Wounds: Six Stories From the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud

The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud ★★★★★ 
Hideous beauty, confronting and objectionable grace - everything I ever wanted from Clive Barker.  

The Visible Filth ★★★★☆ 

A bartender finds a cell phone with gruesome images that infect his life and those around him.  You never find out if it’s Heaven or Hell at play but salvation is viewed as a life less ordinary.

The Atlas of Hell ★★★★☆ 
A gangster makes a bookbinder with experience in dark magic go after a map of hell in the Bayou.  If I had not already read one of Ballingrud’s tales of hell this would have been shockingly weird.

The Diabolist ★★★½☆

A lonely woman tries to use her fathers dark arts to bring him back.  The love that finds her is not the one she called.

Skullpocket ★★★½☆
A town is taken over by The Church the Maggot.  It’s just as unpleasant as it sounds.

The Maw ★★★½☆ 
A lonely man hires a young girl to take him through hell ravaged lands to find his dog.

I read six stories for an average of 3.9 stars happily rounded to up to 4 stars.