Status Updates From Randalls Round: Nine Nightm...

First story is so restrained in terms of action and horror, and I think that works because 'getting' the first scene after finishing it was so creepy.

But can we really take comfort in this 'the witch is dead' ending? Can it really be trusted?

Human sacrifice surely plays a part, and then the old witch thing in the story really reminds me of Dario Argento's movie classic Suspiria.

So the smallish woman/student, Adela brought her female friend to her family's old household in the countryside? 

So women are also doing human sacrifice here?! And we also have a blind, sweet-voiced and very old woman in the house, I will not be surprised if she turns out to be evil.

Two women in a big lonely house in the countryside, the only survivors of a whole family.

I am not sure I want to finish this story....

The ending is...odd.

"Time flieth, hope dieth"

The enclosure and the well.

A big, bright moon.

I like the ending of The Tree.

A tragedy of a married couple?

Ok human sacrifice of a sort.

Oh the village idiot shows up

" You are such a calm old thing, Spud."

Hahaha

The Cure: this story feels utterly modern to me.

The Room: A bunch of guy going into a haunted room one by one at night to meet with ghost or what lot, we all how it will go.😄

"The Menhir" Like the other N. Dennett tale--a creeping curse overtaking a terrified victim. Too sensationalistic, to me, to belong with the E. Scott tales. This one is better than the other, IMHO, mostly because a tad more believable. Such plots work better in the long form, when there's downtime between threatening events in which protagonists can doubt their sanity. Events go so fast in a s. story they seem silly.

"Unburied Bane" doesn't feel to me like the same writer--although people will change over time. Anyway, this was far less subtle than the previous tales. More fun than actually scary, verging on self-parody to me.

"The Old Lady" Another good first person narrator, adding some color. Still not a great ending--seems the weak spot of Scott's tales: the set-ups are engrossing and fun but sometimes the end is either predictable or a shade too fast, without the impact a good scary tale demands. On to the two addended tales presumed to be by the same author under a different pseudonym.