By GRAHAM MASTERTON (Tor; 1991/92)
WALKERS is vintage Graham Masterton, meaning it’s an eminently readable book with a unique premise and an unwieldy structure. It’s also extremely incident-packed (as a FANGORIA reviewer, critiquing another Masterton novel, wrote: “there must be a gaping hole in Graham Masterton’s kitchen where his sink used to be”) and unashamedly ridiculous—things that can be viewed as recommendations, particularly for veteran horror readers. Overstuffed WALKERS (which arrived a decade after the Gary Brandner novel bearing that title) may be, but boring it’s definitely not.
Jack Reed, a Milwaukee based soon-to-be-divorcee who runs an auto repair shop, stumbles upon The Oaks, a long-deserted nursing home that he wants to purchase and turn into a country club. Inside the place Jack hears an odd “Sssshhhhhhhhh-sssshhhhhh-ssssshhhhhh” sound he initially dismisses because “There are no such things as ghosts; and something you can’t see can’t possibly hurt you, now can it?” That conviction is severely tested when Jack returns to the structure with his young son Randy, who sees a man’s face appear in the wallpaper, promising to be “your very special friend.”
In short order Randy disappears, and Jack learns The Oaks has a mighty checkered history. It seems that during its heyday the place housed violent mental patients the state couldn’t handle, but was abruptly vacated in 1926. In fact, due to esoteric occult conceptions like earth magic and ley lines, the inmates now reside inside the walls and floors of The Oaks (with one character observing that “I know it sounds wacky. I know it defies all the laws of physics and the laws of nature”), and intend to sacrifice Randy…and what begins as a SHINING-like haunted house story turns into something else entirely as the wall-dwelling “walkers” break loose from The Oaks’ confines, and Jack finds romance with his sexy receptionist Karen.
Masterton manages to cram in a lot of excess grue, with miscellaneous characters getting pulverized in painful ways by hands emerging from solid surfaces, and the story entering James Herbert territory. But then it undergoes yet another thematic shift as Jack learns the art of astral projection in order to rescue Randy.
Does all this hold together? Not really, but the novel is so much fun I can’t really complain. No-frills entertainment is something far too many novelists, horror and otherwise, have neglected, but Graham Masterton knows precisely what we want and quite generously provides it.