The Revelation by Bentley Little
The kids aren't alright
Strange things are happening in the small Arizona town of Randall: a church is vandalized and the pastor and his family disappear without a trace, townsfolk are suffering from identical prophetic nightmares, homes and other properties are burned to the ground, octogenarians are inexplicably getting pregnant, and there are mischievous unseen creatures running around in the dead of night terrorizing innocent victims — leaving tiny bloody footprints as the only proof of their existence.
The expectation going into The Revelation — especially given its emphasis on Americanized Christianity — is that it’s a horror novel inspired by the Bible’s Book of Revelations and the end times.
Which is not quite what this book is about. Not exactly.
The Revelation opens in the pre-white man past, wherein we learn that whatever horrific things are about to befall Randall have happened there before. A great many times.
Previously, good eventually triumphed over evil… But there’s no guarantee that will always be the case.
A mysterious figure shows up in town who seems to have an understanding of what is going on. He’s a wandering preacher who goes by the name of Brother Elias. At first, he seems like a generic religious crank, but it quickly becomes apparent that he’s intimately familiar with the cosmic battle that is about to take place here. And, in fact, there are clues which suggest that he might have fought it here time and time again over the centuries.
(At one point, it is revealed that this conflict between good and evil has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity, but Brother Elias muses that Christians are useful because at least they understand the concept of such binary opposing forces.)
The Revelation has a sprawling cast of characters, so much so that it’s often hard to keep track of who everyone is. The main focus is on a core group: the local sheriff, a soda deliveryman and his newly pregnant wife, and the new minister deployed to the town to replace the one who went missing. Forced to work with Brother Elias, they confront the growing threat as it falls to them to save not just their town but the entire world.
There’s also a severe fixation on dead babies. At times, it feels reminiscent of the early 2000’s rash of gross-out dead baby jokes beloved by “dark humor” fans, whereas at other moments it smacks of hardline pro-life propaganda… Neither of which is a comfortable place to be. But then, that’s likely the point — this is a horror novel after all, and Little does a great job of sketching out various vignettes and sowing unsettling seeds concerning all the strange things that are going on around town.
The climax of The Revelation may not satisfy everyone. While there is certainly something to be said for leaving certain story strands unresolved, the flip side is that it sometimes feels like we’ve been strung along in anticipation of a proverbial other shoe dropping… except it never does. Regardless, Little does a successful job of continually escalating the tension and teasing out the truth behind the various horrors. It’s an engrossing, compelling book. Just not the one you were expecting.