Gabriel Tuggle’s story, A Yoke of Iron, resonated so strongly with the world we sadly live in, and the terror filling it. It draws in such a real horror, one that every student and every parent knows, one that aches at their souls. It’s a story of pain, bullying, and then torment against those who decided their pain entitles them to steal the lives of others.
The cafeteria stunk of acrid smoke and a coppery stench like old pennies. And what he’d believed to be music earlier was actually the fire alarm, ringing, blaring its one-note scream on the world, loud enough to mask shouts of pain and terror.
A Yoke of Iron by Gabriel Tuggle, featured in Tangle & Fen: A Dark Fiction Anthology (p. 92). Crone Girls Press.
Q (Crone Girls Press): What inspired your story in this anthology? Tell us the “story behind the story.”
A (Author): I don’t have any concrete solution for gun violence in the US. There are ways to treat it, but I can’t seem to find the cure. Tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and I always find myself wondering about the perpetrators. Who they are, and why they committed such an unspeakable act. We often never know the answer to such questions, and as a spiritual man, I wondered what the afterlife could possibly be like for someone responsible for such atrocities. Of course, after years of pondering, a story came to mind, and “A Yoke of Iron” was born. The title is a biblical reference to a device used to trap someone in one place, alluding to the way Lawrence is forever stuck in his own memory.
Q: Why do you write horror? What about the genre appeals to you as an author?
A: I think fear is one of the first emotions I ever felt, or remember feeling. As a toddler, I was horrified to wander away from my mother in a department store, scared of dark places, frightened by games like “Silent Hill” that my older brothers played. It didn’t (and still doesn’t) take much to unnerve me. If you surprise me by jumping out of a closet, I’ll always flinch. Writing horror is therapy, I think. The best stories are written by authors who genuinely feel the tone and emotion embedded within the text. So when I write a story that’s fantasy or humor or even literary, it still has an eerie feeling about it. I just can’t escape it.
Q: There are a number of different flavors of horror. Where does your story fit, and what drew you to this particular category?
A: Like I said, my earliest introduction to horror was watching my brothers play “Silent Hill,” a game set in a foggy ghost town. Even at a very young age, I understood the town of Silent Hill had something wrong with it, something unsettling about how empty and void it was. You see some of that in “A Yoke of Iron.” Growing up, I was also a big fan of Rod Serling’s original “The Twilight Zone” series, and I could only ever watch it during the sci-fi channel’s New Year marathon. “The Twilight Zone” isn’t strictly horror. It’s also fantasy, science fiction, and often psychological. There’s something wildly eerie about the black and white image, the stock music, the old special effects, distorted camera angles, and calm narration from Rod Serling. That sense of unbalance is something I always try to capture in anything I write. There are entire genres inspired by HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, but if I were to credit my genre of horror to anyone, it would be to Serling.
Q: The world has been through some turbulent times in the past few years. How have current events changed (or not!) your approach to the genre as a writer?
A: With the way the world is today, I find myself wanting to tackle more complex issues in my writing, as evident in “A Yoke of Iron,” although I’ve realized that you don’t always have to provide a solution to anything, and not every story has to contain a hidden socio-political statement. Sometimes a story is just a story, and the way it comments on certain issues is enough to make it profound. But I’ve learned it’s perfectly okay not to know the answer to something.
Q: What’s next in your writing journey?
A: I want to publish some sort of long form writing; that’s my ultimate goal. I’ve written maybe 6 to 8 novels since I started taking this seriously in 2018. I’d consider two of them to be worth reading at all. I stay optimistic, as any writer should, and constantly remind myself that I’m only 24. Most fiction writers don’t publish novels that young, but it’s important to keep trying. I suppose I still have a ways to go in terms of improvement and bettering my craft. For now, I’m very happy selling short stories and seeing them published. It gives me a lot of hope that I chose the right career. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it took well over a hundred rejections before I ever sold my first story. Whether I publish a novel at age 30 or 130, you can guarantee I will keep trying.
About The Author
Gabriel Tuggle has many loves–VHS collecting, woodworking, PlayStation. But none hold a candle to books, so much so that he received his degree in English from the University of Kentucky in 2020. He currently lives with his wife and dog, Biscuit.
You can find him online on Twitter and Instagram
Be sure to check out their story in Tangle & Fen: A Dark Fiction Anthology
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