January 10 - "The Shadows, Kith and Kin"

“The Shadows, Kith and Kin”
by Joe R. Lansdale
The Shadows, Kith and Kin (2007)

* * * * (Great) Supernatural

A raging storm has kept our narrator trapped inside his home; well, his in-laws’ home. After all, he can’t do anything – they all told him so: his wife, and her parents. But it was a night not long before the storm that the shadows began to visit him on the front porch. The faceless shadows reminded him that he and they weren’t all that different, and that he could do a few things real well, like shoot.

It has been years since I’ve read a short story by Lansdale, but this was just as great as I remembered his work being. The sentences are simple, and yet frighteningly good. The story moves along nicely, and the words gather you up and place you on the porch next to the narrator awaiting his shadowy kith and kin. You feel the tension as the narrator slowly comes apart. You know what that smell is hiding behind the duct-taped bedroom doors. You understand what will happen as soon as the storm lets up. It’s a chilling tale – an unforgiving tale – but it’s well written, and thus, ultimately satisfying. Even if it does make you jump at the shadows cast as the sun drops below the horizon.