Salesman and father Robert Tolliver’s life is about to change. He was traveling through Louisiana and a few missed turns, a few hours later, he finds himself facing a horrible fate. All Robert knows is that he is stuck in an abandoned military bunker in the wild swamps of Louisiana. There is something stalking his every move, a horror unlike anything he has ever seen.
S79 The creature in the Bunker. The Horror of the Swamps.
Will Robert survive the living nightmares and make it back home to his wife Julie and his daughter Lillie? Will he uncover a bigger mystery that the small town of Montegut had been hiding for years?
S79 The Horror in the Swamp by Brett Schumacher. Kindle edition, ARC. Published by Amazon Digital Services, October 2019. 179 pages. I received a copy of this book from BookSirens in exchange for an honest review.
Wow! This book is pretty much everything I want in a creature book! Seriously. This author – whom I had not heard of before- is one I will be keeping an eye on. It is extremely obvious that Brett Schumacher is a lover of creature features and horror in general. This book absolutely nailed the genre. I always hate when you read a horror book (or watch a horror movie) and you can totally tell the person who wrote it has no idea what a horror story even is, and the book /movie is just terrible because of that. It makes it feel extra special when you run across an author like Brett. His love for horror really shines in this book.
S79 has a super fun plot. You’ve got swamps, abandoned military base, science experiment gone wrong, conspiracy theories, urban legends, pitch dark atmosphere, snakes, gators, rednecks, revenge, and a pretty epic creature. Every time I thought I had the plot predicted, I was caught off guard by another little twist I hadn’t seen coming. A great ride from the first page to the last.
S79 didn’t have a ton of violence (well, at the very end it had more) or kills, but it had a lot of great tension built up throughout the story. It takes a while before you see or find out about the creature, but there is all this tension built up because it’s dark, the main character is trapped in maze of a building, and he keeps hearing something following him. Stalking him. The author gives us lots of chills because you (and the main character) know something is out in the dark hallway, but all you hear are footsteps, or nails tapping on the wall, or a insect like chittering. It is a great build up to the big reveal of the creature. A very WTF creature.
I absolutely loved how the main character did his best to be logical throughout his ordeal. So many times in horror stories you are constantly face palming because of the stupid decisions the characters do. Not with Robert! He was no Macgyver or boy scout or anything. He couldn’t repair a car and he didn’t always do the best choice possible… but he worked with what he had and it felt very believable. It felt like what an average person would do in these sort of situations. I really liked that because he wasn’t totally stupid and flailing around, but he wasn’t too smart for the situation either. He used common sense and it was a perfect balance to the character.
Robert did go on a bit about his wife and daughter though. Normally I hate that, but the author did a really good job with balancing it out as well. The main character brought his family up, but didn’t dwell on it for long and instead used them as motivation to get out and get revenge. It worked so much better then just having the character crying about it the whole time. instead
This was a very quick read. I flew through it. Great tension, great build up. Atmosphere was perfect. I was sad to see it end so quickly. The very ending did feel like it left us hanging a little bit. Not like a set up for book 2 sort of feeling, no… all monsters were dealt with. It was more like… well, what about his injuries, did Robert go to the hospital? Did he ever get to call his wife? How did he get home? What about his job/ promotion? So, not really a cliff hanger per se… but I was totally dying to see what happened after the final page! What happened to Robert? S79 didn’t necessarily need an epilogue with the follow up answers. Those answers could have all been given with Robert’s inner thoughts dealing with it. All he really said is that he wanted to go home, but no follow up. He was car less, far from home, and injured badly. I don’t know. *Shrug* Maybe it’s just me? It wasn’t super bothersome or anything… just… curious as to what he did after that final page, you know?
Overall, this was a very enjoyable book. Quick read with lots of tension and atmosphere. Great premise, setting, and main character. I wished we got to see what happened to Robert after facing the bad guy, but the ending didn’t hurt the book. I was just curious as to what happened after. I liked S79 a lot, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what this author does next!
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