Evilution

By Stefan Isaksson

Evilution
Shaun Jeffrey
The Invisible College Press
293 pages
ISBN: 1931468133

Chase Black’s life sucks. Her boyfriend has been missing for four months, she’s unemployed, the pile of bills grow larger and larger, and she lives in a dangerous part of town. Nothing seems to go her way. The only good thing in her life is her lesbian friend Jane, with whom Black has a tendency to drink more than wine than she perhaps should.

But then one day something strange happens. A letter arrives, telling her that she’s won her own house in a cosy little village in the countryside. Great news! However, the crux of the matter is that she cannot remember entering any contest in the first place. Then one early morning – when Chase and Jane have both set a new personal best in being hungover – a chauffeur arrives with a limousine to take them to Paradise, the name of the village. Chase agrees to come along, but only on the condition that Jane can come, too.

Upon arriving things appear nice and dandy, except for a bizarre fog that surrounds the entire village. But Evilution is a horror story, and thus both Chase and Jane soon realize that things are not the way they ought to be. Chase, however, tries to keep her spirit high since she has no intentions of going back to her old life, but the strangeness factor keeps getting higher, and when Jane suddenly disappears without a trace things start to really fall apart. People begin to die all around her, and Chase starts having serious doubts about her own sanity. What has happened to Jane? Why isn’t she allowed to leave the village? What’s the story about the weird fog that never goes away? And why are the inhabitants acting so irrationally?

Evilution is Shaun Jeffrey’s first novel (even if he’s had some shorter stories published before), and this is definitely not a bad debut. Jeffrey has learned the art of creating a creepy feeling without using unnecessary long paragraphs or stereotyped tools of horror writing. Chase’s attempts to understand what’s happening to her make a great read, and the other main character – a teenager called Ratty who becomes lost in the fog and end up facing a seemingly invincible foe – is also interesting and adds additional flavor to the story.

No, it’s not the best work of horror I’ve ever read, but I still found myself appreciating it in many different ways, and especially Jeffrey’s ability to let the reader know that something’s about to happen, but what? And when?

And oh, I must also add that Evilution has one of the best endings I’ve ever seen in a novel.