The One Percenters by John Podgursky

Great mixture of horror and psychological thriller.

If you are looking for a bit of dark fiction to distract and entertain you, look no further than John Podgursky's novella The One Percenters. This is a mixture of horror and psychological thriller that will hold its reader shocked and mesmerized as they travel through the nightmare of the narrator's existence.

As we begin the story, we are caught up in the narrator's tragedy. Even though it is evident that he has committed a horrible crime, Ed seems initially to be a sympathetic character. But as Ed loses his grip on reality, we realize that there is more going on than he tells us about. And as we get to know Ed a little better and his mind begins to open up to us, we see the frightening and insane landscape that exists in his head. And he is no longer sympathetic...he is horrifying.

Ed's story is told as a memoir. He is either speaking or writing his story to a doctor in whatever facility he resides in. He addresses some of his comments to "you" meaning the doctor, but after a while, it feels as if Ed is actually speaking directly to the reader. The result is personal and quite chilling.

After his wife Jill is murdered, Edward Caine loses his sense of purpose and has trouble dealing with life. He retreats into himself and obsesses over his wife's death. Even when he begins to rebuild his life and moves to another town, Ed remains preoccupied with death, but it is not until he meets another woman and has her stolen from this life as well that he finally has a revelation. Ed is a rare individual: he is one of a small group of people known as "one percenters," whose sole function in life is to maintain the integrity of the human race, to cleanse the world of the inferior members who would muddy the gene pool.

Finally aware of his purpose in life and eager to fulfill his mission, Ed arms himself with booze, cigarettes, his wife's gun, and a belief that he is working for a greater good. Convinced that he is now a part of nature, Ed abandons his home for the woods. And over the course of the next year, he carefully selects and destroys those members of society whom he deems to be flawed.

Ed knows that the outside world considers the service he is providing to be murder, so he plans one final act of violence to fulfill his destiny. What he plans will shake the foundation of a world gone haywire and will transform Ed from mortal to savior of humanity.