Tim Waggoner ‘The Way of All Flesh’ Review

Written by: Paula Limbaugh

What a cool concept.  The Way of All Flesh by Tim Waggoner opens with David Croft wondering what the hell is going on.  As in a waking nightmare he finds himself walking down the middle of the street in the downtown area of his hometown.  The streets are deserted and vehicles are just abandoned willy nilly with car doors left open.  The streets, the town itself look rundown, decaying; the sky seems even weird with a yellowish cast.   As he tries to figure out what’s going on, he becomes aware of a presence walking alongside him.  A teenage boy by the name of Simon has joined him.

Aware of a gnawing hunger he begins to smell something delicious, up ahead in the park is a piece of roasted, succulent meat sitting in a cage.  As he approaches the cage a women appears also after the same piece of meat.  David manages to open the cage and rips the meat in half to share with the woman, at that moment a shot rings out and the woman is laying there dead.  What he sees defies logic, standing in the distance are two hairless, red-eyed demons wearing human clothing and holding some type of weapons.

Nicholas just shot the first zombie as it was about to eat half of the squirrel, looking to Kate, his partner to shoot the other one, but Kate can’t.  Kate Croft is stunned, standing before her is her brother David, now a leathery skinned zombie gnawing on a squirrel.  Kate knows she should shoot but it is hard looking at what was once her twin and pulling the trigger.

Two perceptions, what’s real, what’s not.  As you read through the story you are caught up in two different viewpoints.  Kate and the group she is with see the world taken over by the Blacktide and zombies have been left in its wake.  David on the other hand sees himself and the others like him as humans needing to avoid the so-called demons.  Somewhere though in the back of David’s mind is a niggling feeling that all is not what it seems and Simon, what’s up with him?  It doesn’t seem like the others with David can see him.  Throw a serial killer into the mix and you have one heck of a story!

This book is due for release on All Fools Day (04/01/14) and available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Rating: 5/5