Helltown (Book 3 of World’s Scariest Places)
Helltown
By Jeremy Bates
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
Based on a real town called Boston Ohio. The town was demolished in 2016 but there are still reminders left behind of the people who lived there. Including a school bus (which has a place in the story). The church in this book is based on the Presbyterian church that was indeed decorated with what appeared to be upside down crosses. So the question is why was the town abandoned by its residents? Well our author has a theory about some of the residents in this town and it’s a most interesting read. He even includes the snakes which are also a legend connected with the real town.
Now let’s talk about these characters. A group of college age/young adults decide to spend Halloween touring haunted places. The first stop is CryBaby Bridge in “Helltown” Ohio. Believe it or not but the bridge is real and it is indeed referred to as CryBaby Bridge. As in most books there are characters that you can sympathize with and those that you cannot. Jeff is one of those cannots. Dude is a douche-nozzle and it is really his fault they get mixed up with the rednecks and ultimately some of them loose their lives. Austin is also a dipshit but ultimately his downfall is his drinking and not his giant ego, like Jeff. The others all seem to be decent and you wouldn’t mind if they made it to see the epilogue. I will say I was not expecting the number of deaths in the group. It was a surprise.
The bad guys on the other hand were somewhat predictable. This said', I was surprised at how many people were involved and once you really know what is going on it’s even more surprising that they were all trusted to keep the secret. I mean there are only two with any sort of brain and the others are very much reminiscent of victims of inbreeding. Some more than others but I’m pretty sure there is not one completely all-there individual within the group. Not even the relatively intelligent couple (namely Spencer and Cleavon).
The one odd man out is actually the hero of the story. It’s almost a smidge disjointed when it come to Beetle. I think that he is an interesting character and think it would have been fun to follow him a bit more. Not being part of the main group almost sticks him outside the events that are going on. Then all of the sudden he gets thrown into the mix. This happens because of some random German woman who just happens to be staying in the same motel as him. It’s really rather strange.
Closing thoughts:
While the satanic mass is touched on several times and even sets the stage for the tone of the book in the prologue it actually has very little to do with the motivation involved. In the end that motivation of the antagonists are sex and power. Sex for all the men who really are not able to get a woman on their own and the power over life and death for Spencer. He is the true mastermind behind it all. He simply uses the masses as an excuse to kill. He kills for the joy of killing. Plain and simple. He does also happen to enjoy the theatre of it all, but ultimately he wants to kill. It brings him ultimate satisfaction.
Overall it was a decent enough story. Bates pulled from many of the legends that surround the real town. There’s just part of me that would have loved to of seen him take it in a really unexpected direction. Instead of Satanists and serial killers maybe go Roanoke and delve into why the town was abandoned. Something interesting to consider eh little Ghoulies?
