Robin’s Review: Autopsy of Echoes From Below

Echoes From Below: Dead Pressure

Echoes From Below plunges into crushing depths, endless darkness, and the panic of knowing the surface may already be out of reach. The ocean closes in. Lakes hide what they have swallowed. Every breath becomes a fight, and something is always waiting in the water.

DEAD PRESSURE

Twelve years ago, a catastrophic breach left a classified military research facility abandoned beneath the ocean.
Now, a group of scavengers is breaking into its sealed corridors, chasing a score that could change their lives. For some, it means fortune. For others, what they stand to gain could mean the difference between life and death.

deep beneath the ocean, something has been waiting in the darkness. As the mission unravels, survival becomes a battle against crushing pressure, hidden secrets, and creatures that should never have been released. Some things were buried for a reason.

Explore the rest of the “Echoes From Below” collection. Independent stories. Unfathomable horrors. No way out.

Robin’s Auto of Echoes From Below: Dead Pressure

Echoes From Below: Dead Pressure by Angel R. Sánchez

First, a huge thank you to Angel R. Sánchez for letting me beta read this one.

I have read Mr. Sánchez before, so I really should know better by now.

The man does not write stories. He builds emotional traps, waits until you care, then starts turning off the lights.

Star Rating:

Skull Dread Rating:

THE BODY

Some books ease you into the horror.

This one looks at “ease” as a personal weakness.

Dead Pressure drops you into a place where common sense should probably be wearing a life jacket, and from there the story keeps tightening its grip until you are questioning why humans ever decided exploration was a good hobby.

There are doors that should stay closed.

Places that should stay abandoned.

And discoveries that should come with a giant sign reading:

ABSOLUTELY NOT. GO HOME.

Naturally, none of that happens.

FIRST INCISION

The setup grabbed me because it has that wonderful horror combination of curiosity and very obvious terrible consequences.

You know from the start that poking around where nobody has been invited is probably going to end badly.

Still, everybody keeps moving forward.

Because apparently horror has never heard of leaving well enough alone.

The farther the story goes, the more that original curiosity turns into a very different question:

How much worse can this possibly get?

Mr. Sánchez took that as a challenge.

THE AUTOPSY

What I liked most was the constant feeling that there was always something else waiting around the corner.

Not necessarily jumping out.

Not necessarily announcing itself.

Just waiting.

That kind of tension works on me every time because my imagination is perfectly capable of making things worse without assistance.

And this story gives it plenty of material.

There is also a nice balance between the human problems and everything else going terribly wrong. The danger never feels limited to one source, which means there is no comfortable point where you can think, “Well, at least THAT part is handled.”

No.

Nothing is handled.

Everyone is simply progressing from one bad idea to a more professionally organized bad idea.

STILL HAD A PULSE

The atmosphere is probably my favorite part.

There is something deeply unpleasant about being somewhere you cannot simply walk away from.

That trapped feeling hangs over the entire story and makes every new problem feel bigger because there is no easy escape hatch waiting nearby.

Mr. Sánchez also knows when to let a scene sit just long enough for the dread to sink in.

Very considerate of him.

By considerate, I mean awful.

WHAT BROKE

At 421 pages, there is a lot packed into this story, but it never felt like the length was there just to take up space.

There were a couple of moments where I was ready to get back to the chaos a little sooner, mostly because by that point I was far too invested and patience had officially left the building.

Basically, Mr. Sánchez had me demanding my next disaster on schedule.

CAUSE OF DEATH

Dead Pressure is a nasty little reminder that some mysteries are mysteries because nobody with functioning survival instincts should investigate them.

It is tense, claustrophobic, unsettling, and full of the kind of choices that make horror readers yell at people who cannot hear us.

Mr. Sánchez clearly has no interest in creating safe spaces for his characters.

Or his readers.

Apparently, peace, emotional stability, and a reasonable blood pressure are not included with his books.

I knew better.

I read it anyway.

Reviewed by Robin for Robin’s Reviews

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Reviewed by Robin for Robin’s Review

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