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The Encampment By The Gorge & Blood Memory (Short Sharp Shocks! Book 30) by [Zachary Ashford]

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Zachary Ashford

The Encampment By The Gorge & Blood Memory (Short Sharp Shocks! Book 30) Kindle Edition

by Zachary Ashford (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

8 ratings

Book 30 of 67: Short Sharp Shocks!

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The Encampment By The Gorge: After a guard dog is savagely butchered and their friend is murdered, four men embark on what they think will be a revenge mission into the depths of an illegal commune. Instead, they find themselves under a sky that shouldn't be and come face to face with gruesome monsters that challenge their hold on reality.

Blood Memory: When a series of brutal crocodile attacks sends shock-waves through an Indigenous community, rumours of an evil spirit abound. Jones, an investigative journalist, discovers the dark truth when he confronts a hostile park ranger and discovers the old ways are not as forgotten as he would like to think.

Writing about both The Encampment By The Gorge and Blood Memory, author Zachary Ashford said: “I love coming up with ideas and feeling as if I can use them as metaphor or message. There’s nothing as rewarding as looking at something you’ve created and going, ‘Yeah, that’s good’. With The Encampment By The Gorge, I let a linear thematic story grow into something I’m confident saying is visceral and intense when I focussed on telling a relentless cosmic horror and then with Blood Memory, I wanted to build some ‘monster as metaphor’ commentary on some pretty disgraceful [Australian] Government policy decisions at the time.”

(Cover by Adrian Baldwin)

Print length

76 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 27, 2019
File size

321 KB
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Product details

ASIN : B07XKVKGGZ
Publisher : Demain Publishing; 1st edition (September 27, 2019)
Publication date : September 27, 2019
Language : English
File size : 321 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 76 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : B086PJH4GV
Lending : Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,625 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,269 in Horror Short Stories
- #11,426 in Two-Hour Literature & Fiction Short Reads
- #16,277 in Single Authors Short Stories

Customer Reviews:
8 ratings

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Zombie Inkpot

Crikey! Two great horror stories

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2020

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Ashford is quickly becoming a new favorite author. His dialogue brings the characters to life, I can see and hear them. The plots are so imaginative. The writing is well paced, tense and action packed.
The first story is truly terrifying. A road crew encounter something unexpected after their guard dogs go missing.
The second story borrows from indigenous myth to craft a multi layered story that feeds the fire for real life magic in my heart.
I can’t wait to read what this author writes next.

Helpful

Patrick R. McDonough

A Little Horror Down Under

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2020

I want to learn more about other cultures. I’m an American that, had it not been for authors like Zachary Ashford, I would only have television and movies to rely on how people in other lands think, act, and talk. This book lends some interesting descriptors on the lands of Australia.

Let’s start with The encampment by the Gorge. I thought I knew where this story was going, it seemed pretty straight forward about a group of guys hunting down a killer, but it became more than that. It became something I want to talk about, but it would certainly ruin the ending. What I can say is it painted interesting images in my head about a land I’d like to visit one day. Not that exact location in Australia, of course, but the country itself.

Blood Memory talks about crocodiles and hunting. Not the crocodile hunter, as funny as that may have been, but ancient creatures and the social commentary on what media chooses to print and not print was right on the money. I could see this story playing out almost exactly as it happened, minus the initial guide. This was my favorite of the two stories because it was more focused on the protagonist. We got to know him and the characters he interacted with better, and the layers to this story sucked me in more.

Overall, I think this one is worth your time. It’s a little under 70 pages, it’s a real quick read that has interesting components to offer, and shows you a side of Australia that may be more real than fiction.

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Priscilla Bettis

Two Horror Stories Set in Australia

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2021

“The Encampment by the Gorge” takes place in a swampy area. It has a feeling of isolation. There are spears, fire, machetes, and the supernatural. The story is told in an alternating timeline. I think that’s a lot of jumping around in time for a short story, but Ashford handles it pretty well. I never got confused or anything. Fun story, but I felt sorry for the dogs!

“Blood Memory” is about a reporter, Jones, and a law enforcement officer, Kulka, who are searching for a missing boy that was probably attacked by crocodile, a really, really big one. Or maybe a mischief spirit is the culprit. Ashford gives clues along the way (some of them gruesome clues), and the mystery ramps up to a satisfying ending.

Another fine Short Sharp Shocks! book I downloaded with my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

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Morgan K Tanner

Gore-infested creepiness

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2019

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It’s another Short Sharp Shocks! review, folks! I must say not one of these stories in the series has disappointed me yet, and I’m pleased to say that these two delights just add more fuel to the raging fire.

The Encampment by the Gorge carries a real Heart of Darkness vibe throughout. Set out in the woods, a terrible tragedy has occurred with the locals not taking too kindly to outsiders entering their homeland. I say homeland, it’s not as though they’re a secret tribe in the wilderness, just denizens of an illegal commune. So blood-spilling is to be expected, I guess.

The group want revenge for their murdered friend and mutilated dogs, so they prepare for battle. Although what they encounter is certainly not what they expected. It would be easier if the enemy was simply human. But alas, the guys have to contend with sentient innards, undead beasts, and horrifying monsters.

The gore on offer here was nicely handled, with a few icky moments captured in entrail-splattered glory. The descriptions of the devoured dogs will have animal lovers everywhere screaming ‘noooo’ at the pages. The ‘cooee’s’ that surround the group of vengeance-hunters from within the trees are terrifying. Death could indeed spring from anywhere. There was a real unnerving atmosphere surrounding them. It seems nowhere is safe in these here parts.

Blood Memory follows a journalist just trying to write a good story. A local kid has gone missing, presumably the victim of a crocodile attack. As the journalist uncovers dark secrets and ancient folklore, he wishes he’d just stayed at home and written a piece on a brave cat saving the day, or something.

The beast is more than simply a crocodile, but I won’t say too much else. Needless to say, there is yet more death and gruesome gore. People are not who they seem, and the warnings provided to our brave journalist should probably have been heeded.

Zachary Ashford knows how to describe disgusting things, which is a great thing if you want to freak out your audience. I really enjoyed these two tales, as I totally dig disgusting stuff.

These two stories are right up there with the other excellent instalments in this series. You wanna get Short Sharp Shocked? Look no further.

K. Harrison

Gritty, Gripping, Gut-wrenching stuff

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2019

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I came to this pair of tales having already read 'Blood Memory,' the second of the two tales in Dark Moon Digest magazine. That one in itself was the thing that left me officially 'on the lookout' for Ashford's work. It comprises Aboriginal Australian folklore and drops it like a bomb into the middle of a criminal investigation after a murder. Woven into that heady mix is a decent amount of social reference to the state of the territories where these people still live in no small amount of deprivation. The inequality was prevalent in the text, yet never in your face. Hard to pull off in the middle of what was only a few thousand words of giant crocodiles, murder and supernatural lore.
After that, naturally, I was quick to drop a quid on this duo and found some thematic similarities, but also some distinct differences in 'Encampment by the Gorge.' Again, we find ourselves dropped into a situation where the proverbial sh*t has hit the fan and people are dealing with a crisis. This is a great stroke of work, partly because it means we are thrown headlong into the action, but also because, even in a piece as short as this, we immediately begin to discover much about our characters, as they are under strain and facing an unknown, yet deadly enemy.
Australianisms abound in the prose and I almost read the text in an Aussie accent, which added a certain thrill, as beyond Alan Baxter, Steve Dillon and Kaaron Warren, I am not familiar with a wealth of Australian writers within genre. When things go wrong, the visions of terror are reminiscent of something out of a John Carpenter movie, likened to things familiar while retaining sufficient otherness that they chill you to your bones.
If you want something bloody but well-written, visceral but thoughtful, this here is for you.

Daniel I Russell

The master of bush horror

Reviewed in Australia on February 17, 2021

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I jumped straight in knowing nothing of this book other than I've enjoyed everything I've read by the author. Two stories! I'll admit I was a tad confused when they transitioned, as I had no idea there were two...

What can I say without giving too much away? Two stories that plunge you straight in and don't ease off until you're done. Ashford really is the master of bush horror, the messed up David Attenborough of the dangerous side of Australia.

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The Encampment By The Gorge & Blood Memory (Short Sharp Shocks! Book 30) Kindle Edition

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