This Succubus Means BUSINESS!

PLEASE DON'T GO by Eric Dimbleby (2011 Pill Hill Press / 277 pp / tp)


Zephyr is a young grocery store clerk, dealing with the typical ups and downs of college life.  He's also planning on proposing to his girlfriend Jackie, both of them English majors.  One day he is assigned to deliver groceries to an old man who lives in an isolated house.  Charles Rattup turns out to be a writer who was once published in a classic anthology, quickly earning Zephyr's respect.  Charlie invites him to come back again, and the two develop a friendship built around literature and movies.


But Charlie begins to act strange, talking to an unseen presence, causing Zephyr to doubt the man's sanity.  But by the time he finds out Charlie isn't crazy, it's too late for Zephyr, as he is now held hostage by a sexually-charged entity that may or may not be the legendary Lilith, a demon common to many culture's folklore.


PLEASE DON'T GO is a clever take on ghosts, possession, and succubbi.  Dimbleby gives this one a truly unique flavor, along with a cast you'll care about and plenty of scenes filled with tension and dread.  The spirit controling Zephyr's life is as cunning as it is evil, slick as it is violent.  I was reminded of the film THE ENTITY only with a more brutal demon at play, as the torture she puts Zephyr through will get anyone's skin crawling.


This study of a man's desire to survive in the face of total hopelessness is also a genuine genre spook-fest, delivering the goods and concluding with a bit of a twist (and increasingly dreadful) finale.  Great stuff.