If You're Human Don't Open the Door is a collection of 4 stories of well crafted Terror and Horror.
Jennifer-Crystal Johnson (together with N.Jones) has written several chilling tales with a variety of female protagonists who have to quickly run the gamut from terror to horror to terror again. And Jennifer does it well. And, in keeping with the genre, things don't always work out for the hero. The tempo of each story is different as she takes us through;
Frozen moments of horror:
"I found that I, too, was frozen as I watched the creature seem to pulse and shake on top of him." -Emily The Day the Demons Danced
To moments of active Terror:
"I shut the door slowly and locked it. My knees grew weak and it was getting harder to breathe but I had to push onward. I felt faint. I looked to my left to see the washer and dryer there and rested a hand on the washer. My pulse began to increase. I had to move now before it was too late- too late. Wasn't it already too late?"-Emily The Day the Demons Danced
The final story is full of interesting imagery.
"I could feel millions of cuts on my body as I crashed through this curiously contradicting wall of the world, beautiful and painful, brilliance originating from a painful source, and an animal scream permeated the air and resonated throughout my bones, each laceration in my skin humming as if electrified."-Jennifer-Crystal Johnson Mirror Demon
In the short span that these stories allow, Jennifer finds a way to make the reader empathize with each of the main characters so that they find them selves mentally shouting don't open the door. In some cases the reader is taken on a sustained chain of thrill a minute gut wrenching terror. It's a good thing they were short stories.
On the other hand there were only four. I could have managed a few more. Maybe next time.
J.L. Dobias Author of Cripple-Mode: Hot Electric
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