When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the detective assigned to the case can’t deny the similarities between this murder and one that occurred a year prior. Media outlets are quick to surmise this is the work of a budding serial killer, but Detective Bill Renney is struggling with an altogether different scenario: a secret that keeps him tethered to the husband of the first victim.
What do you hear…?
Maureen Park, newly engaged to Hollywood producer Greg Dawson, finds her engagement party crashed by the arrival of Landon, Greg’s son. A darkly unsettling young man, Landon invades Maureen’s new existence, and the longer he stays, the more convinced she becomes that he may have something to do with the recent murder in the high desert.
What do you feel…?
Toby Kampen, the self-proclaimed Human Fly, begins an obsession over a woman who is unlike anyone he has ever met. A woman with rattlesnake teeth and a penchant for biting. A woman who has trapped him in her spell. A woman who may or may not be completely human.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
Senseless was my first Ronald Malfi book, and I was hooked from page one! The story is told through three distinct narratives—Renny, Toby, and Maureen—and the audiobook narrators really brought each of them to life. These storylines don’t intersect until the very end, which keeps the tension building throughout.
Renny is a detective still grieving the loss of his wife, Linda, while investigating two eerily similar murders that happened a year apart. His chapters are steeped in emotional weight and slow-burning suspense. Maureen seems to have it all—she’s engaged to a successful movie producer—but things take a dark turn when she meets her soon-to-be stepson, Landon, whose presence immediately feels off. Then there’s Toby, a troubled man who believes he’s a fly. His descent into obsession is both bizarre and tragic, especially when he becomes fixated on a girl he believes is a vampire.
Each point of view brings its own unique horror: psychological, supernatural, and deeply personal. The mystery of the murders ties them all together in a way that’s both surprising and satisfying.
I really enjoyed this one and will definitely be diving into more of Malfi’s work. If you like eerie, layered horror with strong characters, give Senseless a try!
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Tantor Media for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Whether it took days or months or years, I would come for him. And I would savour the moment.
PLOT SUMMARY:
It’s the summer before high school, and Ronny Nguyen finds herself too young for work, too old for cartoons. Her days are spent in a small backyard, dozing off to trashy magazines on a plastic lawn chair. In stark contrast stands her brother Tommy, the pride and joy of their immigrant parents: a popular honor student destined to be the first in the family to attend college. The thought of Tommy leaving for college fills Ronny with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba.
Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. The family’s meals are a tapestry of cultural memory: thick spring rolls with slim and salty nem chua, and steaming bowls of pho tái with thin, delicate slices of blood-red beef. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.
But when tragedy strikes, Ronny’s world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.
GRADE: A+
REVIEW:
This past autumn, a publicist emailed me insisting I had to read What Hunger, saying it was totally up my alley, and even sent me an early ARC. I decided to give it a try—and once I finally picked it up, I devoured it in just two days. I couldn’t believe how spot-on this total stranger was about my reading taste!
Catherine Dang’s What Hunger is a powerful and poignant exploration of identity, family, and the deep emotional struggles that define our lives. Through lyrical prose, Dang crafts a narrative that navigates the complexities of cultural displacement, particularly the immigrant experience, while also diving into personal and societal expectations.
The novel follows Ronny, a young woman torn between her Asian heritage and the pressures of assimilation into a Western society while she’s trying to navigate her grief over the loss of her older brother. Dang’s depiction of hunger—both literal and metaphorical—becomes a central theme. It reflects the protagonist’s yearning for connection, understanding, and acceptance, while also highlighting the pain of not feeling “enough” in any space. It also centers her rage, as she leans into it in ways that we as women don’t always allow ourselves to do at times.
Dang’s writing is striking in its intimacy, offering a raw look at the inner turmoil of its characters. Each chapter feels like peeling back another layer of self-awareness, with Ronny’s desires and fears laid bare for the reader. The narrative unfolds slowly but steadily, building a sense of tension and urgency that keeps you engaged until the last page.
What Hunger is a book that stays with you long after finishing it, its exploration of hunger not just as a physical need, but as an emotional and existential longing, deeply resonating in today’s complex world.
If you love books that explore female rage and grief, then this may be a book that you too will devour as easily as I did.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Short Q & A with Author:
You mentioned that your mother’s cannibal story was the inspiration behind What Hunger. Is the story based on true events or is it more like a folktale?
Originally, I thought the story was an urban legend. My mom first heard the rumors of a Vietnamese refugee-turned-cannibal at her refugee camp in the Philippines. Fleeing Vietnam was incredibly dangerous at the time, so it made sense that people would share wild stories with each other. I figured the tale was a culmination of multiple stories fused together: of people surviving boat wrecks, others washing up onto deserted islands in the Philippines, and other survivors getting returned back to the Vietnamese Communist government. But I assumed the cannibalism part was pure fiction.
But as I was writing What Hunger, I was shocked to find real news reports of cannibalism among Vietnamese boat people. These incidents almost always took place out at sea when survivors were desperately trapped in a boat, deliberately not rescued, and out of resources.
In one 1988 article, The Washington Post reported multiple incidents, including one where 15 people ate the body of a dead refugee. Another incident involved the forced drowning of a man, woman, and 11-year-old child, so the other refugees could eat them.
What’s especially unsettling is what the man implored in his interview: “I am a Christian. I killed this man on the boat to help the living. Personally, I think it’s wrong, but so many people needed to eat.”
In total, five people had been eaten on this boat: two people who’d been killed to be eaten, and three others who had already passed away. Interestingly, the rest of the 52 survivors did not want to talk about their time on the boat.
When people were put in these hopelessly dire situations, they adapted in the most brutal of ways.
I’ve always believed our urban legends are borne out of a hint of truth. Writing What Hunger has completely cemented this belief for me.
I truly loved Ronny and the fact that she wouldn’t simply “get over” what was done to her. I saw her new appetite as a means to view her assaulter as “meat” just like he had viewed her. Is that the theme you were going for?
Your interpretation is a good one! Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve noticed that in American English, our euphemisms involving human genitalia are so often… meaty. The penis is likened to a hotdog “wiener.” A gathering of mostly men is called a “sausage fest.” The act of a man’s masturbation can be violently referred to as “beating his meat.” Then we have some very graphic euphemisms to describe the appearance of vulva, like “meat curtains” or “roast beef.”
When it comes to sexual assault, the victims are routinely viewed as objects of sexual pleasure. It wasn’t hard, then, to use meat as a metaphor for these unfeeling sexual objects. As “meat,” the victims have been “conquered” and prepped to be “consumed” by another. The metaphor is so brutal and animalistic, yet it’s as apt as the violence itself.
But I’m a grim optimist. At the end of the day, we’re all vulnerable sacks of human flesh. If you reduce your fellow human being down to an unfeeling object, then you’re also condemning yourself to be an object. In a warped way, I wanted Ronny’s assaulter to know what it was like to be treated like a piece of “meat”: as something to be consumed and tossed aside. But Ronny takes it quite literally, doesn’t she?
Asian horror seems to tap into a more psychological, almost ancestral aspect of an individual. Do you feel that what occurs in the past generations finds a way to haunt someone in the present?
Absolutely. The concept of “generational trauma” has grown mainstream for a reason. Who hasn’t been a bit scarred by the way their parents raised them? Our parents raised us based on their own experiences and what they knew from their parents. And their parents learned from their parents and so on.
So much of our behaviors, our habits, and our coping mechanisms have been passed down from previous generations. Even when we try to course correct (e.g. refusing to spank our kids), we’re still reacting to what had happened in the past (like previous generations of parents spanking their kids).
Physically, the human body is itself a record of past events. We know of inherited diseases like sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis getting passed down through generations, but we can also recognize family histories of mental illness and addiction.
I guess I’m fascinated by how these inherited diseases had originated. What had happened to Patient Zero in the family line? Had they simply been born with the disease and passed it on? Had it randomly developed one day and then been passed down among generations?
Or had something traumatic happened—something so traumatic that their own cells had been changed by it, which forever altered the genetic makeup of their descendants?
Though this last idea sounds crazy, there are studies being done on epigenetics, the science of how our environment and behaviors can affect the way our genes work, and whether these epigenetic changes can be inherited. For instance, some pregnant women developed PTSD from being near the collapse of the Twin Towers during 9/11. The babies they delivered were later shown to be smaller than average and had lower cortisol levels. While we can’t say for sure that the babies were directly traumatized by 9/11, there does seem to be a correlation between the mothers’ downswing in health and the poorer health outcomes for their babies.
As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, I’ve always had a vested interest in generational trauma and how it can manifest itself in a person. I see my own history of anxiety and depression in my relatives, both young and old. But the question remains: are these simply hereditary diseases that have always existed within my family lineage? Or are these illnesses that my ancestors have picked up in response to the trauma around them (like colonialism, war, rape, poverty, etc.)?
I wanted to explore generational trauma in a book one day, but I figured I would write about it when I was older, wiser, and more established in my career. I never thought I’d do so in a book about a teenage cannibal, but here we are!
Female rage is often downplayed or not taken seriously – and I absolutely love how Ronny leans into this rage. Do you think that women have finally reached a moment in their lives where they’re finally leaning into this rage rather than repressing it like in the past?
Hell yes! I think female rage has always lurked in our cultural landscape, but I was never fully cognizant of it until Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl blew up. I had never seen a female character like Amy Dunne before, a woman who was so wholly unhinged, enraged, and open about it. The character fascinated me as much as she made me uncomfortable.
But more than anything, I felt this weird sense of companionship. It was crazy to hear all these women taking Amy Dunne’s side and arguing that the husband got what he deserved. And it was even crazier to hear women openly talking about how they, too, were pissed off. That cultural moment made me realize that wow, maybe I wasn’t alone for feeling so awfully resentful sometimes. Maybe I wasn’t psychotic. Maybe it was a perfectly normal part of being a woman—walking around with all this pent-up rage that we were told not to express.
As a young creative, I also appreciated how Gillian Flynn had brought such a nasty, vengeful woman character into the mainstream. I think it inspired a lot of female creatives to be more open and honest in their work. Why censor the ugliness of womanhood when we could lean into it instead? And let it inspire us.
Now I think female rage is the norm in our pop culture: books, movies, music, you name it. Women are pissed, and we have the urge to express it, no matter how bloody or nasty or gross it may be.
Are you working on anything new at the moment?
Yes. I don’t want to jinx myself, so that’s all I’ll say!
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What has eight arms, two tentacles, and one gnarly appetite? A Vampire Squid.
While enjoying a much-needed cruise vacation, Nora and her friend Tori spend their days downing endless umbrella cocktails and their nights rockin’ out to gnarly bands—mainly Vampire Weekend. The 24-hour buffet is constantly calling their names, but unfortunately, something answers the call—a giant squid with an appetite for cruise passengers. But Nora and Tori have other problems.
Their status as BFFs is hanging on by bikini thread, and this vacay should have given them time to repair it. But no. Of course, an annoying monstrous creature from the depths of the dark ocean just had to rise up to the surface, feast on terrified humans, and ruin their girl bonding time.
Thanks a lot, Captain Sucky Legs.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
What I love about Nico Bell’s books is how she perfectly balances fun and fear—her stories are packed with creepy thrills and genuinely well-written characters. This one is no exception, and honestly, it’s the ideal summer beach read (though fair warning: it might make you think twice about cruise ships and squids).
Best friends Tori and Nora are living it up on a cruise, jamming to Vampire Weekend, when things take a wild turn—they’re attacked by a giant vampire squid. Yes, really. From there, it’s nonstop action, packed to the gills (pun absolutely intended) with horror, heart, and high-stakes survival.
The friendship at the center of it all keeps you grounded, even when the gore starts flying—and there’s plenty of that too. It’s the kind of gory, scary fun that begs to be made into a movie. I’d be first in line for it!
If you’re looking for a horror story that’s fast-paced, original, and just a blast to read, this one’s a must.
*Thank you so much to the author for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Sister Rafaela, a newcomer to the cloistered Sisters of Divine Innocence, yearns for redemption from her horrific past. However, her new abbey, bound by a vow of silence and a disturbing burial ritual, hides its own sinister secrets.
When a mysterious stranger arrives and dies soon after, her body resists decomposition, sparking fevered claims of sainthood among the nuns… but Rafaela suspects something far darker.
As the abbey teeters on the edge of madness, Rafaela and local priest Father Bruno race to uncover whether the Sisters of Divine Innocence are graced by a divine miracle—or consumed by unspeakable evil.
GRADE: A-
REVIEW:
This was my first time reading Viggy Parr Hampton and wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I’ve been on a historical horror kick lately and I truly enjoyed this novel. The Rotting Room is an unrelentingly bleak and atmospheric horror novel that grips the reader from the first page. The setting, an isolated convent swallowed by shadows and unspeakable secrets, seeps into every scene with suffocating dread. Hampton masterfully crafts a world where time feels suspended, and every toll of the bell or flicker of candlelight becomes a harbinger of something deeply wrong. The rot isn’t present solely in the literal rotting room, but it’s in the characters, the history, and the very air.
The novel’s sense of unease is nearly unbearable at times, but in the best way. Hampton sustains a tone of quiet terror, opting for psychological unraveling over cheap scares. As the protagonist Rafaela explores deeper into the Sisters of Divine Innocence and the newcomer Berta, the line between reality and hallucination begins to blur. The narrative plays heavily with isolation, guilt, and memory, keeping the reader on edge throughout.
If there’s a flaw, it lies in the repetition of certain scenes, but seeing that a nun’s life is very repetitive, there was no way around it. Still, this minor issue doesn’t undercut the novel’s power. The Rotting Room is a compelling, claustrophobic descent into rot and ruin that lingers long after the final page.
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Watching Black horror on Juneteenth is a powerful way to celebrate Black creativity, resilience, and storytelling. These films explore cultural fears, history, and identity through a unique lens, turning horror into a platform for reflection and empowerment. From social commentary to genre-bending thrills, Black horror challenges stereotypes while honoring the Black experience—making it both entertaining and meaningful.
SINNERS
Sinners delivers gripping drama, dark secrets, and moral twists that keep you hooked. With complex characters and intense storytelling, it’s a must-watch for fans of psychological thrillers and suspense.
THE BLACKENING
The Blackening blends sharp satire with horror-comedy, hilariously flipping horror tropes while exploring Black culture. It’s clever, socially aware, and full of surprises—perfect for fans of genre mashups!
NOPE
Nope is a bold, genre-defying thriller from Jordan Peele, blending sci-fi, horror, and social commentary. It’s visually stunning, thought-provoking, and full of suspenseful, unforgettable moments. Don’t miss it!
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Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.
PLOT SUMMARY:
It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny—Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.
But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi—the original vampire—are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.
As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
This was my first time reading a book from Lindy Ryan and it was absolutely fun! Bless Your Heart is an absolute gem, a Southern Gothic romp packed with horror, heart, and hilarity. At the center of it all are the Evans women, who are nothing short of a delight. They’re sharp-tongued, fiercely loyal, and totally unapologetic about their witchy ways. But it’s Great-Grandmother Ducey who absolutely steals the show. She’s tough as nails, wise in that wonderfully unfiltered elder way, and has more sass in her pinky finger than most people have in their whole body. Honestly, I’d read a whole spinoff just about her.
The story mixes scares and snark effortlessly. One minute you’re shivering from a ghoul attack, the next you’re laughing out loud at a perfectly timed one-liner or sarcastic spell. Speaking of ghouls, Ryan gives them a fresh twist that feels original and creepy in all the best ways. They’re not your garden-variety undead; there’s a lore here that’s genuinely cool and elevates the horror.
What makes this book really work is the sense of family and love that grounds all the supernatural chaos. The Evans women might fight monsters, but they do it together—and with style. It’s spooky, it’s funny, and it’s got heart. Highly recommend, especially for fans of Grady Hendrix.
I strongly recommend diving into this one as an audiobook—the narrator doesn’t just read the story, she brings it to life. Every character leaps off the page (or speaker), from Ducey’s razor-sharp wit to the eerie growl of the ghouls. It’s an electrifying performance that pulls you straight into the heart of the chaos. You won’t just listen—you’ll live it.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Macmillan Audio for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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“They only ever remember the barber. Never the woman who cleaned up after him.”
PLOT SUMMARY:
London, 1887: At the abandoned apartment of a missing young woman, a dossier of evidence is collected, ordered chronologically, and sent to the Chief Inspector of the London Metropolitan Police. It contains a frightening correspondence between an inquisitive journalist, Miss Emily Gibson, and the woman Gibson thinks may be the infamous Mrs. Lovett—Sweeney Todd’s accomplice, “a wicked woman” who baked men into pies and sold them in her pie shop on Fleet Street. The talk of London Town—even decades after her horrendous misdeeds.
As the woman relays the harrowing account of her life in the unruly and perilous streets of Victorian London, her missives unlock an intricate mystery that brings Miss Gibson closer to the truth, even as that truth may cost her everything. A hair-raising and breathtaking novel for fans of Sarah Waters and Gregory Maguire, The Butcher’s Daughter is an irresistible literary thriller that draws richly from historical sources and shines new light on the woman behind the counter of the most disreputable pie shop ever known.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
The Butcher’s Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett is a darkly enthralling reimagining of a familiar tale, breathing vivid life into the shadowy corners of Victorian London through the eyes of a woman long dismissed as a footnote in the Sweeney Todd legend. The authors craft a richly layered portrait of Mrs. Lovett—not just as a pie-maker with a macabre secret, but as a deeply human, complex figure shaped by hardship, ambition, and survival.
The novel is gripping from the first page, blending historical fiction with gothic suspense in a voice that is both lyrical and razor-sharp. Lasley deftly explores the power dynamics of class, gender, and violence, allowing readers to sympathize with Lovett without excusing her choices. The pacing is impeccable, and the atmosphere—fog-laced alleys, greasy kitchens, and shadowed cellars—is as immersive as it is haunting.
What makes this book so engaging is its ability to transform a well-known villain into a compelling protagonist whose story demands to be heard. The Butcher’s Daughter is as deliciously dark as one of Mrs. Lovett’s infamous pies—and just as impossible to resist. A must-read for fans of historical fiction with a gothic twist.
I experienced this as an audiobook and truly recommend checking it out in this format as it made the story and characters come to life, all the narrators were very brilliant.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Hell’s Hundred for the audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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When one thing leaves your house or heart, it makes room for another to take its place. This is why it’s unwise to make solid statues inside. A statue takes up space without moving, without flowing, without growing.
PLOT SUMMARY:
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
GRADE: B-
REVIEW:
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman is a chilling novel that delivers a claustrophobic, psychological horror grounded in the mundane. Told from the perspective of young Bela, the story captures the eerie atmosphere of a home slowly being overtaken by an unseen presence. The “creepy entity” that Bela sees—and her parents do not—lurks at the edges of their house, at first ambiguous and unsettling, then increasingly menacing. Malerman plays expertly with perspective, making readers question what is real and what is imagined.
The novel excels in tone and mood. The tension is slow-building, and the child’s voice is authentically rendered, adding a layer of vulnerability. The idea of a malevolent figure quietly “moving in” is deeply unnerving, made worse by the adults’ dismissal of Bela’s warnings.
However, while the setup is gripping, the middle portion becomes repetitive. The narrative relies on similar beats—Bela sees the entity, her parents so see the entity and continue trying to escape it—which dilutes the suspense over time. The lack of escalation or variety in how the threat manifests causes the tension to plateau before the conclusion. Still, Incidents Around the House is a creepy, well-written tale, just one that might have benefitted from tighter pacing or a bit more narrative progression.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Del Rey for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Step into the heart of revolutionary France with Panico! Marie Antoinette’s Journey During the Reign of Terror—a gripping, gothic reimagining of the doomed queen’s final days. Blending historical horror with psychological suspense, the poetry collection paints a haunting portrait of Marie Antoinette as she navigates betrayal, fear, and the crumbling world around her. With lush prose and chilling atmosphere, this poetry collection explores the blurred lines between reality and madness as the guillotine looms ever closer. Perfect for fans of eerie historical fiction, Panico! is a visceral descent into the mind of a queen on the edge of history—and sanity.
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East Broadway station bleeds when it rains, water rushing down from cracks in the secret darkness of the ceiling. Someone should probably fix that, but it’s the end of the world, and New York has bigger problems than a soggy train station that no one should be inside of anyway. No one takes the subway at the end of the world. No one except Cora and Delilah Zeng.
Delilah wanders too close to the edge of the platform and Cora grabs her arm, tugging her away from the abyss of the tracks that unlatches its jaws, waiting. But Delilah settles safely behind the yellow line and the darkness clenches its teeth.
Outside the wet mouth of the station, New York is empty. The China Virus, as they call it, has cleared the streets. News stations flash through footage of China—bodies in garbage bags, guards and tanks protecting the city lines, sobbing doctors waving their last goodbyes from packed trains, families who just want to fucking live but are trapped in the plague city for the Greater Good.
On the other side of the world, New York is so empty it echoes. You can scream and the ghost of your voice will carry for blocks and blocks. The sound of footsteps lasts forever, the low hum of streetlights a warm undercurrent that was always there, waiting, but no one could hear it until now. Delilah says it’s unnerving, but Cora likes the quiet, likes how much bigger the city feels, likes that the little lights from people’s apartment windows are the only hint of their existence, no one anything more than a bright little square in the sky.
What she doesn’t like is that she can’t find any toilet paper at the end of the world.
Apparently, people do strange things when they’re scared of dying, and one of them is hoarding toilet paper. Cora and Delilah have been out for an hour trying to find some and finally managed to grab a four-pack of one-ply in Chinatown, which is better than nothing but not by much.
They had to walk in the rain because they couldn’t get an Uber. No one wants Chinese girls in their car, and they’re not the kind of Chinese that can afford their own car in a city where it isn’t necessary. But now that they have the precious paper, they’d rather not walk home in the rain and end up with a sodden mess in their arms.
“The train isn’t coming,” Cora says. She feels certain of this. She feels certain about a lot of things she can’t explain, the way some people are certain that God exists. Some thoughts just cross her mind and sink their teeth in. Besides, the screen overhead that’s supposed to tell them when the next train arrives has said DELAYS for the last ten minutes.
“It’s coming,” Delilah says, checking her phone, then tucking it away when droplets from the leaky roof splatter onto the screen. Delilah is also certain about many things, but for different reasons. Delilah chooses the things she wants to believe, while Cora’s thoughts are bear traps snapping closed around her ankles.
Sometimes Cora thinks Delilah is more of a dream than a sister, a camera flash of pretty lights in every color that you can never look at directly. She wraps herself up in pale pink and wispy silk and flower hair clips; she wears different rings on each finger that all have a special meaning; she is Alice in Wonderland who has stumbled out of a rabbit hole and somehow arrived in New York from a world much more kind and lovely than this one.
Cora hugs the toilet paper to her chest and peers into the silent train tunnel. She can’t see even a whisper of light from the other side. The darkness closes in like a wall. The train cannot be coming because trains can’t break through walls.
Or maybe Cora just doesn’t want to go home, because going home with Delilah means remembering that there is a world outside of this leaky station.
There is their dad in China, just a province away from the epicenter of body bags. And there is the man who emptied his garbage over their heads from his window and called them Chinks on the walk here. And there is the big question of What Comes Next? Because another side effect of the end of the world is getting laid off.
Cora used to work the front desk at the Met, which wasn’t exactly what an art history degree was designed for and certainly didn’t justify the debt. But it was relevant enough to her studies that for a few months it stopped shame from creeping in like black mold and coating her lungs in her sleep. But no one needs museums at the end of the world, so no one needs Cora.
Delilah answered emails and scheduled photo shoots for a local fashion magazine that went belly-up as soon as someone whispered the word pandemic, and suddenly there were two art history majors, twenty-four and twenty-six, with work experience in dead industries and New York City rent to pay. Now the money is gone and there are no careers to show for it and the worst part is that they had a chance, they had a Nai Nai who paid for half their tuition because she thought America was for dreams. They didn’t have to wait tables or strip or sell Adderall to pay for college but they somehow messed it up anyway, and Cora thinks that’s worse than having no chance at all. She thinks a lot of other things about herself too, but she lets those thoughts go quickly, snaps her hands away from them like they’re a hot pan that will burn her skin.
Cora thinks this is all Delilah’s fault but won’t say it out loud because that’s another one of her thoughts that no one wants to hear. It’s a little bit her own fault as well, for not having her own dreams. If there was anything Cora actually wanted besides existing comfortably, she would have known what to study in college, wouldn’t have had to chase after Delilah.
But not everyone has dreams. Some people just are, the way that trees and rocks and rivers are just there without a reason, the rest of the world moving around them.
Cora thinks that the water dripping down the wall looks oddly dark, more so than the usual sludge of the city, and maybe it has a reddish tinge, like the city has slit its own wrists and is dying in this empty station. But she knows better than to say this out loud, because everything looks dirty to her, and Cora Zeng thinking something is dirty doesn’t mean the average human agrees—at least, that’s what everyone tells her.
“Maybe I’ll work at a housekeeping company,” Cora says, half to herself and half to the echoing tunnel, but Delilah answers anyway.
“You know that’s a bad idea,” she says.
Cora shrugs. Objectively, she understands that if you scrub yourself raw with steel wool one singular time, no one likes it when you clean anything for the rest of your life. But things still need to be cleaned even if Delilah doesn’t like it, and Cora thinks there are worse things than leaning a little bit into the crazy parts of you. Isn’t that what artists do, after all? Isn’t that the kind of person Delilah likes? The tortured artist types who smoke indoors and paint with their own blood and feces.
“Mama cleaned toilets for rich white people because she had no choice,” Delilah says. “You have a college degree and that’s what you want to do?”
Cora doesn’t answer at first because Mama means Delilah’s mom, so Cora doesn’t see why her thoughts on Cora’s life should matter. Cora doesn’t have a Mama. She has a Mom, a white lady from Wisconsin who probably hired someone else’s mama to clean her toilet.
Cora quite likes cleaning toilets, but this is another thing she knows she shouldn’t say out loud. Instead, she says, “What I want is to make rent this month.”
Legally, Cora’s fairly certain they can’t be evicted during the pandemic, but she doesn’t want to piss off their landlord, the man who sniffs their mail and saves security camera footage of Delilah entering the building. He price-gouges them for a crappy fourth-floor walkup in the East Village with a radiator that vomits a gallon of brown water onto their floor in the winter and a marching band of pipes banging in the walls, but somehow Cora doubts they’ll find anything better without jobs.
Delilah smiles with half her mouth, her gaze distant like Cora is telling her a fairy tale. “I’ve been burning lemongrass for money energy,” Delilah says. “We’ll be fine.” This is another thing Delilah just knows.
Cora hates the smell of lemongrass. The scent coats her throat, wakes her up at night feeling like she’s drowning in oil. But she doesn’t know if the oils are a Chinese thing or just a Delilah thing, and she hates accidentally acting like a white girl around Delilah. Whenever she does, Delilah gives her this look, like she’s remembered who Cora really is, and changes the subject.
“The train is late,” Cora says instead of acknowledging the lemongrass. “I don’t think it’s coming.”
“It’s coming, Cee,” Delilah says.
“I read that they reduced service since no one’s taking the train these days,” Cora says. “What if it doesn’t stop here anymore?”
“It’s coming,” Delilah says. “It’s not like we have a choice except waiting here anyway.”
Cora’s mind flashes with the image of both their skeletons standing at the station, waiting for a train that never comes, while the world crumbles around them. They could walk— they only live in the East Village—but Delilah is made of sugar and her makeup melts off in the rain and her umbrella is too small and she said no, so that’s the end of it. Delilah is not Cora’s boss, she’s not physically intimidating, and she has no blackmail to hold over her, but Cora knows the only choice is to do what Delilah says. When you’re drowning and someone grabs your hand, you don’t ask them where they’re taking you.
A quiet breeze sighs through the tunnel, a dying exhale. It blows back Delilah’s bangs and Cora notices that Delilah has penciled in her eyebrows perfectly, even though it’s raining and they only went out to the store to buy toilet paper. Something about the sharp arch of her left eyebrow in particular triggers a thought that Cora doesn’t want to think, but it bites down all the same.
Sometimes, Cora thinks she hates her sister.
It’s strange how hate and love can so quietly exist at the same time. They are moon phases, one silently growing until one day all that’s left is darkness. It’s not something that Delilah says or does, really. Cora is used to her small annoyances.
It’s that Delilah is a daydream and standing next to her makes Cora feel real.
Cora has pores full of sweat and oil, socks with stains on the bottom, a stomach that sloshes audibly after she eats. Delilah is a pretty arrangement of refracted light who doesn’t have to worry about those things. Cora wanted to be like her for a very long time, because who doesn’t want to transcend their disgusting body and become Delilah Zeng, incorporeal, eternal? But Cora’s not so sure anymore.
Cora peers into the tunnel. We are going to be stuck here forever, Cora thinks, knows.
But then the sound begins, a rising symphony to Cora’s ears. The ground begins to rumble, puddles shivering.
“Finally,” Delilah says, pocketing her phone. “See? I told you.”
Cora nods because Delilah did tell her and sometimes Delilah is right. The things Cora thinks she knows are too often just bad dreams bleeding into her waking hours.
Far away, the headlights become visible in the darkness. A tiny mouth of white light.
“Cee,” Delilah says. Her tone is too delicate, and it makes coldness curl around Cora’s heart. Delilah tosses words out easily, dandelion parachutes carried about by the wind. But these words have weight.
Delilah toys with her bracelet—a jade bangle from their Auntie Zeng, the character for hope on the gold band. Cora has a matching one, shoved in a drawer somewhere, except the plate says love, at least that’s what Cora thinks. She’s not very good at reading Chinese.
“I’m thinking of going to see Dad,” Delilah says.
The mouth of light at the end of the tunnel has expanded into a door of brilliant white, and Cora waits because this cannot be all. Dad lives in Changsha, has lived there ever since America became too much for him, except it’s always been too much for Cora too and she has nowhere to run away to, her father hasn’t given her the words she needs. Delilah has visited him twice in the last five years, so this news isn’t enough to make Delilah’s voice sound so tight, so nervous.
“I think I might stay there awhile,” Delilah says, looking away. “Now that I’m out of work, it seems like a good time to get things settled before the pandemic blows over.”
Cora stares at the side of Delilah’s head because her sister won’t meet her gaze. Cora isn’t stupid, she knows what this is a “good time” for. Delilah started talking about being a model in China last year. Cora doesn’t know if the odds are better in China and she doubts Delilah knows either. All she knows is that Delilah tried for all of three months to make a career of modeling in New York until that dream fizzled out, smoke spiraling from it, and Delilah stopped trying because everything is disposable to her, right down to her dreams.
Cora always thought this particular dream would be too expensive, too logistically complicated for Delilah to actually follow through on. Worst-case scenario, they’d plan a three-week vacation to China that would turn into a week and a half when Delilah lost interest and started fighting with Dad again. The idea of flying during a pandemic feels like a death sentence, but Cora has already resigned herself to hunting down some N95 respirators just so Delilah could give her modeling dream an honest try.
Because even if Delilah tends to extinguish her own dreams too fast, Cora believes in them for all of their brief, brilliant lives. If Cora ever found a dream of her own, she would nurture it in soft soil, measure out each drop of water, each sunbeam, give it a chance to become. So Cora will not squash her sister’s dreams, not for anything.
“I’ll just put my half of the rent on my credit card until I find work,” Delilah says, “so you won’t need a new roommate.”
Then Cora understands, all at once, like a knife slipped between her ribs, that Delilah isn’t inviting Cora to come with her.
Of course she isn’t. Delilah has a mama who speaks Mandarin to her, so Delilah’s Chinese is good enough to live in China. But Cora’s isn’t. Delilah would have to do everything for her, go everywhere with her because she knows Cora would cry just trying to check out at the supermarket. Delilah could do it for her, but she doesn’t want to.
Cora suddenly feels like a child who has wandered too far into a cave. The echoes become ghosts and the darkness wraps in tight ribbons around your throat and you call for a mom who will never come.
Cora’s hands shake, fingers pressing holes into the plastic wrap of the toilet paper, her whole body vibrating with the sheer unfairness of it all. You can’t string someone along their whole life and then just leave them alone one day holding your toilet paper in a soggy train station.
“Or you could stay with your aunt?” Delilah says. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about rent. It would be better for both of us, I think.”
Auntie Lois, she means. Mom’s sister, whose house smells like a magazine, who makes Cora kneel in a confessional booth until she can name all her sins. Delilah has decided that this is Cora’s life, and Delilah is the one who makes decisions.
Delilah keeps talking, but Cora can’t hear her. The world rumbles as the train draws closer. The white light is too bright now, too sharp behind Delilah, and it illuminates her silhouette, carves her into the wet darkness. Delilah has a beautiful silhouette, the kind that men would have painted hundreds of years ago. Cora thinks about the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and the Mona Lisa, and all the beautiful women immortalized in oil paint, and wonders if they said cruel things too, if their words had mattered at all or just the roundness of their eyes and softness of their cheeks, if beautiful people are allowed to break your heart and get away with it.
The man appears in a flash of a black hoodie and blue surgical mask.
He says two words, and even though the train is rushing closer, a roaring wave about to knock them off their feet, those two words are perfectly clear, sharp as if carved into Cora’s skin.
Bat eater.
Cora has heard those words a lot the past two months. The end of the world began at a wet market in Wuhan, they say, with a sick bat. Cora has never once eaten a bat, but it has somehow become common knowledge that Chinese people eat bats just to start plagues.
Cora only glances at the man’s face for a moment before her gaze snaps to his pale hand clamped around Delilah’s skinny arm like a white spider, crunching the polyester of her pink raincoat. Lots of men grab Delilah because she is the kind of girl that men want to devour. Cora thinks the man will try to kiss Delilah, or force her up the stairs and into a cab, or a thousand things better than what actually happens next.
Because he doesn’t pull her close. He pushes her away.
Delilah stumbles over the yellow line, ankle twisting, and when she crashes down there’s no ground to meet her, just the yawning chasm of the train tracks.
The first car hits her face.
All at once, Cora’s skin is scorched with something viscous and salty. Brakes scream and blue sparks fly and the wind blasts her hair back, the liquid rushing across her throat, under her shirt. Her first thought is that the train has splashed her in some sort of track sludge, and for half a second that is the worst thought in the entire world. The toilet paper falls from Cora’s arms and splashes into a puddle when it hits the ground and There goes the whole point of the trip, she thinks.
Delilah does not stand up. The train is a rushing blur of silver, a solid wall of hot air and screeching metal and Delilah is on the ground, her skirt pooling out around her. Get up, Delilah, Cora thinks, because train station floors are rainforests of bacteria tracked in from so many millions of shoes, because the puddle beneath her can’t be just rainwater—it looks oddly dark, almost black, spreading fast like a hole opening up in the floor. Cora steps closer and it almost, almost looks like Delilah is leaning over the ledge, peering over the lip of the platform.
But Delilah ends just above her shoulders.
Her throat is a jagged line, torn flaps of skin and sharp bone and the pulsing O of her open trachea. Blood runs unstopped from her throat, swirling together with the rainwater of the rotting train station, and soon the whole platform is bleeding, weeping red water into the crack between the platform and the train, feeding the darkness. Cora is screaming, a raw sound that begins somewhere deep inside her rib cage and tears its way up her throat and becomes a hurricane, a knife-sharp cry, the last sound that many women ever make.
But there’s no one to hear it because New York is a dead body, because no one rides the subway at the end of the world. No one but Cora Zeng.
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