Blood Spring - Erik Williams

Blood Spring
by Erik Williams
Pub Bad Moon Books

Some books you you can't help but feel really only have enough going on to support a novella. Less often a novella touches on themes and ideas that make you wish they were twice as long so they could be explored more thoroughly.

We are presented with a married couple, and although Henry is not particularly likeable his wife is sweet, kind and can't bring herself to eat a rabbit to survive, but with a quiet strength of character it seems. They head out to return a young deer to the wild and find themselves lost in a forest with an unsettling reputation.

The horror in Blood Spring is sudden and visceral, making me feel a little nauseous at times (I am very squeamish and have no stomach for maggots) and I suspect that was deliberate, horror of that sort is hard to maintain but works well in short bursts. Still I found myself wanting to know more about Henry's relaitonships with other people, it seemed to me that there were touches of agression and something not quite right about his thinking that was the basis for a fascinating character. Henry's moments of internal darkness bring a different thread of horror to the story. There is something worrying about this amiable suburban man having the dark thoughts he has.

The strange family in the woods and their twisted religion was a hint at something dark and fascinating beyond the obvious texas chainsaw behavior and Nate, leading the searches had depths the reader didn't get to explore. Maybe that was the point too. Maybe the reader is supposed to wonder what drives Nate, what potential for violence Henry would have had if not pushed to extremes and so on without offering answers. Maybe it's good to appear, deliver the punch and leave us wondering where the hell that came from.

A visceral horror novella that delivers a kick to the gut.