Mini book review: We Are Where the Nightmares Go and other stories by C. Robert Cargill

It's not even September yet so it's far too soon for horror movies.  I have, however, been in the mood for some horror books, inspired by NPR's recent article.  I am particularly fond of horror short stories (Stephen King, Joe Hill, Neil Gaiman when he's feeling especially macabre) and thus first pounced upon C. Robert Cargill's We Are Where the Nightmares Go and other stories when it became available at the library.  To be honest, I didn't love it.  I thought the stories were pretty uneven and the prose didn't readily pull me in (as does the prose of Messrs. King, Hill and Gaiman).  I did enjoy several individual stories:  the title story, "We Are Where the Nightmares Go," which has doors to other worlds, bad clowns and lost children; "The Town That Wasn't Anymore," about an Appalachian town that is dying away, not just because the mining is tapped out but because the town's dead just won't stay dead; and, most wonderfully, "Hell Creek" which is about ZOMBIE DINOSAURS.  I mean, who doesn't love zombie dinosaurs?  Bad people, that's who.