In a Cavern, In a Canyon

The cover of "Laird Barron's “Not a Speck of Light” collection. Bad Hand Books, 2024.

My favorite type of horror and weird literature is the short story. That will probably be the bulk of my reviews on here. I could review the anthologies they appear in but honestly, I just want to write about the stories that stick with me. I'll make sure to include where you can read them if you want.

Okay, now that's out of the way, I want to talk to you about “In a Cavern, In a Canyon” by Laird Barron.

I have a complicated relationship with Mr. Barron's writing. Some of his stories are outstanding while others lean too far into tropes around machismo in the face of incomprehensible cosmic horror. That works for some stories but he has a large number of those in his oeuvre.

“In a Cavern, in a Canyon” is one of his stories that doesn't follow those tropes at all. It's told from the point ofmview of a middle-aged woman named Hortense.

Hortense, living alone after several failed marriages, regularly watches her infant granddaughter, Vivian. The story opens as she hears Vivian cry, but before tending to her, she drifts into a vivid memory from her teenage years.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Most of the story unfolds within this memory: a search for the family dog with her father and uncle amid a devastating flood. During the tense search, Hortense encounters a terrifying creature — a pale, manlike figure clinging to a tree, pleading “Help me!”

As she’s drawn toward it, her uncle intervenes, pulling her away despite her growing compulsion to help. The frightened dog soon reappears, but her father has vanished. Later, her uncle explains that the “Help Me Monster” surfaces after natural disasters — and that he’s encountered it before:

“This somebody was super skinny and super pale. Lots of wild hair. Their arms and legs were tangled so’s you couldn't make sense of what was going on…Their faces were stuck together…The skinny pale one shot out from under the Viking and into the darkness. Didnt stand, didnt crouch, didnt even flip over—know how a mechanic rolls from under a car on his board? Kinda that way, except jittery.”

Later, her uncle’s story turns gruesome—the briker was dragged into darkness by his own entrails, pulled from his mouth.

In the present, Hortense remembers it’s Sunday—a day she never watches Vivian. Entering the nursery, she finds the “Help Me” monster again, sprawled on the floor, clutching the crib and mimicking an infant’s cries before repeating its plea.

It attacks, striking her with a stinger that leaves her paralyzed. Hortense manages to ask if it killed her father, but the creature ignores her and moves closer. She shines a light on it:

“For an instant I behold the intruder in all its malevolent glory. It recoils from my flashlight, a segmented hunter of soft prey retreating into its burrow.”

Hortnse’s fate is left ambiguous.

I love this creature. It’s a truly original creation, refusing to fit into any familiar monster archetypes—no vampires, no werewolves, nothing we’ve seen before. It’s nightmarish precisely because it preys on our instinct to help those in need. I revisited this story recently, years after my first read, and Barron’s prose still gripped me—pulling me in and forcing me to confront a creature that feeds on the very kindness that defines us.

A note: the story's title comes from an old American folk song called “Oh, My Darling Clementine”. Its sung by several members of Hortense's family.

If you want to read this story and others by Laird Barron, you can find it in his collection Not a Speck of Light.

You can read it as a stand alone piece at Nightmare Magazine online.

I rate this story four 💀💀💀💀 skulls.