Mr Meikle’s stuff is top notch
reading. This was a bit different to others of his I have read but was it worth
it?
A man picks up his latest object of desire, Ellen. He has
had a few drinks in a bar before getting behind the wheel of his pickup truck.
His baby.
Not far into the journey he has an accident and wakes up
wandering along an abandoned road. There is nothing there to see other than the
blacktop and Nobody constantly following him, ten yards behind.
He needs to find his baby. He needs to understand.
This one is certainly different. This is a story told in
the first person by a person you know next to nothing about other than the fact
they have made the mistake of getting behind the wheel after having a drink. In
this story you witness, through their eyes, what it must be like to be eternally tortured in your own
personal purgatory. This is what it could be like in your own personal hell
after making the mistake of your life.
I don’t want to tell you what happens in the story to
spoil things for you but to be honest, after you read this, it will make you
think about every little thing you have done wrong in your life or every little
thing you may be contemplating doing wrong in your future.
This story is so full of emotion and fear and horror and
bizarreness that, believe me, it will stick with you for a long time after
reading it.
I don’t know if Mr Meikle had some sort of epiphany
before writing this story or what the inspiration behind it was but he has
probably hit the nail on the head when it comes to what most people would
perceive as their worst impression of what it would be like stuck in a continuous
loop of a literal walking hell. I suspect it had something to do with the song
that is continuously mentioned in the story. I searched for it on You Tube
after reading the story and suffered from an hour long bout of goose bumps. If
I had listened to the song before reading the story and had it in my mind as I
read, I reckon I would have peed myself!
You cannot help but feel for the main character in this
story because of what he is going through but then at the same time you cannot
help but think he deserves everything he gets in it for what he has done. One
particular scene where someone else comes into his nightmare had me very near
to tears. This is certainly an emotional roller coaster of a story that you
will not want to miss.
To summarise: a story of one man’s nightmare after causing
a nightmare for others. A tale of a walking hell that no one would ever want to
go through. This should be made into a short film and put on TV to highlight
the possible effects of drink driving. I think it would be far more effective
than any advert I have seen so far.
General rating:
★★★★★ excellent creepy short story.
Horror rating:
★★★★★ gets full marks again for emotional horror.
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Reviewer then please consider using the links below to buy Blacktop or any other books from Willie. This not only
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Thanks.
Book Synopsis:
A car crash, an awakening and a post-apocalyptic
landscape are only the start of his problems. He's alone apart from a mute
companion, there's nothing but wrecks on the highway, and somewhere, somebody
won't stop singing. He heard the crash on the highway. But he didn't hear
nobody pray.
I'm Willie, Scottish
but now in Canada, and I write pulpy adventure stories in the main, with big
beasties, men with guns, occult detectives, lost worlds, things from beyond,
slime, ghosts, more beasties and more slime. And beer. I have 20 novels and
over 300 stories published in the likes of Dark Regions Press, DarkFuse and
Chaosium with many more still to come. And did I mention beer?
My
current best seller is THE INVASION, a sci-fi alien invasion tale with mass
carnage, plucky survivors, and last minute rescues. It has been as high as #2
in the Kindle > science fiction charts. (and #4 in Kindle > horror).
And
for more about Willie, visit his site or find him on social media:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Amazon Page
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