The Devil You Know by David Brimer – Nightmares do come true

A swarming infestation unleashed from its subterranean incubator ravages an entire town in less than a few days, threatening the future of the human race with predatory efficiency.

One stressor sets a scientifically inclined serial killer on a cross-country spree, meticulously documenting his findings, trying his best to follow his predefined methodology to evade capture by whatever authorities are dispatched on his trail.

Medical horror, part of the pension package offered to wrestling performers with tenure, is dispensed a little too early for one NCCW jobber; a change of fortunes offered comes with unexpected terms and conditions attached.

After surviving the horrors of the First World War, a world-renowned film writer sullies his reputation in the final act of the Nazi regime.

Spoiler-Free Plot

The first story in this lineup of four is set in South Central Florida, in a city smaller than two square miles, where an overwhelming majority of its population would rather be someplace else. We follow a handful of characters’ fight for survival, when everything goes to hell one summer day.

The second chronicles a first-person account of a family man’s descent into a homicidal spell as a consequence of his own making. Losing everything he once held dear causes a dramatic shift in perception. The euphoric thrill of taking a life becomes a new vice, chased down with mounting media notoriety.

In ‘That’s the Breaks’, a wrestler falls far from his previous success, through the stage and into a horrific injury that leaves him wheelchair bound with zero chances of recovery. Intervention from a strange benefactor aids him in seeking retribution. But concern gives way to a deadly obsession that demands a lifelong devotion, to the very end.

Guilt and regret haunt the protagonist in ‘The Girl in the Drawn Bonnet’. Putting miles and decades between the souvenirs carried home to Berlin from the Western Front does not stop them from affecting the present. Surviving a war does not always make one a hero.

My Take on The Devil You Know

A subgenre of horror—insect horror— lends the thematic inspiration for ‘Chirping’, the opening short story in this collection. The feelings of discomfort that most people experience when faced with a multitude of insects is magnified ten-fold by this story, successfully executing its purpose by playing on people’s inherent fear of swarm behaviour, then amplifying it with the supernatural size of the orthopteran attackers.

I personally thought that the gory scenes became a bit gratuitous and repetitive as the story went on; however, I really enjoyed the 10 Cloverfield Lane-esque ending.

As I read ‘Get Your Kicks’, I felt certain that this would become my favourite of the lot. Unreliable narrators make for the best storytellers.

There is a lot of wiggle room to drop strategically placed breadcrumbs, leading readers towards a shocking reveal somewhere down the line. Bouncing back and forth between the descriptions of Raymond’s short-term memories and those further back in time provided the necessary suspense that maintained a high-pulsed thrumming in readers’ veins in anticipation of the reason behind a seemingly successful character’s stressor.

Capping it off with an unknown tertiary character’s account of the story’s ending contrasts wonderfully against the protagonist’s overconfident attitude in regards to his experiment, and his ability to emerge from the other end of the carnage he created unscathed.

The second half of the book made me abandon my previous opinion and settle for a two-way tie for the top spot. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Get Your Kicks’ was a solid read, but the last two struck deeper than I would’ve imagined they would after skimming over a brief plot outline. This was made possible by two factors: the probability of a devastating medical emergency striking any one of us, at any time, and the current turbulent state of the world.

Four-hundred-year-old magical monsters aside, Sam Peters is written in a very sympathetic manner; we can’t help but want to root for the healing of a man who put his all into a career, one that is both physically demanding and artistic, just to get screwed over by his job. We all know a Sam. And we’d all want some kind of recompense for the Sam-like characters in our lives. This makes the twist all the more unsettling. By first tapping into readers’ emotions before the horror trickles in. It then becomes a dilemma deciding if Sam made out better or worse at the end of the whole ordeal, which gives us readers something else to chew on.

It feels like history is repeating itself. Not to be a “doomer” about things, but it feels as though we’ve collectively been caught in a time warp and suddenly, the 20s are back. Beyond the moments of self-preservation, Georg’s complacency over his own involvement in a fascist administration so accurately mimics the egoism a lot of people exhibit today.

Justifying their blindness over the mistreatment of others as long as relative normalcy is maintained for themselves. It would not involve any stretching of the imagination for life to imitate this specific piece of prose, in the near future, to the same harrowing effect.

Kindling a deeper level of thought within the minds of readers is the mark of a good writer, in my opinion, and this rings true for David Brimer and this short story collection.

Age Rating

16 years and above

Content Warnings

Gore, Nudity, Profanity, Religious Themes, Sexual Assault, Violence.

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