EXPLORING THE LABYRINTH 15: GHOST WALK BY BRIAN KEENE

22/6/2021

In this series, I will be reading every Brian Keene fiction book that has been published (and is still available in print), and then producing an essay on it. With the exception of Girl On The Glider, these essays will be based upon a first read of the books concerned. The article will assume you’ve read the book, and you should expect MASSIVE spoilers.

I hope you enjoy my voyage of discovery.

15: Ghost Walk BY BRIAN KEENE

Back when I was discussing Shades (co-authored with Geoff Cooper), I discussed how much I was looking forward to further narratives featuring Levi Stoltzfus, the strange, sad magician whose path to victory over the forces of darkness is kind of the definition of pyrrhic.

I was also pleased to be revisiting the setting of Keene’s blood-on-the-page story, Dark Hollow: LeHorn’s Hollow felt like a setting that wasn’t even close to played out, following the events of that book, and so it proved to be.

The novel features three main protagonists; in addition to Levi, we are introduced to Maria Nasr, freelance journalist for various outlets, including the local York Dispatch, and Ken Ripple, who is a relatively recent widower, working his way back to the world by designing and organizing the ‘Ghost Walk’; an outdoor halloween attraction to raise funds for women’s cancer research. And, of course, the perfect local setting for said attractions is obvious; the vast woods surrounding LeHorn’s Hollow, most of which, we are not-at-all reassuringly informed, survived the fire of a few years back.

I swear, by now, you’d think the poor sods would have some kind of inkling they were in a Brian Keene story.

But the story doesn’t start there. It starts, in true, glorious pulp horror fashion, with a lone poacher (down on his luck does not even begin to cover it) discovering (or being drawn to) a strangely carved rock in the heart of the burned out hollow. And it’s an instant classic. Keene’s always notable talent for drawing swift yet deep character portraits feels to have taken a step change in quality with this story; Richard Henry might look like a cliche in summery - blue collar, lost his son in Iraq, drink problem, ex-wife, no job, spiraling debt… and, though he doesn’t have the language for it, a crushing depression that is leading him to a state of near-constant suicidal ideation.

I’ve talked before about how Keene writes blue collar characters like few others, and this opening chapter really is an exemplar of what I’m talking about; long before the supernatural nasty starts doing the tango up and down your spine, here’s this guy, and life has just crushed him. The arbitrariness of it, just an ordinary person subjected to unbearable pressures by forces entirely outside his control; it’s brilliantly observed, empathic without being sentimental or pitying, and when the darkness inevitably claims the man at the end of the chapter, there’s an awful way in which it’s like the poor sod has come home at last.

Oh, and let’s talk about the Big Bad, here, because it’s something of a treat: no less than the nameless entity that is the most powerful of The Thirteen - the core forces of apocalypse that form the center of the Brian Keene multiverse. Appropriately enough, it either is not or cannot be named, and it’s nothing more or less than darkness incarnate. Thanks to LeHorn’s use of magical portals, the walls between worlds around The Hollow have become weakened, and now, The Darkness has found a possible route into our world. The walls are weakest at Halloween (because of course they are), and that darkness is out to recruit living puppets to ensure that come the day, it will be unleashed and destroy, well, everything.

What’s interesting is the mode of that possession: unlike the Squism of The Rising series, this force doesn’t animate dead flesh; rather, it obliterates the souls of it’s vessels before inhabiting them. And it does this by showing them the essence of their deepest loss, an avatar of their despair, and then simply removes everything that makes them them.

Now, as metaphors for depression go, it’s not exactly subtle. What I think is more subtle is the inference as the story progresses that every person carries within them the capacity for such despair, some deep regret so powerful and irreconcilable that, under the wrong circumstance, any one of us could become overwhelmed, consumed by the darkness.

There but for the grace of… well, let’s maybe hold that thought.

The novel is well paced, with scenes of the three protagonists, each with a few pieces of the puzzle, slowly figuring out the big picture (Levi, admittedly, holding more pieces than most, as you’d expect) intercut with the darkness claiming more and more vessels, building to the inevitable climax when the big day for the Ghost Walk arrives and the visitors get rather more than they reckoned for.

In keeping with the themes of despair, Levi’s only solution to the catastrophe involves breaking Adam Senft - the author and POV character from Dark Hollow - out of a secure unit for a dangerous ritual, which, like in Shades, ends up requiring rather more of the participants than they might have bargained for.

And for me, as much as Maria and Ken are well realised characters that I enjoyed spending time with, it’s Levi who captivated my imagination once more. His magical system is Old Testament, but it’s the way that sits alongside his morality and faith that I find so fascinating; here’s a man who sincerely believes in the divine, and that he will have to atone for his sins in the next life… and he uses deceit and manipulation to force (relative) innocents into positions of sacrifice in order to save the world. Dude is complex, in other words, and I like how Keene never takes the easy path with him, either having him be too callous or too pious; Levi feels the weight of what he does keenly; at the same time, when he sees what he believes is the correct path in front of him, he doesn’t hesitate. This makes him a brilliant protagonist, and I look forward to future appearances with great interest.

Overall, I found Ghost Walk to be superb; tons of heart, characters that leapt off the page, and the classic pulp horror collision of ordinary, recognisable people with impossible circumstances. The prose is as lethally readable as ever, and even the always-tough ‘infodump’ segment was relatively smooth this time; perhaps because it doubled as a character moment, with Levi desperately trying to convince Maria of the scale of the threat they were facing. I also really dug that threat this time out; the method of corruption required Keene to dig deep into all the characters, looking for that one shameful thing, or one great loss, that had the power to destroy them. The implied thesis of the story - that all of us have such a seed inside us, that we should take care not to give too much water or light - is something I find extraordinarily unlikely won’t pop up in my own work at some future date. As Ligotti said, consciousness is the real horror story, and with Ghost Walk, Keene gives us a glimpse of what that darkness, left unchecked, could do to any of us.

Or all of us.

Next up, we're back to The Flood, with Earthworm Gods: Selected scenes from the end of the world. Looking forward to it.

KP
24/5/21

GHOST WALK BY BRIAN KEENE

There are all kinds of legends about the forests of Central Pennsylvania, and in this sequel to DARK HOLLOW, the truth about those legends is finally revealed.

Halloween is coming, and a new haunted attraction is open for business in LeHorn's Hollow. Folks will come from miles around to walk down the spooky trail and get scared witless. But there's one thing the owners of the ghost walk haven't counted on. There really is something waiting in the woods-a vast, ancient evil whose hunger threatens to consume all life on Earth. Soon, the unsuspecting customers will pay their money and get in line... to die. And only one man, occult detective Levi Stoltzfus, can save them and stop the evil before it is unleashed.