The Devil's Alphabet
Daryl Gregory
Language: English
Pages: 225
ISBN: 0345501179
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy.
Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)–vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.
Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn’t change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.
Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.
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top of his father’s head and the old man obediently faced forward and bent his head. Pax said, “Deke told me about—about how the chub boys suck that stuff out of you.” “They came again last night,” his father said. Pax could hear the accusation in his voice. “Big day, they said. A double-header.” “I was with Deke yesterday. I was, well, recovering.” His father didn’t say anything. The hair along the sides of his head had dried and tangled. Pax tugged and cut, tugged and cut. Several minutes
recognize who swung a duffel bag in his hand. Paxton locked the door and stepped to the side, out of the view of the window. Even though he was expecting it, the knock made him flinch. “Reverend Martin?” Rhonda called. “Paxton?” He backed away from the door—he didn’t want his voice to sound too close—and called back, “This isn’t a good time, Aunt Rhonda.” “Don’t let her in!” his father bellowed. One of the men laughed, but was quickly cut off. Rhonda said, “Paxton, honey, I’m here to help.
sternly, in that voice that could rattle the back pews. He leaned down, abruptly becoming a fat old man in a robe. A chub. “We don’t have much time.” Pax pulled himself upright, and the picture frame fell from his chest to his lap. It was deep in the night, 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. He’d passed out on the bed fully dressed, still wearing his shoes. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What’s going on?” “I’ve only got a little while ’til I’m mad as a hatter again,” his father said. Then, “Why aren’t you in your
he ducked. He didn’t know where the bullet went, didn’t know if he was hit. There was nowhere to hide. Nothing in the lobby but two chairs, a couch, a few potted plants. Doreen fired again. Pax ran pell-mell for the double doors that led to the patient rooms, wild with the need to escape. The thirty feet to the doors seemed to stretch to the length of a football field. Finally he banged through the doors, and then he was falling against the second set of doors and onto the floor beyond. He hit
object attached to someone else’s arm. His body felt heavy as river stone. And then the reverend nodded to a back row, and the moment passed. His hand fell into his lap. Aunt Rhonda came slowly forward, an immensity in pink like a parade float: pale pink dress and jacket, a wide pink hat with a brim ringed with white flowers, pink eye shadow and lipstick. Her lilac perfume followed like a bridal train. Rhonda stepped up on a hidden riser and regarded them over the podium. Her mouth was pursed,