Short Story "The ecological impacts of resurrection: a field study" by Corey Farrenkopf in "the Deadlands"

 

"Few species other than humans bury their dead." 

 

Okay, you had me with this sentence already. That's some kind of topic, an A-Story of this. The grieving of mammals (human included) in general, and the grieving of the father of the young female protagonist, Jeany, in special. 

 

Of course, several animals are listed, elephants, chimpanzees, dolphins and giraffes and the otters, which are observed by the protagonist's father. 

 

Indeed, the story had me again with the part of this sentence "Chimpanzees have been known to carry their infant dead for months after they pass." I sort of stopped reading, lost myself in a daydream of a mourning ape mother who carried the dead child with her, day by day. The child does not interact with anything, does not eat, does not grow. The horror already struck me here, before anything unusual had happened. Coming from this one thought, there are already a dozen horrible stories forming in my brain and my hunger might have been stilled, but the story is that good and does not stop there and that's why I continued. 

 

The girl protagonist is in the summer before her freshman year of college. So maybe 17, 18 years? She spends time with her father and they sit twelve hours a day, watching otters: "there I was, swatting backflies off my bare arms". I just like this "pars pro toto". This one picture of her sitting there is already enough for my private cinema in my brain. It has turned on, buddies! 

 

Even after that, the author has presents not only for my visual sense, but also for my nose, my ears, my emotions. I am very close to the narrator and stay close, and the closeness lets me commit to her life, her problems, her horror and makes it mine, although I am sitting savely, currently not mourning, in my house in Germany, far away from Hubbardston, Massachusetts, where the story takes place.

 

"My father was a professor of Ethology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focussing on the study of death rituals and burial behaviors in mammals and their intersections with human traditions." 

 

That's a great topic for a horror story, but there's more! 

 

And there is a B-Story:

 

"Mom had been dead for thirteen years. I could barely remember her face or the sound of her voice. Dad always tried to remind me about her."

 

So the narrator, Jeany, must have been around four years old. Having kids (currently five and eight years old), this hurts to imagine. Such a small child without a mother, and wait for what's up with her father. 

 

For Jeany, the thought of the chimpanzee mothers carrying and grooming their dead children really got to her, too. She imagines her father carrying the body of the dead mother around. That's not what he does, not literally, but figuratively, every decision of his has to do with his mourning and his longing for her. 

 

Then, the dark phantastic starts. And the father has to make a decision. 

 

I love Jeany's summary of her father:

"Dad had weird ideas about the afterlife, but in most things besides my mother, he was pure logic. If he didn't want us to move, I had to trust him."

 

 

We learn a lot about the relationship between Jeany and her father (so, it's interesting that she accompanies her father, whereas, in her age, she might have just stayed at home alone or at least stayed with her aunt during the day, who lives nearby), but also between her father and the lost mother.

 

There seems to be almost no relationship between Jeany and her mother, which is understandable, as she had been that small when her mother passed. The lack of the relationships carries the plot as well. The father always tries to make the memories of her mother vivid in her again, without success.  

 

The story is full of ideas that support the premise. Like the game her mother used to play with her (Baby Possum). And the behavior of the animals. The ambiguity of the creature they eventually meet. 

 

One thing to share before the spoiler section:

"A number of years ago, a video went around the internet of a dog burying another dog. It was shared endlessly, people captioning the clip with big-hearted comments about how they must have been best friends, that the living must mourn the dead. Many read like bad plots to Hallmark movies, or a sad intro for a Pixar flick, but the truth was, dogs instinctively bury meat and bones."

 

I have watched that a lot in movies. A parent, often the father, who loses a child, and keeps forgetting that his other kids (and often the wife) are still alive and in need of his life and his love. The parent is busy taking revenge, mourning, or doing other stuff that they have not thought-through and usually, towards the end of the movie, when damage is already done, they become aware of the people that are still around.

 

That has always unnerved me, although I consider this somehow realistic.

 

In this story, the father stays with his daughter for a longer time, but eventually, he leaves. He leaves her, really alive and kicking and in need of him, alone, for the possibility (not the certainty!) to reunite with his dead wife. 

 

That. scene. broke. my. heart. 

 

I do have children myself. And parents. And a husband. I know mourning. In fact, I am the child that has survived, while its brother has died (in 2013). I can relate to mourning a lot. I have dug deeper into the "what if's" of keeping the dead alive in my stories more than I really enjoyed and that's maybe why I am so deeply impressed by this one. 

 

It's sort of boring to read yet another horror story about some monster behind the door. It's not spooky for me. But the decision of the father is indeed very spooky, as is his behavior with the body of his wife. 

 

I was completely done for when I read this:

 

"In the years since, I’ve seen my father swim away from me again and again, the memory stuck on a loop, choosing the possibility of his dead wife over the reality of his living daughter."

 

That's the real horror for me. The father leaves his daughter like this.

 

One of the best horror stories I've read so far this year.