By Guy N. Smith
1987 Arrow
Paperback, 184 pages
a couple of sittings.
Ten years after the horrid
happenings in the first book, the town of Turbury is all but a ghost town. Plans
have been made to flood the entire area to make it into a reservoir. A group of
kids are poking around the deserted town pre-flooding and rehang the toppled
Deathbell in Caelogy Hall. What could possibly go wrong? Well, with each peal
of the bell, madness and violence ensues. Even when the town is completely
flooded, the bell still has its powers, making the entire reservoir a dangerous
place.
The book is filled with a number
of excellent horror set pieces, especially when workers are attempting to move
bodies from the Turbury cemetery to a new place of rest. Coffins and bodies
fall from moving trucks, big machinery squashes people and vulnerable humans
can’t control a thing. Meanwhile, Vicki Mason, returning from the first book,
is attacked by a neighbor who is under the bell’s influence in a harrowing
scene. Even the surrounding towns aren’t safe from the ringing of the bell.
This book has all of the
earmarks of GNS’s top-shelf work of the period. It is violent as hell, has a
whirlwind romance that, even if it isn’t entirely believable, has a certain
sweetness to it that offsets some of the grueling horror. The reservoir doesn’t
keep its water and as Turbury reemerges from beneath the water, the muddy, dank
left-over town is a thing of pure atmospheric horror. Add three hundred
hippies, stir and you’ve got a set-up for a spectacular climax.
Terry Oakes provides a beautiful
cover, whether it actually depicts a scene in the book or not. Well, it sort of
does. Then again, there is no mention of a demon in the book, either though I
guess the Seekers of Silence, a Tibetan cult who worship the Deathbell, might
as well be demons. While not quite as effective as Deathbell, this is
still top tier GNS that will be on my deathbed’s bookshelf, filed next to the
first one.
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