It's Dark Inside

by Karen Heard

These six tales span the genres of ghost story, mystery, horror, and suspense. Some look back on dark times, others look forward to an apocalyptic future, and still others dwell on a terrible present – but they have one thing in they are all dark. Don’t expect happy endings or pleasant characters here, for there is something dark lurking in the shadows of each tale waiting to get out.

Contents

The Lighthouse
A young girl trapped in a flooding Lighthouse begins to wonder why her parents left...

Snap
How do you photograph the last moments of a dying species?

The Picture
A dead man’s home is haunted by the living and the memories they disturb...

Out of Order (Originally published in ' Ten Tales of Horror')
What do you do when the lights go out and the screaming starts?

The Promise (Won an Honorary mention in the 'Little House Creative Workshops writing competition'.)
Never make a promise you can’t keep...

Inside
Something scratching behind the walls is dying to get out...

Genres: Horror, Short Stories

124 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Karen Heard lives in London (UK) and writes dark fiction in a range of genres, including Gothic, ghost and mystery stories. Whatever genre she writes in, all her stories have one thing in common: they are all dark. Don't expect many happy endings or pleasant characters from her, for there is something dark lurking in the shadows of her imagination that makes itself known in each tale that escapes her mind.

Karen had a degree in Creative Writing and has worked for the past ten years in the magazine publishing industry.

Her first published anthology It's Dark Indside is available at: http://www.amzn.to/UyH6Al

Find more of her work at http://www.misheardfiction.com or follow her on Twitter at @misheardfiction

Reviews

[Tyler Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lighthouse - 4 stars Gloomy and atmospheric.

Snap - 5 stars? That was so sad T.T I'm not really sure what to rate it. I didn't "like" it (which I think you'll understand when if read it) but it felt powerful and too real with the state our world is in.

The Picture - 5 haunting and beautiful stars. That made me think on some things. Thoughts being things, places absorbing energy, spending time with loved ones is time well spent. Memories being ghosts of the past.

Out of Order - 3 stars Horrifying but i'm not sure what the point of it was. Felt like there should be more.

The Promise - 2 stars I just don't know what to make of it is all.

inside - 1 star Maybe it deserves more, I don't know, but I didn't like it personally. And it's eerie as someone who has been domestically abused, been in a house fire (in 2012) and has a black cat named Midnight (perfectly alive, he's a 3 year old cuddle fiend). And all that will make more sense if you read it, sorry. I don't really want to spoil it. TW: Animal abuse. No idea what i'm supposed to get from this story. And it was the longest one.

Even though the average is 3.33 i'm going with a solid 3, because that last one was about 40% of the book. Either way though it would still get 3 stars from me. Sorry I didn't like the last 2 but liked/loved the first 4. Read on Kindle Unlimited.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those stories are extremely disturbing and depressing. The author really know how to compose and plot a story. She has found her own style. It's a kind of magic prose going on there. Once you start reading you won't be able to put the book aside. A favourite? I liked them all. Nevertheless I was glad when this dark nightmare of a reading trip was over. Very tight and sinister stories. Ongoing reading might lead to a troubled mind. Highly recommended and hats off to this gifted author!

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is tough to rate. It's really well written and there are plenty of very unsettling and creepy scenes, the stories within going in directions you don't expect, but reader be warned, it's BLEAK. As the author warns us, there's no happy endings within.

Oh, and it has most of the trigger warnings, so enter with caution.

[Victoria Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well what can I say about this sumptuous collection of six spine tingling stories?

They were so well paced that, despite being determined to read them one at a time, I didn’t put it down until I read the last page and discovered to my disappointment that it had been the final one. There were times that I felt completely immersed in the stories (despite being in a room with three boisterous and rather loud children), and I didn’t notice until after I had finished that I had bitten my nails to the point of pain.

To mention each story individually may well spoil the book for some, but I have to mention my three favourites.

The Lighthouse is a story with echoes of fairytales of old, with beautiful images and tantalising questions.

The Picture is a haunting, endearing and melancholy tale that had me gripped from the beginning, and drifted in and out of my thoughts for days after. It was an immense piece of writing that left me feeling jealous that I had not written it myself. Much more of this please.

The fantastically titled inside was chilling. It had me guessing and second guessing right to the end. It is the first piece of short fiction to make me feel jumpy (I think I had an actual heart attack when my cat jumped out at me unexpectedly while I was reading it), I had a physical reaction to it. This alone would make it worth a mention, but there were also so many layers of story, such complexity, so skilfully woven into a compact and concise story. That is a very difficult thing to pull off in short fiction, but Karen Heard does it like a pro.

Often in short story collections there are stories that fall slightly flat, or are of poorer quality, used as fillers. Not so in this collection. Every story was worth the read.

But maybe best saved for reading in daylight…

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories Included:

The Lighthouse: A Young girl abandoned in a flooded lighthouse must keep it functioning while trying to understand the reasoning of her parents leaving.
The atmosphere and setting really make this story shine. I found myself wondering why would her parents abandon her in such a place. Another idea that kept popping up while reading. Could there be more to this girl than what the author was describing?
A great piece of writing and creepy but not my favorite of the collection.
-------------------
Snap: A Journalist must photograph the dying moments of an entire species.

Elephants are slaughtered for their ivory tusks without sympathy and thought for the species. A Ban on Ivory still couldn't cull the mass killings, and now one lucky journalist has the ultimate job; to take a picture of the last animal of its kind.

I admit this story is dark and it caught me off guard but compared to the other stories theme wise it doesn't fit. Regardless though it's a good read.
-----------
The Picture: A previous owner remains in his home,unable or unwilling to cross over, and experiences the disasters and triumphs of the new inhabitants.

I had to read this story twice in order to grasp what exactly is going(at least I think I understand the plot). An intriguing premise that falls short for me.
------------
Out of Order: A woman is trapped in the small confined space of a train bathroom.While terrified of the dark small space, it's protection against the chaos and screams from outside; or is it?

Now this is more like it. I hate small enclosed spaces and my pulse quickened with each sentence of this story. Her fear was real for me as I begged her not to leave the bathroom because outside was by the worst place to be.
---------------------
The Promise: Words have power. every year the people of Farswar have a celebration and exchange simple wishes. A travelling businessman foreign to their tradition speaks before thinking and pays the price.

This is the best story in the collection by far that serves a lesson to be remembered. Think before you speak!
-------------------
Inside: An abused woman is hiding from her tormentor in an abandoned house. She is driven to near insanity by scratching from within the walls.

An eerie tale that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. Creepy prose that twists and turns till your dizzy with suspense.
-------
Overall this collection was a great read, with "The Promise" being the standout entry.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to read this book I love horror books but especially the ones that have lots of atmosphere. So I entered the first reads competition to win a copy of this book didn't win but later in the day I got an email offering me a free ebook copy. I was so happy and excited. Thank you so much Karen :)
At the moment I'm reading the first story the light house. It has quite a creepy atmosphere about it so enjoying at the moment and loving the writing style and suspense. I will write a complete review when I have finished with the book.
But thank you again Karen for the ebook :)


UPDATE
This book had a slow start I have been struggling with the first few stories they were good. But I don't know they made it a slow read to begin with. Halfway through this book the stories picked up and became weird creepy and awesome :) and you don't know what is going on until you read a story and think about it. So I have enjoyed this ebook it is very well written and has a creepy atmosphere to it which is more scary to me than in your face horror and gore.
Thank you Karen for sending me this free ebook :)

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this collection of short stories, many thanks to the author who let me download the book for free from smashwords. My favourite story was the promise, the whole unintended consequence of not thinking things through before speaking was almost like the old morals behind the fables (though this might be me reading too much into things!). Although none of these stories have happy endings they're easy reads, perfect for when you get half an hour to yourself and fancy reading without having to worry about getting sucked into a book you can't put down. I'd recommend this collection to gothic/horror fans,though you might want to avoid this if you're faint hearted or easily disturbed as some of the descriptions are quite intense (either the author has a great imagination or we're looking at a crazed psychopath).

Can't wait to see what Heard comes up with next, would love to see a full novel someday!

[Xeno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given a free ebook copy of this anthology by the author, and was so taken by its well crafted worlds that I bought a second anthology (Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft) which contained her only other story published so far.

The anthology itself was a well judged length, leaving you wanting more and never dragging. The author uses a series of tricks to convey the atmosphere, but she gets them to work for her well, rarely distracting and never spoiling the effect. The stories are all original and involving, each one entirely different with a stick-in-your-mind quality that makes you want to read another. Each is so different I'll comment on them individually.

The Lighthouse. The strange, dark world and open ending make this a well chosen opening story. The narrative voice, almost childish at points, was a little off-putting initially but fits the main character well.

Snap. A real curve-ball and contrast to the first story, I began to wonder why it was in the anthology until the pace picked up. A careless reading of the temple carvings at the start threw me a little when it later mentioned the last elephant alive (I misread it at first as elephants and women around the temple rather than carved on it); once I'd reread it more closely it added to the sense of elephants being part of the past. It was very short, and once the pace picked up I quickly realised there was something more than a "nothing much happens" disapproving ecological commentary.

The Picture. Surprisingly spooky. I thought about this story again a couple of days after reading, but couldn't quite place it, thinking it was a classic ghost story I'd read before I remembered it was part of this book, which is quite an acolade.

Out of Order. Probably the best evoked world of them all, and in my opinion the best story. I was irritated by the obtuse way the narrator thought the obvious blood was anything but, and put off by the toilet scene, but they still worked, adding to the effect of the story. The ambiguity of the killers and the darkness of the world make it unforgettable.

The Promise. Another great story; the old fashioned fictional eastern European setting, with its strange customs and never-quite-part-of-it lead character worked well. Everything seemed to be slipping out of his control (was it a coincidence that this was one of the only male protagonists?); the train breaking down, the inevitability of the stranger's actions, and the unaccountability of it after having happened, the chance meeting at the wedding, and careless request all combined with the character's skeptical attitude to the strange world he found himself in. As you would expect, the early dialogue all makes perfect sense after you finish the story, but the foreign setting ensures it's not too obvious reading it the first time.

Inside. The familiarly real-world setting made this the least compelling story for me. Despite this the story actually managed to scare me a little, and definitely conveyed that "going crazy" feeling that makes you wonder about your own sanity as you read it. I'm not much of a fan of natural-explanation ghost stories, so it's not much of a surprise that I didn't like the final twist, but the final cat's "skin rotting from its body" and the thought of the cleaner silently coming in, untying a shoebox to bury a dead cat and tying it back up again so that the owner wouldn't find out for some unexplained reason defies even suspended disbelief. That said, one story in a collection with a rational explanation adds to the variety, and I genuinely didn't see it coming.

[Nathan Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lighthouse kicks things off with a brooding potential post apocalypse that centres on the dreadfulness of isolation and finding yourself alone at the end of the world in a flooded lighthouse. With dwindling supplies to worry about and a jarring sense that the world is oh-so-wrong, this bleak atmospheric tale of loss builds and builds to a fog bound, murderous end.

Snap is the shortest tale, giving us a thoughtful ecological message about how we treat the planet and everything on it. We are dooming species every day; only humans can stop it but we’re the ones destroying habitats and grinding rhino for medicines. We’re all earthlings y’know! Once these creatures are gone, there’s no feasible way in our reality to keep them alive. A journalist ventures to take the final picture of the last elephant in its death throes. Strangely, I think this is how it will happen. Well thought out and executed.

The Picture gives us the churning thoughts of a ghost as he muses on his decisions and mistakes of his previous life. Whilst not the most engaging story of the bunch, Heard does an admirably job of describing the day to day misery of a ghost caught in limbo. Imagine Dorian Grey in the afterlife and you’ll be somewhere close.

Out of Order starts as a thrilling piece involving terror onboard a train as a woman evacuates herself in the toilet only to hear terrifying noises on the other side of the door. Whilst I enjoyed the beginning of this tale, I felt it took a diversion towards the end as if Heard wasn’t entirely sure where to take the story (I know the feeling). If it had stayed on the track as a straight forward monster slaughters I might have enjoyed it more. Still a decent little read as the tension outweighs the delivery.

The Promise takes a road into darkened corners of Europe in a historical piece slightly reminiscent of Roald Dahl’s early work, with eccentric characters, atmospheric landscapes and death based humour. A travelling businessman finds himself caught in the midst of a weird local tradition that involves making promise you have to keep . . . or else.

Inside is the longest tale, and hinges on that border between madness and an overactive imagination, where an abused woman on the run from her boyfriend makes a new life for herself in the country, only to find that she’s being stalked by something within the walls of her renovated home. Heard does a fantastic job here of balancing what is real and what is harbouring within the characters own slapstick psychosis. Even after the twist is revealed, the reader will still be questioning her sanity.

This may be a short read at 110 pages, but each tale inside brings a quota of unnerving prose. Whilst there’s nothing too horrific here to unsettle you, Heard shows promise for the future. The gnawing build-up of dread in each tale is well paced and her descriptions and characterisation are spot on. I like discovering new female horror writers as the genre has been mostly dominated by male writers, so it’s interesting to get a hold of the fairer sexes take on horror. Sometimes you can tell when it’s a female writer as they have a more careful placement of words and less prominence on gore, but this does nothing to detract what true horror is, the creeping feeling that something or someone is waiting in the dark to get you.

4/5

www.facebook.com/NathanRobinsonWrites

[Sarah-Jayne Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This review may contain spoilers).

I didn't win a copy of this book, but the author provided the coupon for a free download of it from Smashwords, so I downloaded it and read it in the same day.

Short story collections are always a bit hit and miss for me, but I found this to be one of the better collections. The stories were well-written and really easy to read, though the first person POV was a bit confusing - I spent quite a bit of the last story assuming that the narrator was male.

I found each of the short stories to be quite hard-hitting. A few of them were confusing in what was going on, but I was still left thinking a lot about them.

I liked the fact that not all of the stories had supernatural issues. I think I liked the last story best - though I found the cruelty to the cats quiet upsetting. Still, I think that story especially will stay with me for a while.

The story about the train and the zombies or infected people was quite scary and horrifying. I could relate to the narrator being stuck in the toilet, not knowing what was going on and not able to see very much. I think darkness can make a situation even scarier.

The story with the promises uttered was quite good, too. Obviously, words uttered in carelessness can sometimes be very damaging and quite scary.

The story about the lighthouse was one of the more confusing ones, though I think I understood the ending well enough. I did also like the story about the house with the painting of the old man and the ghost trapped there. I think I liked all of the stories and I didn't get confused with the different narrators - they all came across as different enough that I didn't mistake them for each other.

I think I would be interested in reading another book by this same author, depending on the genre. But I would definitely check out more books similar to this one.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had entered a competition to win a copy of this book but sadly I did not win. However the author kindly emailed me and offered a coupon to get the ebook free so thank you very much for that.

I have to say I didn't enjoy the first two stories. 'The Lighthouse' was the most confusing story and I don't think I got it so that is most likely why I did not enjoy it. The second story 'Snap' didn't fit with the rest of the stories for me so appeared out of place in this collection.

However after being disappointed by these two stories I was in for a treat with the remaining four. 'The Picture' was a brilliant twist on a haunted house story being from the viewpoint of the dead rather than the living. Then came 'Out of Order' which was by far my favourite of the stories, being trapped in a train toilet when all the lights go out while hearing shocking events outside that are then only slowly witnessed by the narrator as the author slowly reveals what is happening was superb writing.

'The Promise' was a very good story too and reminds us to be careful what we say without thought as you never know what will result from these words. I felt this story could be developed into a longer story on its own as there is plenty of space for expansion on this theme. 'Inside' finished off the book well as this one seemed a more traditional horror story of things that go bump in the night.

Overall the writing was good, easy to read and the four stories I enjoyed had me on the edge of my seat wanting to find out the results. I will be looking out for future releases from the author and I can recommend this book, it is certainly worth the tiny amount being charged.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really enthralling collection of stories that are all very different yet capture the essence of human terror superbly. The first story is called the Lighthouse and is told through the eyes of a young girl left in a isolated lighthouse by her parents and her struggle to survive without them. The second story, Snap, tells of one photographer's quest to document the dying moments of the last of a species and shows the horrors and sense of loss associated with such moments (this was my favourite, especially given current trends). The third story is told through the observations of a ghostly painting and shows how quickly life can change from good to bad. The last three tales, Out of Order, The Promise and Inside, all play on the reader's imagination filling in what is not seen/heard/read allowing the reader's own fears to drive the story and create an even greater sense of dread. Overall this is a superb collection that shows that you don't need to go over the top with graphic details to get a reaction and send shivers down the spine of the reader.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was kindly given this eBook to read by the author. I really enjoyed the stories, I found that each story was better than the previous one, some were kind of spooky too. I found myself wondering what was going on and feeling sorry for the characters in some of the stories. She has a way of writing that draws you into each story.

It is definitely worth reading, I would read more from this author.

[Stefani - SpelingExpirt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid collection of short stories that were enjoyable to read, although I am regretting reading them at bedtime!

I didn't like three of the stories that much but the last three really packed a punch. My only real complaint would be that all six stories were in first person, I think it would have benefited from mixing them up a little. This collection is still worth a read, especially for the wonderfully gripping Out of Order.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six fantastically written tales of terror...it is very dark inside the covers of this book! The writing took me along with it very easily and had me delving boxes for the last bulb all the way through to barring the door on the last kitten.... It was a pleasure to read, scary to be part of and absolutely fantastic to ride the tales through the vivid writing skills of Karen Heard

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun set of short stories, I enjoyed reading them greatly, finished the book in one sitting )oops I always want to keep short stories for waiting rooms etc but couldn't stop). The last story sticks in my head even now a few days later. I recommend reading this.

[Anastasia Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Karen, for letting me to read this book. I really appreciate it. Stories were nice, very well written and in correct length. I read them very quick. But, for me they wasn't scary enough.
I like all the stories, so I will definitely read more from her.

[Lisa Bowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these short stories, the first couple were haunting, the rest really really interesting -I loved the train story.
I enjoyed them so much that I just read the whole lot in 1 sitting. They seemed to get better the more you read.

[Irene Well Worth A Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining stories that will give you chills. Scary without the gore factor present in so many horror collections. Very well written. My absolute favorites were Out of Order, and The Promise.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I am a fan of short stories and none of them failed to deliver. Loved it!