Finally finished the last scary book I got from Barnes and Noble. If you're wondering why Rollercoaster Tycoon is here wait till later 😭 the reason will shock you as it did me...
Anyways this book has a very fast pace, it doesn't really stop we just rush right into it!
Eileen was just going on a hike through the woods of this town she's visiting and it's night time and she's lost in the woods. She falls, she's hurt and can't see anything and can't move. She pulls out her film camera and uses the flash to see her surroundings. She was running through the woods because she started hearing sounds like scrapping. Nothing natural sounding you'd hear in the woods. She starts using the flash and takes pictures and then she sees it. A creature in the distance watching her. She describes it has a 7 foot tall creature, covered in black fur, mangled looking face and it having a long claw like arm with 3 talons that almost touches the ground and poison green eyes. And that's basically how chapter one ends.
So immediately I'm like okay so Big Foots had crab cousin is out here killing hikers?
We then fall between 2 perspectives well 3 but the third one 🗑️ 🙄
We have Carla a local cop in this town and then Eileen's brother Chris. Plus Todd 🗑️🙄.
Chris and Todd are very worried about Eileen, she hasn't updated her Facebook, she hasn't called blah blah.
Alright let's briefly mention Todd 🗑️🙄 then ignore him since technically he looks for Eileen first. He at first glance seems to be very worried, he has a crush on Eileen and is concerned naturally. Despite being friends with Chris he doesn't fully click with him and his gang (Hailey, Anna and Flint), he's more of a lone wolf or something. Those 3 don't like him much and Chris gets kinda irritated with him calling him a creep for being so concerned over Eileen. At first I'm like huh. However Todd immediately purchases a flight to the town, tries the hotel she was at and asks around, he printed a photo of a guy that she posted a photo with, a fellow tourist, and assumed he had something to do with her disappearence. However no dice. Quickly he figures she must've gotten lost in the woods since that was the last Facebook update she had. So he goes into the woods blah blah, he immediately ruins his reputation in my eyes. He basically is an incel, like if you're nice to him than you must be obsessed with him. He's having thoughts of being named a hero and blah i don't wanna go into it much more because I hate his ass but basically his entire POV just made him so unlikeable so when the creature started stalking him well 👀 bye bye bitch.
So Todd went off alone and didn't even tell anyone, dumbass, Chris and his friends all decide to fly to the town and talk face to face with Carla, thinking she and the precinct aren't doing enough to find her. They also look at the photos that were found on Eileen's camera that washed up in a river. They spot a face hidden in the shadows of a few photos. Obviously when looking through a film camera of what 30ish photos and like 20 of them are all of just one spot of the forest at night like yeah that's weird. They notice the shapes but Carla dismisses it. So the gang of 4 decide to venture into the woods looking for Eileen. Chris is her brother so he helps decides what she'd do, Anna has good survival skills and packed bunch of water and snacks and stuff PLUS red twine that they tie to trees to make sure they don't get lost, very smart Anna! Flint is Mr Jock. And Hailey is a future med student but also a track star.
The four do their best following what path they'd think Eileen would've taken. Stumbling upon words written in the forest like Run and Lost. Very scary. Then they find worthless Todd body 🤭 a shame... except not really he was a creep and he really thought he was the main character of this damn story fkfkfjfjgjgjgj not to be cynical but yeah, gruesome dead body with bugs and stuff but he will not be missed.
They decide to trek back with his body. Then immediately scary stuff happens. When they go back and follow the string, Anna the queen survivalist, thinks it's odd they haven't seen certain points of interest on the back but as she unties a layer of string from a tree a knife just flies out of nowhere and stabs her! And it's like what! They do what they can to patch her up but eventually they...split up. Track star Hailey runs ahead to get help since Flint and Chris can't carry 2 people back. Flint gets attacked by the monster and gets a concussion and between being scared and such he starts to not trust Chris.
Meanwhile all while this is happening Carla is playing detective, playing string to string on the forest map seeing how many disappearances their woods have had over the past some odd years. 60 people including Eileen. She notices patterns and calls old cops retired. Trying her best to figure things out.
Eventually Hailey, alone at night, hears the scraping sound and ends up running away to find a cottage in the middle of the woods.
Okay 🧐 I need to ramble about the Tycoon Rollercoaster crap and ending so spoilers.
Hailey finds a costume in the cottage. There was never a monster, just a human scary everyone in the woods till they fall off a cliff or get swept away by the river or die of dehydration. She investigates the place and he comes home, she puts up a strong final girl in a horror movie fight, hurts him but the creep lets her go. Saying nature will kill her as he abandons her HOWEVER 🏍️ MY GIRL HAILEY !!!!! She has final energy steals his motorcycle despite having a huge slash in her leg and drives off. So she 🧐 has visibly seen the man that has been doing this all these years.
Carla, being a good Nancy Drew, discovers the truth as well. The perp was actually her boss, head police chief. I was gagged !! I didn't see it coming. She knows how he did it but she needed to know why so she confronted him. And then this man brings up rollercoaster tycoon 😭😭😭😭😭😭 of all the things! He said he watched his nephews play it, how the 2 would laugh and try to figure out all the ways to kill their amusement park guests. He said we humans have a fascination with watching people die. So he goes into the woods a few times a year, has motion sensors to pick up on lone hikers, then scares them till they kill themselves by accidentally falling or just dehydration etc. So he "technically" isn't hurting anyone. He does it for the thrill... So basically Rollercoaster Tycoon made him a murderer 😭 fngjjfgjgj literally didn't see that shit coming.
Carla, my girl, shoots him point blank. Knowing she didn't have enough evidence to put him away so she did it herself bravo. Also she found Eileen, she somehow survived off berries and river water.
Very good read. My friend, when I asked about getting more into scary books, recommended me Cackle and Bloom, previous reads, but also the author Darcy Coates. She had a good sized shelf in the Barnes and Noble, i chose this one because it sounded interesting and it was!!