The Scary Reviews

Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review

Trent and his best friend Alan live for finding old and undiscovered buildings.  It’s one of their favorite past times looking for some yet to be discovered treasure.  Along the Hudson River in Wyvern Falls there are many to be found.  Trent notices for the first time an old train maintenance building, number 18.  He can’t believe he hasn’t noticed it sooner and quickly calls Alan for an afternoon adventure.  Trent, Alan and his girlfriend Francine can’t resist the old bricked up building.  With no windows in the building it makes this mystery of too much for Trent to resist.  To Trent’s surprise and pure enjoyment they find an old 1930’s era steam engine, a Mercury 777.  But this is no ordinary steam engine, it is supposedly cursed and was built by a madman just prior to WWII.  Of course for Trent, Alan and Francine they have no idea what they have found.

Robert Stava gives a great nod to horror fans.  I could instantly feel the creep factor being turned on high as our trio step aboard the steam engine.  From the moment Trent and company set foot inside the train the story takes an immediate full blow run and doesn’t stop.  After a gruesome accident it becomes more than obvious why the steam train is in a bricked up building.  After they enter the cab of the train Alan meets his demise and the train breaks free of its brick prison.  The New York Positronics train comes to life and now is running loose on the tracks.  In a matter of pages Robert turns the horror volume to full blast as the train is on another rampage of death and destruction.  Robert fills the reader in with a great background story of the Mercury 777 train.  Its origin, the evil inside and the emergency protocol designed to prevent any more death from this sinister train.  And before this crazy train ride is done Trent is left wishing he let this building go unexplored.

Rating 4/5

Book Info

Length:  74 Pages

Release date:  July 16, 2015

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What secret waits in a neglected corner of the Metro North rail yards along the Hudson River … in a bricked-up old locomotive shed known only as “Building 18”?

Three curious teenagers are about to uncover a diabolical experiment conducted in the shadow of the Second World War, an experiment that blurred the lines between dark science and magic … resulting in a forbidden railroad technology that should have been left alone.

Dormant. Forgotten.

But when their curiosity gets the best of them, that secret comes roaring back to life, eager to be back in our world.

An unstoppable juggernaut emerges, unthinking, fearsome, terrible …

… and most of all, hungry.