TAB'S TERRIBLE THIRD EYE

In Thorne’s horror novel, a boy battling OCD becomes the target of another kind of unrelenting torture—this one from beyond the grave.

Nine-year-old Timothy Aaron Beard Jr. (called “Tab”) is a sensitive youngster with a powerful imagination, a grumpy older brother, and bickering parents. His entire world begins to implode during a torrential Tennessee flood as Tab hunkers down in the basement to wait out the worst of the storm with his family. The Beards aren’t alone down there for long—a spectral presence manifests in the basement as well. Although unseen by the rest of the family, “Stinkeye Roy” appears to Tab in the subterranean gloom, glaring at him from beneath the bill of a grimy trucker cap with a ghastly set of hollow eye sockets. Things only get worse for young Tab the following day when an angry red welt suddenly emerges on the side of his head. It’s painful and full of nasty puss (“it throbbed, hot to his touch”), and Tab is absolutely terrified to discover there is something spherical—like an eyeball—moving around inside the bump. Thorne’s nearly moment-by-moment narrative effectively captures Tab’s growing feelings of anxiety and dread. The headlong narrative makes for a curiously surreal and off-kilter experience in which neither Tab nor the reader is given any respite from the child’s increasingly horrific ordeal. (The scene in which Tab is finally brought to a doctor to have the uncanny welt removed is a particularly gruesome dermatological nightmare worthy of Stephen King.) As Tab slowly begins to uncover more about “Stinkeye Roy” and the disturbing connection he shared with both of Tab’s parents in life, the protagonist’s increasingly erratic behavior causes those around him to doubt his sanity. It’s a double-dose of preadolescent angst that the author could have explored further had he wanted to go really dark, but mercifully—at least for Tab—Thorne doesn’t overly tighten the screws. In addition to crafting an intriguing narrative, the author is to be applauded for creating a very apt analog to the challenges of OCD.

An engrossing horror yarn with a lot to say about the real-life challenges of OCD.