Vermin

Vermin by Allison M. Dickson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After reading Dust, I was super excited to read some more stories by Allison M. Dickson. And so I dove into this story with high expectations. The first page was filled with excellent descriptions that painted a vivid mental image. You can tell the author loves using metaphors and is very skillful at putting them to use in her stories. But by the end, unfortunately I just didn't enjoy this one as much as I had hoped.

Basically we have the local "haunted house". This house was the scene of a horrible massacre, where a senator killed his own family. It has sat empty for quite some time and as expected, has been overtaken by vermin. Someone has decided to purchase the house and clean it up, so the local exterminators have arrived on the scene to clear out the infestation. There is Wes, an inspector who rarely works in the field anymore but wants to personally oversee this job, and there is Oscar. Oh Oscar.

I think he is one of the main reasons I couldn't enjoy the story. He seems to be so painfully inept at his job that it was hard for the story to maintain one iota of believeability. Sure, he's cleaning out a house that was the scene of gruesome murders. I'll give him that. I would be jumpy too. But he freaks out a little too easily. Not only does he panic, attempt to run away and has his foot go through the moldy floor, he then kicks a hole in the wall in the process of freeing his foot. As the new homeowner, I'd be pretty ticked off.

Things go downhill from here for our unfortunate exterminators. Turns out this house is infested beyond their wildest imaginations. Since it is a rather short story, I'm going to use spoiler tags for a moment:

So after Oscar's freak-out, he regroups outside the house and then decides to find his partner. Wes should've been in the backyard securing the windows, but Oscar only finds his tool kit and an open window. Upon further inspection, he hears wheezing noises coming from the basement - which he believes to be his partner, possibly wounded. He hurries to the basement, BUT OH NO!!! The battery in his flashlight AND cell phone are almost dead! See what I mean about Oscar? Obviously long abandoned houses aren't going to have a lot of lighting, yet he is utterly unprepared. Before his lights go out, he does see that the basement is filled with human bodies in various levels of decay, including the body of his partner. I would run at this point. Run very fast and very far and never look back. But I'll let you read the book to see what Oscar does.

I have to say, the ending almost makes up for the rest of the story's shortcomings. It makes your skin crawl. It makes you want to stock up on Raid. But overall, I feel that the story relies too much on your fear of bugs instead of being a truly good read. I am still looking forward to reading more stories by this author though!

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