What I Am Reading: "Hydra" by Matt Wesolowski

The sixth interview always involves a twist. That is the secret to the Six Stories series, of which Hydra is the second (not the second of six, yet, but the second of three). You might think that knowing this would diminish the power of the storytelling, but I am still willfully along for the ride. They are still chilling horror novels; and the twist in Hydra, like the one in Six Stories, manages to skate along the edge of believability without tipping off into absurdity.

Unlike the first novel’s twist, this one does not retroactively change everything that has preceded it. Hydra tells a more linear story than Six Stories, the first novel. That book had six characters who experienced (most of) the same events, filling in blanks and providing new context and alternative interpretations of a single story. Hydra has each interview of the podcast reveal more of the story itself, though they jump backward and forward in time. This rendered necessary by the “true” crime being covered: Arla Macleod bludgeoning her mother, sister, and stepfather to death, and being committed to an asylum. She is the only witness, and there is no ambiguity surrounding the actual commission of the crime.  The six “interviews” conducted by Scott King are of Arla herself, a classmate who knew her a little in high school friend, a close high school friend, two friends she made on a pivotal trip to a seaside resort, and a hybrid interview of a pair of authority figures at different stages of her life.

Arla, suffering from psychosis, is a believer (and, in her own mind, a victim) of several urban legends that she read about on the internet. These legends are less in the Jan Harold Brunvand vein and more in the creepypasta vein; but are in fact actual items from the internet, not manufactured by Wesolowski. I appreciate this: I think that horror writers should either stick faithfully to actual folklore, or should invent their own mythology from whole cloth. Anything in-between, such as a writer changing a known myth to fit their storytelling needs, is lazy. Anyway, at various points in the story, Arla initiates several “games” of Korean and Japanese origin: Daruma-San, the Elevator to Another World, and the Hooded Man. The connection between all of these games is Arla’s desire to escape from her life: she is the misfit child of fundamentalist parents, and is resentful of her perfect younger sister. The friends she makes at school are outcasts like her, most of them fans of the Satanic rock star Skexxixx, finding solace in his lyrics of alienation.

These games play a role in the story (and in Arla’s misfortunes, according to her). The main urban legend in the story, though, is that of the Black-Eyed Kids. This legend, which according to Snopes originated in the 90s and only came to the internet in the past decade, warns one to beware of children with fully black eyes, who approach a house or car and ask to be let in for some mundane purpose. This is essentially the extent of the legend: that these children show up, create an intense feeling of dread, and should not have their request acquiesced to. I was unfamiliar with the other legends used, but am very familiar with this one. Arla believes that the bad thing that happened to her family was because she let the children in, and is haunted by them still.

The podcast transcript format still works, with Scott King’s italicized words (and typewriter-font text messages and official documents) creating a visual contrast that makes them easy to read. Despite the book’s British provenance and setting, I still “hear” King in my head with an American accent, sounding in fact like Brian Reed from S-Town (probably because that is the only podcast I have ever listened to). I read a lot of British horror writers, and one common thread across several books I have read recently (Wesolowski’s, and No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill) has been the presence of the toxic UK tabloid media in the lives of the characters, becoming famous as the result of crimes.

In any event, I won’t fully spoil the twist, but it is sufficient to say that there has been an unheralded puppetmaster pulling the strings of much of the story, who is part of the final interview (the other part being musician Skexxixx). This thread ties in with Scott King being a more present character in the book beyond just half-narrating them through the interviews: he receives threatening messages over the course of the “podcast’s” episodes, and these come to a head in the book’s climax. I think this was a good second stage for the series to move to, experimenting with the format and not simply recreating the first book. They are definitely an unsettling read, invoking dread even when I thought I could predict the outcome of a segment. I have the third (and most recent) in the series queued up next.