Fisrt book in a supernatural thriller series about a former priest turned demon hunter.
A former priest and demon hunter, Father Gunter is a demon’s worst nightmare. But even he will need help to destroy the demons that threaten the small farming community of Bucktown. When he sees a news broadcast about tragic events taking place in the town, he realizes he has work to do.
Along the way, help arrives - but from an unexpected source. Will it be enough to see the demon hunter through the final showdown with evil?
Excerpt
The two began once again to examine the tiny corpse. After only working for a few moments, it became apparent to the two men a small sound was coming from somewhere very close by. The sound started off as an almost inaudible murmer, but slowly grew louder. Johann and Robert looked at each other, confused.
"Do you hear something," Johann asked.
"I think so," Robert answered, looking around the room, "But, where is it coming from?"
"What does it sound like to you," asked Johann.
"Sounds, to me," Durling said, as he began to glance around the room, "It sounds like a group of little children singing 'Ring Around The Rosy.'"
"Yep," Johann said, "That's what I hear, too." He glanced at the coroner and made a gesture, pointing toward the refrigerators.
The two approached the body storage area; Johann was holding his flask of holy water at the ready, and Robert was clutching the cross. The closer they came to the units, the louder the singing was. The song repeated itself over and over as though it were taunting the two men. The hair on the back of Johann's neck stood up from the tension. The sound of the singing gave him mental images of children playing in a playground and singing. But, he knew the only children in this room were all deceased, and this caused his pulse to quicken, and his heart to pound in his chest.
Without warning, several of the refrigerator doors opened and the body trays slid out. This caused Robert and Johann to stop in their tracks and stare in disbelief. In front of them were four little corpses, standing up. They were singing, in unison, the "Ring Around The Rosy" nursery rhyme as living children would do. They were holding their arms outstretched as though trying to hold hands, and bounced up and down as though trying to dance together in a circle.
"The son of a bitch is still here," Johann said, as he quickly looked around the room. Durling nodded in agreement and again held the cross up in front of himself; his hands were trembling, and sweat was beading on his brow. He stood with his legs as close together as possible, for fear he would urinate in his pants.
"Come on out and fight, you coward," Johann said.
"Johann, don't," Robert whispered. Johann glanced at him, surprised at his apparent unwillingness to face the demon. Robert glanced back at Johann, almost apologetically.
“You’re more used to doing this stuff than I am,” Robert said, explaining himself.
In answer to Johann’s command, several extremely sharp instruments levitated off a table and flew toward the two men. Johann spotted the approaching projectiles at the last second and surveyed the room for something to use for cover.
"Look out," he shouted, as he ducked for cover under a gurney, which caused Robert to do likewise. The sharp missiles flew by the two, most of them missing by mere centimeters. One, a very sharp scalpel, made contact with Robert's hand, and cut the coroner.
"Damn it," the coroner said, as his crimson red blood dripped on the floor from the small gash on the back of his hand. He grabbed the sheet off the gurney he was under and ripped a piece off to wrap around his injured appendage. The two men were now each under separate stretchers, a few feet apart.
"You okay Bob," Johann asked.
"Yeah," Bob answered, "But damn it, does that hurt. We gotta get out of here."
"No shit."
Professional Reviews
Thrilling!!
*I received a copy of this book for an honest review*
So, I've read short stories from this author before (and loved them!), and therefore was both excited and nervous and about going into this one. Some people can write long or short, not all can do both. But she pulled it off beautifully!
This was a straight forward demon story, and it was awesome. There's a delightfully creepy scene in the morgue, and I won't sleep well if my little one starts singing tonight! And the ending! The story is satisfying, no cliffhanger, but leaves you begging for more. Which I am. I need more!
This is something I could see being turned into another media form, tv or movie, or at the least an audio with a multi-person cast.
Bob says: 4 Platypires!
good reading
Sometimes the innocent suffer more than anyone else.
Johann had an sad and interesting backstory. I appreciated the fact that the narrator waited quite a while to share it with the audience. Not knowing what it was that originally drew this character into such an unusual line of work kept me curious in the beginning. Finding it out eventually was also important, though, and I’m glad that the author made sure her readers had a strong understanding of this part of his past.
This story spent a lot of time telling me what was happening instead of showing it to me. The premise was incredibly interesting, but I had a hard time getting into the plot because there weren’t enough details to draw me into the scenes. Even what should have been the most exciting sections were described so vaguely that I had trouble picturing what was happening in them and what it would be like to be standing next to Johann at those exact moments.
Why would a demon decide to prey only on babies? This question haunted me as I read. The nice thing about this part of the plot is that it was so open to interpretation. There were passages early on that supported just about all of the theories I came up with to explain why this might be so. This made me eager to push on and find out which one of them might be correct.
There were some things I didn’t understand at all about the demon. For example, Johann’s plan for getting rid of this creature was much simpler than I thought it would be based on how distressed he was at the news of the demonic infestation in the opening scene. Other scenes shared the same kind of information about the demon. It seemed contradictory to me at times, so I would have really liked to see more time spent explaining why the main character was distressed about this case.
The science fiction and mystery elements of the plot were balanced wonderfully. It actually took me a while to figure out how to classify this tale because of what a good job it did at mixing these genres together seamlessly. The mystery tag won out in the end, but only barely. This is the sort of thing that can appeal to more than one audience due to how much care it took in making sure that the storyline included the best from both of the genres it was playing around with.
I’d recommend The Bucktown Babies equally to fans of both of these genres.
Creepy...scary story that'll hook you
I personally approached the author to ask for a free copy to review the story and I'm glad I did...I love reading late at night when everyone sleeps...the house is so quiet...it is me time... but, OMG, this story was so creepy and some parts actually scared me enough to put the book down to look around in the dark. Yes, I was that scared. One night I struggled to sleep because I was scared and had no guts to continue reading even though my hands were twitching to grab my kindle to read the next page.
Some parts in the story showed me how imaginative this author is and I was left in awe of the way she "showed" me some frightening scenes. But this story is more than a horror or a thriller because the characters were well established and solid. I can't wait to read the next story. Yes, I'll still read it at night and then do a "Hail Mary" prayer :)
I applaud Janine Pestel for writing this very creepy story. She got herself a new and solid fan.
not my fave genre, but a compelling premise sure to please those who enjoy this type writing!
Cover art is eye catching, always good to bring readers in for a better look.
Happy to see you are posting here on AuthorsDen.. you might want to post a poem now and again, maybe snippets of your book(s) as articles, etc., to grow reader awareness for you and your writing.
Growing internet presence is always good!
Wishing you much success in your writing endeavors
The fortunate inherit riches, prestige, positive notoriety. Those not so lucky bear legacies filled with poverty, infamy or, worse yet, the unhinged insanity and murderous urges of their ancestors.
Grab those side-irons, saddle up and join former Civil War sharpshooter Luther Henry for a ride into pure terror, western-style…think ‘Wild Wild West’ meets ‘The X-Files’.
