Sanford Allen's novella, "Deadly Passage", is paired with Joe McKinney's "Dog Days" in Book III of the Double Down series published by JournalStone of San Francisco. Each pair of novellas present tales of horror on loosely related themes, one by an accomplished author and the other by a relative novice, in this case, Allen. But in Book III it turns out that Allen in his first novel is the superior writer, at least when his "Deadly Passage" is matched against McKinney's "Dog Days.".

The title is a reference to the infamous "Middle Passage", that segment of the trans-Atlantic mercantile trade system in colonial times which involved the movement of enslaved Africans to the New World. In this story, it concerns an American ship bound from West Africa to Charleston, South Carolina, apparently sometime in the late 18th century or before the overseas slave trade was banned by U.S. law in 1808.

The chief character is George Bell, a free man of color who has signed on as an officer on a slave ship with the hope of earning enough money with his share of the profit from the sale of the "cargo" in Charleston for him to move to the free states of the North and to start a new life as a truly free man. As a former slave, that he is willing to benefit from selling other human beings into slavery does not escape the notice of his conscience, for he is basically a decent, if flawed, man.

Allen's novella depicts in grim detail the horrors of the Middle Passage, in which the captive Africans were treated like cattle, or worse than cattle- for they were just human enough in the eyes of some of their captors to invite rape and sadistic brutality. And into this horror story, Allen introduces an element of supernatural horror, a demonic creature that emerges from the African coastal jungle and slips aboard the slave ship just before it sets sail for America. This monster is sort of a man-sized chameleon-vampire. It has the ability to camouflage itself against its background and to squeeze through narrow spaces. It is armed with long razor-sharp claws and fangs, but it prefers to creep up on its victims while they sleep and to suck their life force from their mouths, leaving them drained of blood but not otherwise marked.

The creature begins claiming the lives of several of the captives in the slave hold. But since they are chained together in such a confined space, the survivors see the demon despite its stealth and recognize it. They are terrified, and Mr. Bell takes an interest in what it is that has agitated them so. The ship's captain and other officers at first are only concerned by the loss of valuable "livestock". They attribute it to disease, most likely a "bloody flux", a common ailment in the filthy and cramped conditions in which the captives were packed. They decide that they will contain it by tossing any slaves showing signs of sickness overboard.

But then the monster begins attacking members of the crew and the situation rapidly deteriorates. Bell gains the hard-won trust of a captive who speaks English and who tells him what the creature is. But he is unable to convince most of the other crewmen, who dismiss him as an "ignorant nigger" for believing the Africans' superstitious tales. Only one other sailor sides with Bell and the slaves.

The result is that the monster slaughters the captain and all of the crew except for Bell and his friend and about half of the remaining Africans whom Bell has freed from their shackles. Bell, the last white sailor, and the Africans, led by the large man who knows English, wage a desperate battle against the demon.

Allen skillfully builds the suspense in the closing chapters of the tale. He has a fine eye for evocative detail, creating an engaging picture of life and death in all its grisly detail on a slave ship. With George Bell, he utilizes the observations of a man who knows slavery from both sides and which allows the tale of two horrors to unfold without feeling forced or contrived. First, there is the larger and very real horror of slavery and the gruesome slave trade and all its atrocities, and then there is the allegorical horror of the demon set loose on the slave ship, the embodiment of evil that preys on both the innocent and on the evil doers among men. ( )