Black Creek, by Gregory Lamberson, is an action packed horror novel and a spectacular one. I have read and reviewed a fair number of Medallion Publishing's novels and I would have to say that this is the best one I have come across so far, with a bullet. I reviewed another novel, Storm Demon, by Gregory Lamberson and although I liked that book too, this novel blew that one away as well.
Black Creek is the town that grew up around the area where the toxic nightmare of the Love Canal catastrophe occurred in 1978. Now, almost 40 years later, a normal American community has moved in a tried to put the region's sorted past behind them. Life is as normal for them as it is for the rest of the country until the storm of the century hits their town. The storm shuts down...well everything, as the drifts pile up to over five feet high.
Unknown to any of them, there are several generations of mutated humans living within the abandoned tunnels that remain full of toxic wastes. The winter has been hard on them and they use the storm as an opportunity to fill their larder with the only prey they can find, humans. These foul half men use a variety of weapons to slay anyone the come across, the most terrifying of which are sharpened rebar spears.
Paul and his family as well as many other characters soon find themselves not only trying to survive the crippling storm, but also having to come to grips with the fact their neighbors are disappearing and they themselves soon have to find a way to attempt to survive the horrid mutant assaults. And yes the body count is high on both sides.
I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but the author took a page for Stephen King's style of spending a good portion of the novel building up the characters, so when they died, it sucked, or when they figured out how to survive it leaves the reader really rooting for their success.
I enjoyed this novel profoundly and cannot think of a lot of downsides here. Perhaps the only one would be how the mutants can do whatever they want in the middle of this blizzard that leaves the rest of the characters struggling just to make it one house over.
If you like horror, this is not one to pass up. I tend to enjoy horror more when the characters fight back, have a chance to survive, but have to be inventive and kick some serious ass to do so. So this novel really hit the spot for me. There are some scary moments here and some profound creepiness. A few parts might even threaten to jerk on your tear ducts. Again, if you enjoy horror, this is must read. I need to see it Lamberson has any other pure horror stories out there. Nice work.
Dalsala Den, by Michael D. Griffiths