The premise: ORSK, an IKEA-like furniture store, is haunted, and its employees face a night of paranormal horror.
Feeling stuck in her dead-end job, Amy hopes that a transfer to a new location will be the kick she needs to get out of the workaday rut. Standing in her way is Basil, a devoted ORSK manager who has sold himself body-and-soul to the corporate culture. They come to a begrudging agreement: If Amy is willing to help Basil find out who has been vandalizing the warehouse, he will approve her transfer.
That night, Amy and her sweetly pleasant co-worker Ruth Anne help Basic patrol the store. They come across bizarre graffiti and various noxious damages to furniture. Along the way, they discover two other employees, Tiffany and Matt, have snuck into the store to record paranormal phenomena.
At first, the only sign of bizarre activity is that Carl, a homeless man, has been living inside the store at night. When Tiffany insists on conducting a séance to contact the spirits, Carl is possessed by the spirit of Josiah Worth, the sadistic warden of a 19th Century asylum which had occupied the same location as the ORSK store. The warden has plans to rehabilitate Amy and her co-workers from their sinful ways.
And here is where author Grady Hendrix hits his stride: The rehabilitation exercises are analogous to the soul-sucking requirements of corporate culture. Amy, who has always longed for a simple desk job, finds herself literally bound to a chair by the plastic strips used to bind bundles of cardboard. The torturous pressure of the bands forces Amy to confront her own limitations: Her lack of drive, her willingness to quit when things get tough. Warden Worth assures her that if she would simply succumb to the treatment, she would be cured of her sinful nature and would become a useful cog in the machine.
Likewise, Amy’s co-workers face the existential tortures of mind-numbing, soul-deadening jobs: An endless treadmill; working their fingers to the bone.
Amy digs deep and discovers her courage, and she and Basil – no longer nemeses – find they have more in common. They set about attempting to rescue their colleagues from Warden Worth and his ghostly prisoners.
Hendrix fashions a recognizable environment. ORSK shares many qualities with IKEA, but it could also stand for any corporate grindstone. Employees are at risk of becoming like the ghostly inmates who haunt the premises:
“Their faces were the worst. They were smeared, obscured, covered in a black veil as if something had smudged their features with a dirty eraser, leaving nothing behind but indistinct knobs of shadow. No eyes, no mouth, no nose, no humanity; their individuality rubbed out.”
My sole complaint is that the story progressed at an unvarying pace. Even as horror elements come into play, even as Amy throws herself into rescuing her colleagues, the pacing never accelerates toward the conclusion. It felt like the story was stuck in a 50-mph speed zone and never got into the passing lane.
Overall, Horrorstör is clever and fun, and Hendrix creates an effective and elaborate metaphor for the horror of soul-deadening corporate work culture.
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