Just the book to get me in the Halloween mood. Man, this story is twisted. And that ending is messed up. I don’t like roller coasters but I love a book that’ll take me on a wild ride.
It starts off pretty cliche with teenagers driving home from a party and then getting lost in the woods. There’s even the female who becomes useless once all the gruesomeness starts. Dead Man’s Curve reminds me of a watchable B-horror movie without the cheese. It doesn’t add to the horror genre but I don’t regret reading it.
Although I was into the story, I also felt some distance between me and the characters. There are the two main characters who are fleshed out and the side ones who are just there. The two main character were likable. I didn’t feel much for the side ones.
The story is the right amount of disturbing. It’s not so gruesome that I can’t read it again. It’s not for the faint hearted. Dead Man’s Curve has some light gore but it’s…tasteful, if that’s the right word for it. Alex Van Tol doesn’t rely on it to get the scares across. This story was one twisted ride.
Title: Dead Man’s Curve
Author: Alex Van Tol
Genre: YA Horror (novella)
The road to Hell passes through Dead Man’s Curve.
It’s been two years since Booker broke up with Rachel, and he wants to get her back. Only problem is, he doesn’t realize it until he and his four friends are hip-deep in a deadly nightmare. They’ve run over a wispy figure on the highway on Halloween night and now something is preying on them, one by one, going after their deepest fears.
Lost and scared in the New England wilderness, the group realizes they’re trapped in their own twisted version of The Blair Witch Project. They’re powerless against dark forces. When Rachel’s life is threatened, Booker realizes it’s up to him to figure out a way to stop the unholy madness.
If he’s man enough to face it head on.
“What’s with the scrubs?” I ask. Rachel’s wearing them, too.
“The clothes are the least of our problems,” she says. There’s fear in her voice. As she speaks, the light above us flickers. She reaches toward me and pulls my mask down, below my chin.
I look around. We’re sitting against the wall in a long, dim hallway. A few old metal chairs sit askew, tipped over on the dirty linoleum floor. Paint peels from the walls, its faded blue-green leaves curling away from the pinkish concrete below. Several doorways lead off the corridor, but no light comes from any of them. Something hisses through the pipes that run along the ceiling. One of them drips somewhere far away.
Plurk.
Plurk.
Plurk.
Rachel shudders.
“Where are we?” I ask. A pile of broken beds hulks darkly at one end of the hallway, their legs a tangled forest of metal tubing. Heavy double doors block the other end of the hall. A reddish light shines through their round windows. They remind me of portholes. Or windows to hell.
I push the thought away. A bedpan, a scale and an old wheelchair form an obstacle course of abandoned equipment, separating us from the double doors.
Fuck. An old hospital. Far away, deep inside some other part of the rotting building’s bowels comes the haunting sound of someone screaming.
Rachel closes her eyes. “Welcome to my nightmare.”
“Then we need to get out of here,” I whisper. “STAT.” I stand and pull Rachel to her feet. My legs feel like rubber. My hand burns, but when I look at it there is no blood. No scab, even. Just a wide, pale scar across my palm where the cable seared through the skin.
An elevator dings in the wall nearby and I jump, my heart slamming. I hadn’t even noticed it. Rachel gasps and turns toward the sound. An old-fashioned curved display lights up above the doors. An arrow arcs across its face, pointing to each floor as the elevator moves. I watch, horrified, as the arrow shows the elevator’s descent.
Ping! 10.
“What the hell?” Rachel’s eyes are huge. “Why is it moving?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not sticking around to find out.”
“Oh, god.” Rachel’s got my hand in a death grip and she’s not letting go. I’m worried that she’s breathing so fast. They don’t teach you about hyperventilation in first aid. All I know about curing it is that it has something to do with breathing into a paper bag, and I’m not sure where I’d find one down here.
“It’s okay. We’re getting out of here,” I say.
“Which way are the stairs?”
“I don’t know.” I’m getting tired of hearing myself say those words. I rub my thumb across the back of her hand in what I hope is a reassuring way as I look up and down the hallway. Even though things are terrible, there’s something so good about having Rachel with me right now. She gives me confidence. Makes me feel stronger than I actually am. Even if she’s losing her shit, she’s still braver than any other chick I know.
Girl. Any other girl I know.
Ping! 9.
My adrenaline spikes. “What about that door at the end?” I ask, pointing to the circles of red light.
Rachel shakes her head. “I don’t want to go down there, Booker.”
I turn and look behind me, to where all the beds are piled up. “Well, this way is blocked. We won’t be able to move all that stuff out of the way in time.”
Ping! 8.
“We could try.” I can hear the desperation in her voice.
I almost take a step in that direction, but then I realize how ridiculous the idea is. There must be a dozen beds down at that end of the hall, all jammed together in a car-crash of a stack job. And they’re heavy hospital-grade beds, metal frames and all. We’d cut ourselves, or worse, crush a bone. “No way,” I say. “And anyway, who’s to say whatever is behind that door is any safer?”
Rachel studies the blocked doorway. She presses her lips together.
Ping! 7. Her hand tightens around mine.
A born writer, Alex Van Tol cut her teeth on Stephen King novels so terrifying she had to turn them face-down on the floor in order to sleep at night. Alex writes across a broad range of genres for youth and adults, including contemporary, paranormal, historical and, of course, horror and thrillers. She lives between the mists and moody skies of Vancouver Island.
