‘The Skittering’ – David Haynes

I have the worst habit of buying books for my Kindle and then promptly moving on to another read, leaving said book to sit on my Kindle, probably wondering what it did wrong. Don’t worry book, it’s not you. Every now and then, I just can’t seem to settle on a read. The upside of this though is that when I’m on the bus home, and have finished reading a book, I can open up the Kindle app and surprise myself with books that I had completely forgotten that I had. Books like David Haynes’ ‘The Skittering’, for example. I picked this book up back in July last year and only got round to reading it over the last week, mostly on the way home from work but, as the story progressed, I was getting stuck in every chance I got. Let me tell you all about it…

Crease is known in Weaver as ‘the bug guy’, the man who takes care of insects and other critters. But what emerges from the shadows of the town’s waste plant is beyond anything found in nature.

Fist-sized cockroaches. Bird-sized wasps. Spiders, millipedes, ticks, all swollen to enormous bulk with vicious appetites to match. And other things, creatures that should never exist.

Through the night they come, slithering, buzzing, scuttling, crawling over skin, burrowing into flesh, making the town their nest.
Time is soon running out for Crease and the other survivors, as that hideous skittering noise closes in from all around…

You’ve probably been around here long enough to know, by now, that I love a good ‘creature feature’; even the bad ones are great in their own special way 😉 Either way, bad or good, if there’s a giant ant or crab (or whatever really) to be had then I’m all over it. And that was the case here with the promise of well, just about every insect you can think off; all over sized and out for blood. Oh yes, and a few insects that you’ve never seen before and won’t want to see again. Haynes throws all of this together and leaves it to a half burned out pest exterminator to make any kind of sense of. The result was a book where the writing occasionally doesn’t hit the targets that the concept is aiming for (although that might be me trying to keep track of everyone) but the passion and sense of fun behind it (and horror too, don’t get me wrong) carries the plot through those moments and the reader along with it.

I loved the way that Haynes just throws you into it along with his characters. Because seriously, when you’re trying to escape being killed/eaten/having insect eggs laid in you, who cares why all the insects are suddenly massive and very angry. Top priority is getting away, followed by trying to come up with a plan to stop them. Finding out why things are like this isn’t a consideration and it shouldn’t be. Sometimes it really is that simple and by taking this approach, Haynes keeps things moving along very nicely. I didn’t have time to stop reading and take a breath.

Add some really grim body horror to the mix (to really raise the stakes), as well as having most of the plot take place in a locked down hospital, and all of a sudden you’re in the middle of a claustrophobic tale of terror that takes no prisoners from a cast of characters where you will find yourself cheering a little when certain of them die horribly. Basically, just what I need for the commute home 😉

Part gripping story, part exercise in how to gross out your readers; ‘The Skittering’ does both of these very well and I’m really glad that I finally gave it a shot. Better late than never…