I read the novel Pack Rats of the Inside by Buddy Tippet. It is surreal survival-horror as a story about human nature... though the humans are anthropomorphic rats.
The misadventures begin in the House, a place of safety where everything needed is strangely provided. The Inside is the world outside the house... and cannot be seen through the windows.
The Pack Rats imagine was is beyond their home. They have story groups that share ideas. They discuss which door to use should they ever venture out.
To leave the House is to never come back. The residents violently keep you out: The Inside is outside and never to be let in. Curiosity gets the best of everyone, sooner or later, and they venture out into the unknown.
The Inside is strange and monsters lurk. Five bosses take perverted interest in Pack Rats... and ravish them in impossible ways. Doom is a fate worse than death since no one dies. Everything is sexual.
What I loved most about the novel was that it is like a nightmare of many dreamers. The protagonists are probably doomed... and I read with grim anticipation. The ending is a big surprise... but makes perfect sense.
Pack Rats of the Inside is meaningful. Its strangeness is clearly about what is normal... and makes sense accordingly. The evil is that of everyone. The monsters are as monstrous as everyone else.. and there is a reason why. The universe is cynical... but not really. Our choices do matter. Ultimately, we decide our own fate. It can be for the better.
