The perils of high school

We Came Back

Patrick Lacey

Sinister Grin Press 

April 15, 2017

4 stars

 

 Some people see high school as the best years of their lives. Other see it as the horror they do not want to go back to. I'm in the latter group. Maybe it's why I liked We Came Back so much because the demons of my high school would have felt at home in the old haunts of Patrick Lacey's Lynwood High School.

Melvin Brown is one of those kids for which high school was hell. At the bottom of the food chain and ignored by even the teachers, he takes a gun to himself in the cafeteria and kills himself. The creatures he drew endlessly in his notebook may or may not have had anything to do with it. Ten years later, The now abandoned old Lynwood High seems to be calling the best and the brightest and now they are dressing Goth and calling their "club" the Lynwood Vampires.

To be sure, the monsters of We Came Back seem more demonic than vampiric to me. Yet they are at the heart of this novel which makes some interesting twists on the theme of teen cliches and angst. Also at the center of this book is Frank, a high school teacher who was present at Melvin's death and is now attempting to protect his daughter Alyssia from the evils of the world. Needless to say, Alyssia is led straight to the allures of the Lynwood Vamps.

Patrick Lacy's tale has some very scary moments and is quite entertaining as a straight horror story. The perspectives of the teens and one teen's parent is at the heart of this book and, despite a good amount of gore, I think the young adult crowd would enjoy it. Melvin, or more precisely what he becomes, is a first class terror which feels like a cross between a Lovecraft monster and a vampire. There are a few problems that crop up. For instance, the late introduction of a weapon to fight the monsters that comes out of left field and challenges one's ability to accept the farfetched. However there isn't anything that takes away from the fun. Others might want to know why it is The popular students and the jocks that are initially drawn to the strange cult but for those who remember high school in a darker light, we know that many of those students are one step from the demonic to begin with.

OK, so I read my own baggage into this a bit. I think others will too. We Came Back is a good horror tale but its setting and its character are likely to take you back to your own school experiences and that is part of the fun. This is straight horror and a very entertaining read at that.