Gargoyles

Alan Nayes

2/17/2006

A 4.0 premed student, Amoreena Daniels is desparate for money. Her mother is dying of cancer and let her insurance lapse. The hospital is ready to ask Mrs. Daniels to leave without any more treatment that is extending her life. Amoreena doesn't know how she will get $5,000, let alone the $30,000 a specialized new treatment will cost.

Amoreena is approached by the Women's Medical Clinic owned by Meechum Medical Corporation, the first of Meechum's clinics in the United States. They have done research on her, know her mother is critically ill, that she needs money, and is over 21 and can bear children. She is offered a chance to be a surrogate mother for a good fee. She starts to decline. Then her mother is admitted back into ICU. Amoreena calls the clinic and agrees.

On the day she goes in to have the procedure begin she sees a patient that is having problems. The doctors explain it is nothing, just someone going into labor early. She has the procedure then returns to school. She had been missing classes because of her mother's illness, so she has to work harder to stay abreast of her studies. When she returns to be checked, the pregnancy had taken. Now she is dealing with pregnancy and a very ill mother as well as a heavy classload.

When she is approached by a dirty, despondent man smelling of liquor, she tries to dismiss him. But Ronald Godinez insists on being heard. She learns that a year earlier he had been a star medical intern. His girlfriend had agreed to be a surrogate mother at the clinic. She had something go wrong with her pregnancy. After she lost the baby she was south of the border trying to find the clinic's laboratory in Ensenadas, Mexico. She had died on her return trip. Ronald is certain there was something going on at the clinic. He warns Amoreena that if she experiences anything odd with her pregnancy to contact him immediately. She brushes him off but his words stay.

Alan Nayes has taken a different twist with genetic testing in Gargoyles. He has created a scientifically sound process and turned it into a creepy science fiction horror novel. Nayes brings the reader into the middle of Amoreena Daniels' waking nightmare. There doesn't seem to be anything she can do to escape whatever it is that is looming over her and the baby she is carrying.

Creepy is the best description I have for this novel. I didn't realize it was a horror novel when I decided to read it. But it's not a slasher-everyone-gets-killed horror novel. It's a what-would-happen-if? novel. Gargoyles portays that feeling well, keeping the reader caught up until the last chapter. The very end of the novel is weak and unsatisfactory, probably because it leaves the possibility of a sequel. Until then, you'll find Gargoyles readable and by the last third, chilling.

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