“Is Heaven a dark place? Will I belong?”

Oooooo Nathan Ballingrud, the freak bitch that you are. Oofda doofda dude, truly diabolical. “Wounds” is exactly what it says on the lid folks: these are stories from Hell, and there’s six of them! Gnarly, brutal, but so, so carefully and cyclically crafted that the final scene shoved the breath I’d been holding right back into my chest. A stellar example of how economical short story horror can and should be: the quality surpasses the quantity, and I wanted more more more.

I didn’t always jive with the writing style but goddamn did literally everything else make up for it.

5/5 “I told you, each word spitting through the static, and I watched your face make a complicated movement: a mixture of sorrow and hope, which I have learned is part of love's vocabulary.” Fuuuuuuuuck.