The Scare Salon

The first edition of Children of the Dark, I discovered, was published in 2016, but the version I read was the second edition, released in 2023 in anticipation of the sequel (which I’m not sure has been published yet, so keep that in mind, because this book does end on something of a cliffhanger). Although the story is set in the present day, it has a very eighties, Stephen King/Steven Spielberg vibe to it, and in the introduction, the author himself acknowledges the tonal similarities between his book and Stranger Things. However, I believe the first season of Stranger Things came out a few months after the first edition of this book was published, so it’s not so much a case of someone ripping off someone else as it is several someones (Jonathan Janz and the Duffer Brothers, in this case) pulling from the same set of influences. If you loved Stephen King’s It or Stand By Me or any sort of coming-of-age style horror by the likes of Robert McCammon or Ray Bradbury, you should find Children of the Dark right up your alley.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of Will Burgess, a fifteen-year-old boy growing up in a small town called Shadeland, Indiana. He cares for his adorable six-year-old sister Peach (whose real name is Sophia) because their mother is a drug addict who can barely manage her own life, much less look after her children. There is no father in the picture; Will doesn’t even know who he is.

As with most teenage boys, Will has his share of joys and sorrows: he’s a decent baseball player, he has two really close friends named Chris and Barley, and he has a crush on a pretty girl at school named Mia who might even like him back. On the other hand, he’s a bit small for his age and gets bullied a lot, particularly by two local douchebags named Kurt and Brad. Brad, it so happens, is dating Mia, though she seems to want to get away from his controlling ass once and for all. There’s also the small matter of his mom being down for the count much of the time; although Will adores his little sister and loves caring for her, he’s getting pretty resentful of having to be the only adult in the house when he’s still just a kid himself.

One night, Will and his two friends sneak out of their houses and sort of low-key invite themselves to a campout that Mia and her friends Rebecca and Kylie Ann are having in one of their backyards. The girls seem happy to see them, and almost immediately, Mia and Rebecca suggest they all go to a nearby swimming hole. Will can hardly believe his luck, and Mia is making it pretty obvious that she likes him as much as he likes her.

But just as they’re embracing in the water, going in for that magical first kiss, Mia sees…something…out in the surrounding woods, which are known as Savage Hollow. It looks tall and sort of pale and has glowing green eyes. She only sees it for a second, but it’s enough to freak them all out. Barley then tells them that there have always been legends about some kind of creatures lurking around in these woods, but that’s all they are: legends. Right?

Anyway, as if all that wasn’t unsettling enough, a much more concrete problem has arisen. Some years back, there was a child serial killer and cannibal by the name of Carl Padgett, otherwise known as The Moonlight Killer, who terrorized the area before finally being caught and thrown in prison. Not long into the story, Carl Padgett escapes, and no one’s quite sure where he’s heading. There are reported sightings of him in Indianapolis, some distance away, but he did kill some victims in Shadeland back in the day, so locals aren’t taking any chances.

Despite their precautions, however, a Shadeland girl turns up missing soon enough, and what’s more, Will and his friends were there when she was taken, getting them thrust into hot water with the incompetent and assholish local police, who treat Will in particular like a lying criminal.

As the story unfolds, both the serial killer angle and the creatures in the woods angle are expanded upon in interesting ways, and Will is forced to fight for not only his own life but that of his sister and his friends.

If you’re a fan of this kind of classic eighties coming-of-age horror, sometimes glibly referred to as the “kids on bikes” subgenre, then I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t dig this. It’s very simple and straightforwardly written, as befits being told from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy, and honestly, it doesn’t let up for a second. I got really invested in the characters, so much so that I teared up toward the end when bad shit happened to some of them, and that’s a hallmark of effective characterization and world-building. The more horrible things that befell our main character Will, the more upset I became, because holy shit, the poor kid didn’t deserve all that. It just got more and more dire as the story went on.

The book is also fantastically gory and really goes for broke; Jonathan Janz is obviously not afraid of killing off just about everybody in spectacularly fucked up ways, no matter how much the reader liked the characters in question. In spite of the horrific events that occur throughout the narrative, though, this book is actually fun in the way a lot of eighties horror was fun; it’s like a crazy roller coaster ride of death, disaster, and mayhem.

As I mentioned earlier, however, Children of the Dark does end on a bit of a downer cliffhanger, so know that going in so you can manage your expectations. Don’t get me wrong, everything in the main story is resolved, but at the end, you’re left with a lot of questions concerning the aftermath that will hopefully be clarified when the sequel comes out. I really did like these characters a lot and I want to know what ended up happening to them, so I’ll definitely be reading the sequel sooner rather than later.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.