Pay the Piper

Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for the audio of this one!

Considering my deep love for all things zombies, I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit this is my first read from the Father of the Zombie Film. But I do find it to be incredibly cool that Kraus found this half-finished manuscript in the archive and was able to give it public life. That must be a daunting thing, and even though he had already done so with The Living Dead, this was definitely different for both of them.

In the Louisiana bayou, a supernatural entity known as the Piper has been disappearing children for generations. The slayings made me think of my own writing, and yet those delivered here are somehow more gruesome. This definitely made me wish I had included some of the young perspectives in my own novel. I really enjoyed the opening of the story, as I found the less I knew of the Piper made it eerie and almost nightmarish as it filtered through personas coming after a couple people. If those refusing to leave don’t accept the past, they may just end up paying the piper.

Now there was a scene between the Piper, cloaked as the school teacher and the young girl, Pontiac, that I found incredibly uncomfortable. But as a horror scene, it was certainly horrific, I just asked myself why—it did not really tie back into anything making it necessary.

As others have pointed out, I did agree that the ending felt a bit rushed, or maybe that it could have gone a bit deeper. However, I found the buildup to be really strong, and from what I understand, the social commentary was something Romero was known for. Tying the supernatural entity back to the slave trade, the story takes on race and class and carrying the sins of the father. I also found the entire cast to be interesting and engaging, especially how they all interacted and clicked (or didn’t!) together. This one’s different but definitely worth checking out.