HELMINTH

A lake vacation goes terribly wrong when strange disturbances spell doom and destruction in Martinez’s debut horror novel.

After her best friend Abby is victimized in a terrible mugging and loses both her husband and unborn child, Rei visits her in the hospital. Having experienced immense personal trauma herself—orphaned after her father’s accident and her mother’s subsequent suicide —Rei is an empathetic ally. To help Abby recover, Rei and friends Corinne and Lorena plan a vacation. Nestled in the “woodsy middle-of-nowhere,” Rei’s Washington lake house seems like the perfect getaway. Chaos, of course, ensues. The usual trappings of a horror story tick off as an old woman is almost run off the road, a disgusting jar is found from the bottom of the lake, and Abby’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Deranged whisperings of a Githya (some sort of malevolent entity) add atmosphere and terror. Around midnovel, these ominous happenings morph into some truly grotesque scenes. Fans of gross-out horror will delight in Martinez’s descriptions, which manage to be nauseating and captivating at the same time—the novel becomes populated by wriggling “membranous” creatures. Unfortunately, after each new episode, the tension stops building. Inundated with so much bubbling and squelching in this lakeside nightmare, the plot doesn’t have much to build on until its ultimate climax, leading to a middle third that feels as overlong as it is stomach churning. The story does get back on track in the end, with some page-turning final chapters propelled by the characters’ close-knit relationships. Some questions remain unanswered, however, and some scenes, as the plot rushes to a close, feel unfinished.

Although bogged down by uneven pacing, a fascinating and disturbing fright.