Review by Annie Riordan
So I’m going camping this summer.
Actually, I went camping last summer, but it doesn’t count because #1 – I didn’t know I was going camping and #2 – it turned into an epic clusterfuck, which ended with me wading through knee-high pools of rainwater in my pajamas in search of a toilet. You see, last August I was shoved into a car at gunpoint by Brutal As Hell CEO Marc Patterson, driven out into moose country and forced to eat s’mores made by his young children. Six hours into the standoff, I was rescued by the most vicious thunderstorm ever to slam into New Hampshire. Drunk and reeking of woodsmoke, we returned home defeated and I spent the remainder of the night on his teenage daughter’s incredibly posh memory foam mattress. I’m so not the camping type: nature is grody and I hate bugs. So I’m going again this summer. Because I am a masochist.
I really, really wish however, that I had NOT read Kealan Patrick Burke’s latest novella until AFTER the camping trip. Because now – along with my fear of spiders, aversion to dirt and paranoia about accidentally squatting and peeing into a clump of poison oak – I can now add a justified phobia of camping tents to the list.
A remote forest. A freak rainstorm. A light in the distance. It’s a classic haunted house set-up, except there’s no house. Just a tent, lit from within by a warm, friendly glow, drawing in the lost with a promise of shelter from the storm. It’s the last beacon of hope for Mike and Emma, whose family camping trip/last ditch effort to save their failing marriage has gone down the crapper faster than red curry induced diarrhea. A freak storm has tossed their tent into a tree, their son has wandered off and gotten himself lost and all of Mike’s personality flaws have become painfully apparent, to the point where he almost cannot blame Emma for the infidelity she may or may not have committed. Willing to put their mutual animosity on hold long enough to find their son, Mike and Emma are drawn to the distant, lamplit tent hoping to find help, or at least a temporary respite from the nightmare their life has become in just a few short hours. But instead they find the gaping maw of Hell, lined with serrated machete teeth, dripping with venomous putrefaction and exhaling a toxic cloud of poisonous vapor.
Okay, maybe I exaggerated a bit, but not by much. However, to reveal anymore about the story would be to ruin the nasty surprise that The Tent has in store for you. And to do such a thing would be akin to denying you the pleasure of peeling back a festering scab and finding maggots squirming beneath it. Really BIG maggots. Wait…am I the only person who thinks that’s a cool metaphor?
I wasn’t expecting The Tent to be what it was, and I was deeply, truly and most seriously grossed out and psychologically disturbed by the ultimate reveal, so much so that I’m going to have to demand that Marc Patterson purchase and read this story personally before we pack up the margarita mix and chips later this summer.
In fact, it should give every potential camper pause before you go happy-assholing off into the woods, thinking nature is pretty and a can of Deep Woods Off will really protect you. It won’t. Nothing will. Lars Von Trier said that “nature is Satan’s church.” Well, Burke’s story proves it, amplifies it and slams it straight down your throat…where it proceeds to lay eggs in your chest.
Choke on it, survivalists.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Tent-A-Novella-ebook/dp/B00CGDYR9Y
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-tent-kealan-patrick-burke/1115160903
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/308350