But Worse Will Come by CC Adams
Publisher – KGHH Publishing
Published – Out Now
Price – £1.99 Kindle eBook £8.99 paperback
NB you can also get a free sample of the short story that this story follows on from many years later by going to Sunset Is Just The Beginning (ccadams.com)
Theodore Papakostas lives a normal life. Holds down a day job. Struggles with his weight. With women, he’s more ‘miss’ than ‘hit.’ He’s humble – a far cry from the bullying behaviour of his childhood. Days long forgotten.
Almost.
Something has caught wind of him. Something that warned Theo long ago that if their paths crossed again, Theo would not survive. And Theo’s world is turned into a waking nightmare: a struggle to stay ahead of the terror. Because all those years ago, sunset was just the beginning …but worse will come.
Sometimes horror is just terrible things happening to people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. People who aren’t especially bad and not deserving of something nasty in the dark playing with them. It is our biggest fear we try to do all the right things and then something remorseless comes and wants our blood. Reading CC Adams’ But Worse Will Come is a gritty nightmarish ride as a young man finds a simple error he may as a boy means a trail of death and destruction has now commenced with him firmly in his sights.
Theo Papakostas is a very average man in his thirties, focused on his weight, unsuccessful at dating and tends to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. A funeral for a friend’s sister leads to a chance encounter in a graveyard with the attractive Corrinne and her ex-boyfriend Damian. Theo initially makes a bad impression, but a further encounter leads to a promising first date. Unfortunately for Theo his presence attracts the attention of someone he has tried very hard to forget someone not human and who has promised Theo that he will be come meal for the graveyard’s not quite living occupant, and he has an unwilling accomplice who will help seal Theo’s fate.
I really enjoyed this fast-paced nightmare as Theo’s life crumbles around him. He isn’t quite a sympathetic lead as he really is if we say kindly a work in progress regards his habit of objectifying women but now getting to a stage where he realises that is a silly way to live and Corinne isn’t going to take that nonsense from him. But being on the verge of growing up is no defence against monsters and our antagonist is pretty determined and clever. Adams chooses one of the classics (up for you to find out which0 that is pretty hard to stop and soon Adam’s home, family and friends are all affected by this creature’s focus on destroying his life before taking it for a delicious bloody meal.
I was very impressed by how Adams captures the feel of cities at night the busy and quiet areas where anything can happen. Tube stations and graveyards change subtly into more eerie places at night. That fear of someone breaking into your home and trying to get you really comes out. Adams also really manages the confrontation scenes well and not afraid to despatch characters to raise the stakes. Just two niggles one character vanishes towards the end and while their fate is likely I missed their presence very quickly and while my suspicion is that our third person narrator was using Theo’s eyes to give us insights into characters as he is very hormonal, I think it could on occasion feel a little OTT how attractive he found various female characters. But knowing what is in store for Theo he suffers a lot very soon enough and impressively the male characters in the story rarely come out as heroic either. Usng fists first and not talking to people does not make things better for Theo. A plus for me was how Adams captures male characters being torn between doing the right thing and what they care about how others perceive them – toxic masculinity is something I wish more male authors explored.
This is a fast paced and often nasty slice of horror as Theo inevitably finds he is out of options and must find a way to confront his pursuer. It becomes a David versus Goliath battle and though there may be some hope for Theo it is going to be hard to escape a nasty end. A really interesting story and I’ll be on the watch out for more from Adams in the future.
