"THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS," by Alden Bell, Holt Paperbacks, $15, 225 pages. (f)
Fifteen-year-old Temple basks in the solitude of the uninhabited island she has made her home. She fishes, she thinks about God and the meaning of life, and she lives in peace. One day a zombie swims to shore. She matter-of-factly cleaves its skull and knows it is time to move on. Other zombies are sure to follow.
In "The Reapers Are the Angels," author Alden Bell (a pseudonym for Joshua Gaylord, author of "Hummingbirds") has crafted a frighteningly realistic adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world in which society has come undone and zombies are real. The world has become a pastiche of blood and decay amid the onslaught of hungry "meatskins," as Temple calls the zombies. Stores stand looted, buildings are empty, wary and violent road warriors try to stay alive.
Bell's use of dialect and lack of quotation marks is off-putting at first, but the style quickly lends itself to the book's stripped-down immediacy and darkly atmospheric setting.
Temple takes an abandoned car and hits the road. She travels lightly, carrying only her memories of a young boy and an old man — the boy who may or may not have been her brother, and the old man who cared for the two for a time. And, of course, she carries a really big knife to cleave zombie skulls. (The only way to kill a zombie is to destroy its brain.)
Temple stays alive by her wits and strength: "You gotta trust your gut to guide you through, that's lesson number one," she says.
She sustains herself on groceries looted from markets. She is pleased when she finds the kind of crackers she likes.
Many things please Temple. She thinks a school of colorful fish is miraculous. She admires a pretty sunset backing a blighted and infested city.
She finds beauty and horror in her world, and accepts each as God's rightful creations. Of the meatskins, she says: "They ain't so bad. … They just doin what they supposed to do. Like we all are, I guess."
Temple encounters a few enclaves of humans who have banded together in an attempt to re-create society. But she doesn't stay with them long.
"She knows where she belongs — with the cannibals and the madmen, with the eaters of flesh and the walkers of a blight land, with the abominations. She's done things that mark her forever, as good as a brand on her forehead — and her denial of them would be fruitless. It would be vanity."
On the road, Temple reluctantly picks up a traveling companion, a mute man she meets by the side of the road. The two are pursued not only by zombies but by the vengeful man who has vowed to put a bullet in Temple's skull.
Temple's journey is not just physical but spiritual. She is on a path to redemption.
Temple is a captivating heroine, sympathetic but not always likable. She's tough as nails yet awkwardly tender. Her musings on God and the world he created are quaint and poignant.
Bell throws in a fair amount of the Southern gothic, with characters both tragic and grotesque: Temple meets a family steeped in denial. They live in a mansion behind an electric fence, drink mint tea, play card games in the parlor and give piano recitals for travelers — and keep a big secret in the basement.
"The Reapers Are the Angels" sparks the imagination and pulls at the gut. The story is evocatively written and eloquent in its ghastly details. Bell's writing is lyrical, intense and disturbingly violent.
"The Reapers Are the Angels" is more than a grisly and satisfying horror yarn — it's a horror story with a soul.
e-mail: jwilliamson@desnews.com