57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides

Jared is a teenage boy who lists the reasons why he mind-controlled a group of bullies into committing mass suicide.

After discovering that he has the ability to control other living creatures to make them mimic his own actions, Jared reveals his power to his best and only friend, Anchal. After reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-Frog,” they are inspired to take revenge against Jared's six swim team mates, who frequently harass Jared for being gay, by luring them to the local slate quarries and killing them.

Anchal heads to the quarry alone so that the bullies will pursue her. Jared is distracted by a team mate who he, despite himself, has a crush on, speaking to him alone. Jared realizes that boy was an intentional decoy and arrives at the quarry to find Anchal already beaten up by the rest of the bullies. Anchal flees, feeling betrayed, after Jared takes control of the boys. Jared angrily makes the bullies jump off a cliff to die at the bottom of the quarry, but is left with the shame and knowledge that Anchal will never forgive him.

"57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides" won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award.[1]

Tangent Online praised the story, and considered it to be "steeped in unmet yearnings and thwarted rage".[2]

Miller has stated that the story is "about how privilege warps people’s relationships, and can turn people into monsters",[3] and emphasized that "(t)he real reason for [Jared's actions] isn't one of the 57 that Jared lists."[4]

• Text of the story, at Nightmare