“Intercepts”, TJ Payne
Published April 23, 2019
Joe works at a facility that performs human experimentation.
His work just followed him home.
The government wanted to unlock hidden abilities in the human mind.
They put subjects in extreme sensory deprivation.
All the test subjects went violently insane.
But the research continued.
Today it has been perfected.
Almost perfected.
“At last she reached the flesh of his back. Her hands, never slowing, clawed at the flesh, tearing out large chunks of skin as she went. She ripped out bone and organ.”
I discovered Intercepts on Kindle Unlimited by chance, and was pleasantly surprised by this pure nightmare fuel. I actually made friends at a local silent book club because I overheard someone say “Intercepts”, which I took as an invitation to join their table and gush about this book.
It’s a psychological horror story wrapped in government conspiracy, following a secret facility that’s been experimenting on human minds in ways no one should. The devastating consequences when those experiments bleed beyond their control is giving Stranger Things, but with the scary meter on max. The result is part sci-fi, part horror, part “I should not be reading this at night” thriller. I literally could not put it down once I started.
What really works here is the tension. The author creates this creepy, sterile facility, and builds dread slowly, drip by drip, until it feels suffocating. The violence is graphic and unsettling; I would not suggest this to readers who cannot tolerate body horror. While it’s not a long book, the eerie vibe and the shocking ending lingers for months after the first read. Take it from me—I still think about this book, and it’s been almost a year.
Content Warnings
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of content and trigger warnings.
body horror • confinement • psychological abuse • torture • forced institutionalization
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