by Tim Waggoner

We can argue at length about subgenres within horror, but we can probably agree that two large classes might be "surreal" and "realistic." Ironically, in "realistic" you might find the supernatural. In the "surreal," you might not. Each of these classifications deals more with what surrounds the protagonist than either the plot or the setting (or even the antagonist—perhaps a monster of some kind). In Tim Waggoner's highly effective Like Death, the surreal takes center stage, and it's a hell of a show.

As a child, Scott Raymond witnessed and survived the massacre of his family. He knows the killer's identity, but he's blocked it—and years of therapy haven't unlocked the secret. However, he has become obsessed with violent crime, enough so to have eked out a career niche writing True Crime books. Scarred almost beyond comprehension by the trauma he suffered, Scott has also begun to sense deep violence in himself. And his wife has just left him, taking his son, and threatened to file for divorce, because of some incidents that hinted at the darkness Scott holds inside. Now Scott has left Cedar Hill, Ohio, for his family's new town, where he immediately goes about setting himself up as a potential stalker.

Ostensibly there to write about young Miranda Tanner, a child victim of a crazed serial killer, Scott really wants to convince his family he's better and they should give him a second chance. But even he recognizes that something's wrong. He's seeing visions and having nightmares—and in most of them he is the one perpetrating the violence. And on Miranda Tanner's street, he meets another Miranda, an older and lusty Miranda he dubs his "Lolita" and who soon occupies his time and his lustful thoughts. This Miranda knows something about Scott, and she knows even more about what's happening to him, but she can't just tell him. So she drags him into a surreal landscape populated by creatures "normal" people just don't see but which exist all the same, under the surface. Miranda's bizarre tutelage leads him from one revelation to another, a sort of circular Dantean tour of a hell on earth, and it's not long before Scott realizes why he's not normal and why Miranda is more than a symbol of crimes against women. The horrors herein—while vivid, disturbing, and quite graphic—serve the theme and never seem gratuitous, even when pushing the far edge of taste with undercurrents of pedophilia.

As an aside, one can almost spot Ash Creek, the setting of Like Death, on the Ohio map, since its coordinates lie close to Gary A. Braunbeck's famed Cedar Hill, Ohio, where things are also definitely not as they seem. Waggoner also pays homage to his fellow Ohio surrealist by having a Dr. Braunbach mentioned in a semi-cameo.

Such inside hijinks aside, Like Death is a serious exploration of what's between the cracks at the edges of our perception, as well as the nature of evil and its victims. It's an often brilliant tour-de-force that also sometimes seems infuriating. For instance, one wants to scream at Scott when he molds himself into the perfect stalker—are you nuts? Don't you see what you're doing? He rings the traumatized Tanner household doorbell, looking for a "young girl." Wouldn't he realize they'd call the police in a minute? One might see this kind of thing as a flaw, but Waggoner slyly suggests Scott has little choice—that he's being maneuvered into fulfilling a destiny role. Though it features such surreal imagery as (Ken Russell territory) a human phallus (that's a phallus made of humans!), a giant vagina, worm-like offspring, and hungry arachnoid playground equipment, Like Death will stick with you on the strength of its themes and the quality of its writing. Tim Waggoner's achievement is all the more impressive considering how entertaining the mix turns out to be, despite the darkness of the themes.