Sardines (In the Dark) is a 2023 horror novelette by Judith Sonnet.
While on a camping trip in the middle of the woods, a Christian youth group decide to play a game of hide-and-seek at night. However, shortly after the game commences, the group discovers that someone, or something, is picking them off one by one.
Sardines (In the Dark) provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: Tina. When she finds out about the monster, she does what any unarmed teenage girl would do in this scenario: she hides and stays quiet. And when she finally comes across a sharp, fragmented bone, she immediately uses it to injure Ezra and kill Jackie.
- Angelic Abomination: Ezra is revealed to be this in the final chapter, his body consisting of giant bright wings clinging to his deformed humanoid body. Given the book's religious angle, it's implied he may be some kind of fallen angel.
- Big Bad: Jackie Merriweather, the teenager within the camp who allowed Ezra to sneak into camp so he could kill everyone.
- Big Bad Friend: Of Kylie's closest friends, Jackie is the one who secretly masterminded the entire massacre.
- Bring My Brown Pants: After Jackie brandishes a knife in front of Kylie ready to kill her, she wets herself with fright.
- Crippling Castration: Before Brian is killed, the monster messily destroys his crotch by crushing his pelvis and testicles with a mallet.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Jackie's reasons for wanting to kill everyone in the group boil down to them being hypocrites, not believing in God, committing infidelity, or in Kylie's case, standing by as two teenagers willingly take a few sips of alcohol.
- Downer Ending: Everyone is butchered by Ezra, except for Kylie, who was tied up to a chair and nearly killed by Jackie. Tina kills Jackie and tries to save Kylie, only for Ezra to kill her too. The final scene shows Kylie screaming as Ezra reveals angelic wings and advances towards her.
- Final Girl: Most of the story is told from Kylie's POV, making her out to be the lead protagonist who ultimately survives all the horrors of the night. Subverted when she ends up not doing much overall up until she's tied up and nearly killed by Jackie. She does end up being the last girl standing, but given that Ezra is still alive and she has nowhere to run or hide, it's likely she was Killed Offscreen.
- The Heavy: The monster is the one killing off the cast, but that's only because Jackie, the true villain, lured the monster to the camp and instructed him to do so.
- Take That!: The author has gone on record in the afterword of admitting half the reason why she wrote the book was as a takedown against hypocritical Christians. As a result, many of the characters are revealed to by hypocrites or that they don't actually believe in God at all. And then there's Jackie, who is revealed to have been behind the whole plot. Specifically, she lured Ezra into camp to murder all the campers because she views them as "sinners" who deserve to die, and she wants to use the massacre as a way to convince more people to turn to Christianity.
- Tear Off Your Face: Harold is killed when the monster graphically rips his face off with its claws.
- Teens Are Monsters: The Big Bad of the novel who told Ezra to murder all the campers is none other than Jackie, who is a teenager just like most of the other characters.
- The Woman Behind the Man: It's revealed in the final chapter that Jackie secretly lured Ezra to the camp so he could kill everyone.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Tina kills Jackie and Ezra, then rushes to Kylie so she can free her. Then Ezra gets a second wind and murders Tina before she can free Kylie.
