Killed by Death

Killed by Death 

By Matthew Weber 

Pint Bottle Press; 2024 

Paperback; 12.99 

Genre: Fiction 

Reviewed by Nelson Sims 

Matthew Weber’s Killed by Death is a nasty little love letter to the kinds of horror stories that used to hide behind gas station comic racks and dare you to flip the page. It’s got the bite of Tales from the Crypt, the twang of the Deep South, and absolutely no intention of letting anyone walk away clean. Whether it’s the human monsters or the supernatural ones (and sometimes it’s both), these stories know one thing: somebody’s not making it out alive. 

Set mostly in the (probably?) fictional town of Shady Brake, Alabama, Weber’s collection takes Southern Gothic and cranks it through a woodchipper. And then dumps it in a swamp. Shady Brake and its surrounding area have everything you don’t want in a zip code: reclusive killers in shotgun shacks, teenagers who make horrible decisions, undead nasties in sewage water, and at least one high schooler who figures out how to summon something from way below the honor roll. It’s not so much a town as it is a death trap disguised as a ZIP code. 

These aren’t quiet ghost stories. They’re mean. Loud. Messy. The kind where bones break out of the skin and retribution comes wrapped in barbed wire. And Weber doesn’t blink. He’s not here for literary flexing or slow-burn mood pieces. These stories are fast, brutal, and straight to the jugular. He builds momentum with plainspoken prose that wastes no time and takes no prisoners. And just when you think (or hope) he might let a character off the hook—nope. Down they go. 

Take, for instance, the guy who jets off to New Orleans on his honeymoon, only to flee the scene after his way-too-attractive-for-him wife gets possessed by a voodoo curse—triggered, no less, by a deranged stranger who projectile vomits into her face. He actually pulls off an exorcism (credit where it’s due), but once the demon’s gone and she’s left with a mangled face and shattered fingers from the ordeal, he decides that true love can’t quite survive a possession cleanup. So, he calls her an ambulance…and then promptly peels out back to Alabama. It’s that blend of gruesome and grimly hilarious that makes Weber’s stories stick. 

What makes Killed by Death fun (and yes, it is fun, in that bloodstained-drive-in-marquee kind of way) is how committed Weber is to the bit. There’s a logic to the violence here, a dirty little moral engine chugging underneath it all. No one’s completely innocent. Bad people do worse things, and sometimes, the punishment fits the crime just enough to make you grin before the next head rolls. It’s the kind of storytelling that works best when you’re not trying to find hope in it—just a good story well told, with a couple of ruptured eyeballs thrown in for good measure. 

It’s also very Southern. Not just in the accent or the geography but in that bone-deep understanding of small towns—the way everybody knows your business and how grudges can grow teeth and the line between justice and vengeance gets real blurry when it’s drawn in blood. Shady Brake might not be real, but if you’ve spent any time in rural Alabama, you’ll recognize the terrain. You just might start avoiding the fishing holes. 

Killed by Death is a quick read, but it lingers. You’ll start wondering what’s under the surface of that friendly pond or if the gas station at the edge of town has always been that empty. Weber’s not trying to reinvent horror—he’s just dragging it back to the woods, shaking the rust off, and letting it do what it does best. 

If you’ve got a taste for backwoods brutality, short stories with sharp teeth, and a whole lot of “well, that escalated,” then this is your ticket to Shady Brake. Just keep your head down, and don’t drink the water. Or go near it at all.  

Nelson Sims is an English instructor at Wallace Community College Selma, where he shares his love of literature and writing with students. Outside the classroom, he enjoys crafting quirky stories, obsessing over 80s/90s pop culture, and consuming weird and wacky books, with the occasional comic book on the side. He lives in Alabama with his wife and their lively household of six animals—three dogs and three cats—who keep things interesting.