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The Concrete Grove by Gary McMahon

Many countries, including the United States, house their poor in such unpleasant places that they are rethinking the way to provide housing assistance for them. Numerous high rise facilities have been demolished, like the infamous Cabrini Green in Chicago or Atlanta’s Bowen Homes, and replaced with mixed-income housing projects. In England, they are called council estates. High rises are even more problematic there, for England has never taken much to the skyscraper, at least as a place to live. So it’s not surprising that there are places like The Grove, with an abandoned high rise in the center and flats surrounding it in a concentric pattern. Such is the nature of The Grove in Gary McMahon’s The Concrete Grove, because that’s all you see there: no trees, no grass, no flowers, only concrete.
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“A well-wrought horror story is a potent thing, lingering in the mind long after the tale has ended,” says Michael Kelly, the editor of Shadows and Tall Trees, in his introductory note to Issue 3. The magazine strives to be one of “quiet, literate horror fiction,” and on the evidence this issue, it succeeds.

The first story in the magazine, “The Elephant Girl” by Nina Allan, is especially powerful. Brigid is a teacher in a primary school with a new student, Jeanie Henderson, who is an exceptionally unattractive child. Brigid takes an immediate dislike to the girl for no reason that is immediately evident even to her. Perhaps her moodiness is connected to her pregnancy – her third, after two miscarriages – but Jeanie just gives her the creeps. Brigid’s aversion to Jeanie grows as her pregnancy continues, culminating in an odd day when a professional pi... Read More