Search - Hide and Seek

For as much as I enjoy horror books today, I need to stop going back and reading older books. The early books written by authors don't have the same kick and are too mild.
This book was all character build up and blah, blah story. The second half had me skimming pages just to skip the overly detailed descriptions of EVERYTHING and just get on with the story already. Very predictable and not at all what I consider horror. Very little in the way of "blood and guts" and not even much suspense. Not anything like the Jack Ketchum I know and love today! Ok to read if you have it on hand but don't go to any trouble or expense to get it!

9780345312372, First Edition, Copyright 1984

The description of this book does a good job of telling you what it will be about but I'll try to give you a bit more. It is told in first hand narrative from the perspective of Dan, a twenty-something guy working as a laborer and stuck in a poor, run-down, small town. He tells of a horror that occurred one summer a few years back.

The first half of the book, Part I is 96 pages. It introduces us to the characters, the town, and a house that was the scene of a horrific event that Dan saw the aftermath of in his childhood. Like any run-down, empty house with a creepy history this house is known as a haunted house to the people and especially the thrill-seeking teens of the town. Like many people who grow up in a blue-collar town, Dan feels trapped within its confines and bored with life. The only bright spot is that the town is near the ocean with lots of summer homes that the affluent vacationers throng to in the summer. The rich, bored teenagers who accompany their parents always seem to add a little color to the town's drab existence even if they have to invent ludicrous ways to stave off the boredom. This year, Casey enters Dan's life. She is wild and sexy and likes "playing" with Dan - it doesn't hurt that he's old enough to buy the beer for her and her two cohorts either. To spice up their days at the beach and evenings of beer drinking Dan tells the trio about the haunted house and some of the yarns that are spun about it. Yarns that include a crazy brother and sister duo, dozens of dogs who resort to hunting each other or even people and other tales. Are any of the stories true? Casey, looking for a thrill, decides that the next night they should all break into the house after midnight and play Hide & Seek with a twist.

The second half of the book, Part II is 98 pages and I found myself flying through the pages anxious to get to the reveals. It begins with Casey laying out the rules for the game of Hide & Seek (no flashlights, when you're found you get tied up, etc.) and deciding who will be "it" for the game. Then the horror begins. Dan's "it" so he counts aloud with his eyes closed (its so dark he didn't really need to) while the others scamper away to hide. Is anyone found hiding or do they all disappear? In a pitch dark cellar, there is a hole in the foundation wall and you can feel air blowing in from it that smells faintly of the ocean. The hole is the entrance to a passage and the passage walls feel wet. Wet from blood! There is blood sprayed all over the walls of the rudimentary passage, so much blood no could have possibly survived that much blood loss! Are the teens simply trying to scare each other or are some of the legends and the creatures who inhabit them insinuating themselves into this night's game? Will any of the members of this foursome make it out alive?

This was a strange story. Ordinary but kept me interested. Not at all scary or gory. Nothing bad through the whole book until the very last. Interesting is all I can really say about this book. I really liked it though.