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Please Haunt Me is a short story collection written by Channing Cornwall. Channing is nothing if not unpredictable and wide-ranging in his choices. He is not afraid to write stories that appeal to his curiosities and perspective. Channing is completely independent and he does not shy away from the darkest, stomach-churning content and he does it in a way that is not gratuitous or single-minded. He seems to take on topics in a way that is artistically bold without being juvenile. I guess what I am trying to say is that for the most part, Channing’s work is full of action and fun but at times he shocks and scares me.

Channing’s books range widely in genres from post-apocalyptic science fiction in The World Carried on to supernatural cathuluesqueness in Anathema to a dark gritty western pulp in the Western Sins trilogy. Now, with Please Haunt Me he has added mind-rending horror to the list. This collection of five short stories takes the reader to five completely different yet completely disturbing places.

Something Horrible Came with the Rain is something that people from Seattle probably know all too well and reminds me of The Happening but with more psychological bewilderment.

The second and titular Please Haunt Me is a sad tale of someone who is driven to lose the one thing they want, which is to continue to be haunted.

The Hex of Men is next and it's about a witch trial circa Salem 1692 if the preacher wasn't fucking around, the doctor couldn't believe his eyes and you won't be disappointed at the end.

He Whistled was a departure and I'm not sure I'm ok with it, read at your own risk.

Pink Phone is the last and in my opinion, it was a perfect choice to end the anthology and it is my favorite of the stories. After reading He Whistled I was genuinely unsure about what horror might be next but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the last story. It's about a father who desperately wants to find his missing daughter and when everyone else thinks he is crazy for thinking she is still alive he risks everything, including his wife, to find her. What he finds is disturbing but the love of a father can make a man do crazy things. Pink Phone is a well-crafted and engaging experience and puts a nice bow on the collection.

I will be honest and say that horror is by far my least favorite genre and if it wasn't Channing who wrote this I probably wouldn't have read it. I find horror to be either terribly unconvincing or terribly frightening or disturbing. I suppose the latter is the point but I have enough anxiety on a day-to-day basis to not generally entertain myself with fear-inducing storytelling. That being said I really appreciate Channing's ability to dive into the world of the occult, macabre, supernatural, and all together ghastly. I can tell that he really appreciates the genre because he seems to take it seriously enough to dive deep into what makes people vulnerable and uncomfortable with liberal doses of action, intrigue, and death.

I highly recommend Please Haunt Me to anyone who wants to put their mind through a minefield of mentally marking mayhem directed by a harbinger of horrific and horrible acts that leave you questioning your own reality. Or if you just like the horror genre and like the idea of the scary shit not going on too long because they are short stories.