Tale of departed twin is 'Damned' scary
That light at the end of the tunnel when you die? In Andrew Pyper's novel The Damned, it shines on one man's personal hell.
As well-written as it is chill-inducing — and lo, readers will feel those goosebumps aplenty — Pyper's story darkly explores the connection between two siblings that's forever, but maybe not in the best sense.
Death has never quite taken hold of Danny Orchard, a likable but shy sort who became famous for coming back with proof of the hereafter. While most "visitors" have one of these episodes, Danny's had three, with his departed twin sister hitching a ride back with him the most recent time.
That's not a good thing. Ashleigh Orchard was more a demon than an angel when they were kids, making everyone's life miserable. Danny couldn't save his sister on their 16th birthday — a date that marks the second time they both died — and while he lived to tell about his near-death experience, she didn't. She's caused problems for him for 20-plus years.
Her hold on him seems to be slipping when he marries a fellow "Afterlifer." But then Ash becomes a threat to his wife and stepson, until Danny realizes the only way to be rid of his twin's ghastly presence is to figure out who murdered her.
Horror villains in movies as well as literature have the tendency to be one-note. Cursing Danny with a family member who just won't go away, though, is a masterful conceit. Instead of being just another hockey-masked dude, devil dog or demonic car, Ashleigh is a complete and utter monster — when she was alive, for sure, but especially as a dead girl with a burned visage who appears in mocking, malevolent fashion when she wants her brother to join her on the dark side.
But on some level, Danny still cares for his sister in a loving way, which would almost be a fatal flaw if not for the fact that an iffy heart might not let him survive another death.
Another highlight is the nuance Pyper brings to his afterlife. There's no heaven per se — a righteous soul would to get to relive the best day of his life, instead of greeting St. Peter at the pearly gates. It's an idea that straddles the secular and the spiritual in an insightful way.
Pyper doesn't think twice about scaring the pants off you, or at least giving you a bad case of the willies. Ash visits her brother in his dreams but begins to have real power in reality, too, coming to him in the hospital in one sequence and announcing her presence with a "suck of air that pulled other matter deeper with it," Pyper writes.
Not that it's a non-stop horror show. The more terrifying and unnerving aspects of the novel — and they are many — are just as important as the human element.
A line like, "People are the reason for wanting to stay or not really caring if this is your time to go" might sound corny in another book. But with the constant, unshakable dread of a dangerous ghost around, it makes this haunted journey a Damned good one.
The Damned
By Andrew Pyper
Simon & Schuster, 304 pp.
Three and a half stars out of four