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Red Horn
"From the flames, I rise. The flesh rejuvenated from the charred, brittle bones of a weaker creature. I am alive."
"Hands like claws and mouths like jagged caverns, howling for their next meal. It cannot be stopped until it is suppressed into a place of abundance."
From the award-winning author of The By-Blow Promise Land, comes a new terrifying tale that is generations in the making.
Red Horn, a small rural town in northern Wisconsin, is sacred. A tight-knit community built on centuries of tradition and rituals that will bring about an age of peace. If Victor Outs, the heir apparent, has his way-the madness stops with him. The dark truths of the Ours' family come to light. The angel they pray to is preying on them, and no one can stop it. Victor must make his go into the unknown alone or stay to keep the peace everyone else wants.
"Hands like claws and mouths like jagged caverns, howling for their next meal. It cannot be stopped until it is suppressed into a place of abundance."
From the award-winning author of The By-Blow Promise Land, comes a new terrifying tale that is generations in the making.
Red Horn, a small rural town in northern Wisconsin, is sacred. A tight-knit community built on centuries of tradition and rituals that will bring about an age of peace. If Victor Outs, the heir apparent, has his way-the madness stops with him. The dark truths of the Ours' family come to light. The angel they pray to is preying on them, and no one can stop it. Victor must make his go into the unknown alone or stay to keep the peace everyone else wants.
- GenresHorror
162 pages, Paperback
Published February 9, 2025
5 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
R.E. Bunch
4 books9 followersRE Bunch is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. She enjoys all things occult, horror, and science fiction. She pulls from art, true-crime stories, scientific theories, and nature to stretch her creations beyond the limits of horror. She blends poetry and prose writing techniques to develop worlds filled with mystery, dread, and beauty. A style that has been described as eclectic and uniquely her own.
When she is not writing she is playing with dogs and making linoleum prints.
When she is not writing she is playing with dogs and making linoleum prints.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 8, 2025
A very big thanks to the author for sending me this swell copy to read and review. We met at ONE OF US: Midwest Horror Con, in Iowa City. Keep the Midwest Weird! All views and opinions are my own.
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The Rural Midwest is full of smalltowns. Many do what they can can keep the pulse of their community alive, resurrecting (or in some cases fabricating) bits of local historical minutia on which to attract new life, bring in new dollars. However, there are some places that, despite that passage of time and dwindling of the population, the folk still cling to very stringent local practices, beliefs, or traditions. Red Horn, Wisconsin, is such a place. A place that has particular expectations, perhaps even demands of the young, especially those making that passage into adulthood. The dreams and hopes of the young are things to be coddled briefly then crushed, and used as fuel to keep the heart of the community alive. Bunch brings up those feelings of angst of anger. That growing sense of desperation to get out of the clutches of a small town. You're hormones are a confused and muddled train wreck, the metal you listen to is black as the night, and is perhaps the only torchlight to drive you forward. Red Horn is a reminder that beyond that Social Media Ready downtown, beyond the smiles of the locals, small Midwestern small towns have a network of dark veins, pulsing with history. Stained History, that successive generations have worked to wipe away. The racism, the lynchings, the cultural amnesia regarding anything that may have happened to the local indigenous communities on whose land these towns were placed.
Red Horn invites you to face the nightmare of one wholesome, quiet town in Northern Wisconsin. Whether you leave or not, well that's a matter of faith isn't it? *dark cackling intensifies*
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The Rural Midwest is full of smalltowns. Many do what they can can keep the pulse of their community alive, resurrecting (or in some cases fabricating) bits of local historical minutia on which to attract new life, bring in new dollars. However, there are some places that, despite that passage of time and dwindling of the population, the folk still cling to very stringent local practices, beliefs, or traditions. Red Horn, Wisconsin, is such a place. A place that has particular expectations, perhaps even demands of the young, especially those making that passage into adulthood. The dreams and hopes of the young are things to be coddled briefly then crushed, and used as fuel to keep the heart of the community alive. Bunch brings up those feelings of angst of anger. That growing sense of desperation to get out of the clutches of a small town. You're hormones are a confused and muddled train wreck, the metal you listen to is black as the night, and is perhaps the only torchlight to drive you forward. Red Horn is a reminder that beyond that Social Media Ready downtown, beyond the smiles of the locals, small Midwestern small towns have a network of dark veins, pulsing with history. Stained History, that successive generations have worked to wipe away. The racism, the lynchings, the cultural amnesia regarding anything that may have happened to the local indigenous communities on whose land these towns were placed.
Red Horn invites you to face the nightmare of one wholesome, quiet town in Northern Wisconsin. Whether you leave or not, well that's a matter of faith isn't it? *dark cackling intensifies*
May 14, 2025
several errors in the book made it a little difficult to fully enjoy. perhaps another round of editing but it did keep me captivated at the same time. I wanted to know what was going to happen. the horror scenes I think were well done. this is just my opinion but the romantic feelings the main character ended up having for his best friend felt sort of out of no where, I think it could have been developed a little more? I would've liked to have it hinted built up more throughout. I still enjoyed this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 11, 2025
Fans of American Midwest gothic horror will revel in this novella, set in a small town in Wisconsin whose founder entered a compact with an "angel". From that point, the fate of his descendants and the town's residents are intertwined with a force as sinister as it is unpredictable.
Victor, a high school senior, is the latest scion of the Ours family, the unwilling inheritor of the mantle relinquished by his recently deceased grandmother. As uninterested in his familial/civic responsibility as he is in college, he nonetheless becomes complicit in the spiraling atrocities initiated by a reclusive classmate. The conclusion is, quite simply, apocalyptic.
The main characters are disturbingly real and the prose is tightly wound. Your jaw will hit the floor at least once, and that is a good thing.
Victor, a high school senior, is the latest scion of the Ours family, the unwilling inheritor of the mantle relinquished by his recently deceased grandmother. As uninterested in his familial/civic responsibility as he is in college, he nonetheless becomes complicit in the spiraling atrocities initiated by a reclusive classmate. The conclusion is, quite simply, apocalyptic.
The main characters are disturbingly real and the prose is tightly wound. Your jaw will hit the floor at least once, and that is a good thing.
May 19, 2025
I LOVED Red Horn!! It's so good! I was late for dinner plans because I had to finish it. The Wisconsin setting was a bonus. Victor was such a relatable character & Eddie too. The writing & descriptions were vivid & totally immersive. I usually have trouble following action scenes where a lot is happening at once but I never got lost. Very satisfying ending! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews