Hell Hound by Ken Greenhall
Big evil in a little package
Between the very title itself and the image of an evil-looking bull terrier on the cover, one would inevitably make the reasonable assumption that Hell Hound is the tale of a killer canine that goes on a murderous rampage, mauling and mutilating every poor soul unfortunate enough to cross its path.
It’s not exactly that.
For sure, it starts out that way, as the titular hound — named Baxter — murders the old woman he lives with very early on in the book.
Much of the novel is written from Baxter’s perspective as he tries to make sense of the human-dominated world and his place in it. It is a deadpan, earnest, yet dispassionate internal monologue. Nihilistic, but not desiring chaos or anarchy — though certainly uncaring for inferior humans and their cumbersome rules.
Baxter is acutely aware of his physical prowess and is intent on using his natural abilities to manufacture a better life for himself. The old woman he lives with at the outset is boring, and thus his life is boring. The young couple next door seem so much spunkier and more desirable to live with. So he kills the senior citizen and orchestrates it so that the newlyweds take him in as their own.
But then they have a baby, and Baxter recognizes that he is no longer the couple’s priority. And so he murders the infant.
And it’s here that things get really interesting… For Baxter’s subsequent master (because of course the grieving parents want to be rid of him) is a young boy named Carl.
Carl is a Hitler symp.
He is obsessed with Hitler to the point that has amassed a collection of photos of Hitler and Eva Braun. And whereas most kids his age would hang out in a treehouse, Carl spends most of his time in a bunker he’s constructed in the local junk yard. Like Hitler at the end of the war.
Baxter and Carl are kindred spirits. But whereas Baxter used his violence and manipulation to dominate and get what he wants, Carl is pure sociopath.
It is worth noting at this point that “hell hound” is also a term used to describe Nazi thugs such as the SS or gestapo. It’s a moniker not unbefitting the psychotic pre-teen.
So who exactly is the Hell Hound of the title? Who is actually in charge here? Is it Baxter or is it Carl?
It’s a question that each of them ponders, as the book alternates between both their perspectives as well as numerous other residents of the neighborhood.
Each of them is capable of domination in their own way, and they do both dominate each other in different ways. But when the dynamic between them shifts to put them at odds, a winner-takes-all confrontation is all but inevitable, with each believing that he himself is the one true top dog.
Hell Hound is not what you expect were you to judge the book by its cover. It’s not even necessarily what you’d expect were you do be told simply that Hell Hound is a horror novel.
But it is horror on its own terms.
It is horror in the same manner that its antagonists’ cold, detached attitudes are horrific.
It is horror in the way that some people are uncaring and not only capable but willing to use violence against other to get what they want.
It is horror in the same way that David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is: by delving beneath the apparently sunny surface of society and exposing the sordid, corrupt beneath. The evil that people are capable of.
And it’s fucking terrifying.
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