Since time immemorial, bones have been the connection between life and death. In every culture throughout history, they’ve been the symbols of mortality and permanence. 

In Monster Bones, a new anthology from editors Stephanie Ellis and Noel Osualdini, the most overt use of skeletal symbolism can be found in “You’re Back,” a story by David Wellington. 

In a Groundhog Day- and Edge of Tomorrow-type of situation, a corpse is somehow reanimated anew each night. But for what purpose? That’s the question. 

Instinctively, the cadaver drags itself through the town looking for something—for someone. Even though it loses pieces of its body each night, it continues its search. At some point, the confused axial skeleton starts having an existential crisis. 

“The Corpse Eater” by Maxwell I. Gold is about a particularly loathsome Buddhist monk. Because of his lifelong avarice, he’s cursed for eternity to feast on human carrion. The greedy bastard fills his hut to the rafters with carcasses in various stages of mastication and decay. Regurgitated bones, flesh and hair are stacked everywhere.

Similarly, in a story called “Charnel Moon” by Ben Monroe, a man makes a living cutting up murder victims and feeding their bits to sharks off the coast of Monterey. His comeuppance occurs when he meets a beautiful woman named Sahira and her odious family of ghūls. “We like you,” she says not surprisingly. “We think that maybe you could be one of us.”

Other excellent stories feature a devil doll living in the jungle of Patagonia (“Milk, Honey, and Blood” by Lucy Taylor), a Tanzanian Popo Bawa (love that name) that preys upon distracted men (“The Guest” by Eugen Bacon) and my favorite story (“Rusalka” by Gwendolyn Kiste) about a young woman’s monstrous mother. The only turd in the bunch is “The Companion” by Joe R. Lansdale and his two kids. It’s not much of a story—and, to be honest, I’d argue that it’s not even a story at all. 

At the heart of Monster Bones is a 65-page story about the vampire apocalypse called “Midnight Mass.” The vampires knew their easiest targets, says author F. Paul Wilson. Whenever they swooped into an area, they singled out Jews as their first victims. A crucifix held power over vampires, but for Jews to hold a cross was to negate 2,000 years of Jewish history. They were doomed. 

The war is over and the vampires have won, but the crisis of faith rages on. Rabbis and priests wonder if the undead monsters will ultimately topple a lifetime devoted to religious vigor. “Honor, justice, integrity, truth, decency, fairness, love—will they become meaningless in a world rewritten by vampires?”

[ Monster Bones / Edited by Stephanie Ellis & Noel Osualdini / First Printing: March 2025 / ISBN: 9781964780245 ]