The Skittering

By: David Haynes

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

Crease is known in Weaver as ‘the bug guy’, the man who takes care of insects and other critters. But what emerges from the shadows of the town’s waste plant is beyond anything found in nature.

Fist-sized cockroaches. Bird-sized wasps. Spiders, millipedes, ticks, all swollen to enormous bulk with vicious appetites to match. And other things, creatures that should never exist.

Through the night, they come, slithering, buzzing, scuttling, crawling over skin, burrowing into flesh, making the town their nest.

Time is soon running out for Crease and the other survivors, as that hideous skittering noise closes in from all around....

©2020 David Haynes (P)2022 W F Howes

would make a great B flick

The overall story was pretty great. In the same sort of vein as a lot 80s and 90s B-grade horror films. Made me think of stuff lole "Ticks", or "Skeeters". Pretty cheeseball, but there were some legit body horror moments, as well as some decent comedic parts involving Johnny to take the edge off. The vivid descriptions of the things that happen to the characters who are attacked by the creatures is pretty intense. Overall, I would say the writing is pretty strong, for what it is. Better than anything I could come up with, for sure.

The only gripe I might say I have is that I had a bit of a hard time figuring whether the book took place in the US or not. From what I understand, the author is from England, and while he does a decent job of giving the vibe of the American Midwest, he has a habit of using British English terms that threw me off at times. Not having heard of Dead Crow before this, I had decided it must be set in Canada, until a character explicity stated otherwise. His use of meters, rather than feet or yards, as well as referring to police car "beacons", rather than lights, and a few other British turns of phrase contributed to this. It's a minor gripe, however.

Now, if he can get somebody to make a decent, low budget horror film out of it, I'd be set!

narrator is excellent!!!!

I'm a new fan of Haynes, will be looking forward to new books!! visualize everyone in the books.

Awesome!!!

This was an awesome story very descriptive kept you inthralled the entire time. Amazing amazing

Enjoyable enough to finish

I liked it and especially the book I tried before it I couldn’t get even to chapter 5 so it was nice to get into a fun creature gore fest. Felt robotic in the reading at first which is why the score wasn’t higher.

Bonkers and creepy right from the start.

Its eerie and often paranoia inducing descriptions are amazingly written. It does get a tad gross but without ever overstepping the line.

Awesome book

I never read anything like this.lol.Funny but disturbing.I look forward to reading more from this author.

My bug phobia

If you have a bug phobia then this will make your skin crawl, I enjoyed it a lot

Gives you the Heebie-jeebies but not much else

This wasn’t for me, and I’m pretty disappointed about that because I have been looking forward to reading this for a long time. It’s not necessarily bad, and I think some will enjoy it. Although the book does a good job of giving you the heebie-jeebies with some of its gross out body horror, I felt that the story itself was shallow and I didn’t particularly bond with any of the characters.

gruesome is a good way

Do not listen while eating! Great story with gross bugs. Also loved the tie in to Dead Crow.

Should be a movie

This story should be made into a movie. The narrator was great! Absolutely loved it!