‘Stitches’ – Nick Kyme (Black Library)

I’m starting to come back into the office again which means that my reading time is starting to open up again 😊 What it also means though is that I’m trying to get back into the habit of being awake on the bus, at silly hours of the morning, so that I can get some reading done. Easier said than done but I did see this potential pitfall coming, last night, and armed myself with a quick Warhammer Horror tale to get stuck into for the journey.

These shorter reads tend to be the place for newer Black Library writers to cut their teeth, on the setting, before moving on to longer works, but Nick Kyme is a Black Library veteran who looks like he had a short story in him and wanted to share 😉 I’ve enjoyed Nick Kyme’s work in the past so that was all the invitation that I needed…

In the aftermath of battle, Bucher, a medicae of the Astra Militarum, tends to the victims of war. Grievous wounds, vile contagions and more come his way, and he is ground down by his inability to save young Guardsmen from the horrors of battle. So when a miracle occurs, surely a gift from the Emperor Himself, Bucher grabs it… but what if the incredible events that occur are the work of other powers entirely, leading Bucher into a darkness from which he can never escape?

If you’ve got a 40K story that’s set in a field hospital, there’s only really one way that it can go and I saw it coming I’m afraid. A story that may well be properly creepy for you then, wasn’t for me but that’s not the story’s fault and there is always something to be said for watching some poor innocent blithely wander into the darkness. There’s plenty of that here, don’t worry.

Where ‘Stitches’ shines though (if ‘shines’ is the right word, you know what I mean) is in the amount of body horror that it squeezes into a tight spot (no pun intended but I’ll take any credit). It’s a bloody, icky mixture of the warp and just the fact that war is hell really and that means body parts. Add a little homage to ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and you’ve got yourself a nasty little tale that is probably more creepy than I thought at first. These ‘Warhammer Horror’ short reads are a great way to get a taste for this new(ish) line and ‘Stitches’ holds its own with great aplomb, and creepy body parts…