A Place So Wicked is a 2021 Ghost Story horror novel by Patrick Reuman.
The Prescott family move to the town of Black Falls after Richard, the father, loses his job. The house is haunted as hell. A classic setup.
A Place So Wicked contains examples of:
- Accidental Pervert: Toby accidentally catches a glimpse of Addie getting undressed. Having said that, him continuing to watch is entirely his decision. To his credit, he at least feels guilty afterwards. It should be noted that she was semi-implied to want him to see. When he initially tells her he's going to have a room other than the one directly facing hers, she is actively disappointed. He then changed his mind and took the room directly opposite hers basically on a whim. She later confirms this just before asking him to have sex with her.
- The Alcoholic: Zig-zagged with Robbie. He doesn't think of himself as an alcoholic and shows no withdrawal or relapse symptoms despite having not drank in a number of months, but by his own admission, he usually drinks a lot and his brother Richard clearly thinks he's an alcoholic. Robbie feels the need to hide his drinking from Richard because of this.
- And I Must Scream: The ghosts rarely ever acknowledge the family and seem to simply be reliving the moments before their deaths over and over.
- Bittersweet Ending: Toby, Paisley, and Eli succeed in stopping the sacrifices by releasing the thing in the basement, it kills all of the ringleaders of the operation, the town is heavily implied to be totally destroyed, and the Prescott family escapes the town. Unfortunately, Robbie is also killed by the thing, too weak from the sickness to so much as make it to the stairs, and all of the townspeople, most of whom were kept in line through fear of the cult, are implied to have been killed.
- Eldritch Location: The house. In reality, the entire town of Dark Falls. When the land was first settled, nothing grew there and all of the settlers died. But with each death, the area grew more alive and liveable. The locals have their own little paradise as long as they send new people into the house when the land around it starts dying again.
- Evil Smells Bad: The locked door in the basement that Richard and Robbie can't open comes with a repulsive odour that immediately makes them think something died in there.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The book takes place over just a few days.
- First Kiss: Toby's was with a drunken classmate who either didn't remember it afterwards or simply wanted to ignore that it happened since she never acknowledged it after it happened.
- Ghostly Chill: Characters suddenly getting hit by a chill is quite common within the house, especially at night.
- Ghost Town: Well, not the whole town, but upon looking in on the neighbours' house after receiving multiple meals from people who never introduced themselves, Lisa realises that the whole street they live on is empty apart from the house directly across from them.
- Haunted House: The house which the Prescott family moves into is complete with dead plants in the garden, a horrifying smell from the basement, and nightly apparitions. And all of this is discovered on pretty much the first day!
- Mystical Plague: Downplayed. Being in the house makes Trevor sick (as well as the rest of the family after a couple of days) with pain, exhaustion, and dizziness, but it never spreads outside the house and outright leaves whenever they go outside.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Had Robert not let his jealousy over Addie sleeping with Toby get the better of him, Toby and his family likely would have died and the town would have gone on thriving. A centuries-long conspiracy was brought to an end by a teenage boy who couldn't resist rubbing his crush's fetish for the soon-to-be-dead in her lover's face.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Addie likes to fuck the sacrifices that are her age. She apparently gets off on screwing the soon-to-be-deceased.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We never actually find out what the creature sealed beneath the house is. It's referred to as a demon a couple of times, but that's merely speculation and because they have nothing better to call it. Toby gets a little insight when he opens the door and releases it, but all he really finds out is that it's old and had at least been there since before the Native Americans inhabited those lands.
- Properly Paranoid: Lisa distrusts the food the family is being left by strangers they never see and suspicious of how empty the street feels. That's because only their house and the house directly across from them is inhabited.
- Really Gets Around: Addie. She has a thing for the sacrifices lured in to feed the town and, according to Robert, "She fucks them all."
- Sinister Minister: Not only is the local church entirely aware of what's being done to sustain the town's prosperity, but the key needed to end it is being hidden by the priest.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Dark Falls. The town's original name was Dead Falls, on account of the fact that all of the land it was built upon was dead and uninhabitable. The more people died there, the more prosperous the area became. So the locals set up a practice of luring people in to live in a house beneath which the creature responsible for this is sealed, sacrificing innocent people in order to maintain their little paradise. Many of the locals are kept in line through fear as the cult in charge of the sacrifices has made many people "disappear" in the past for digging too deep or trying to help the sacrifices.
- Urban Legends: A local one about a man who chopped up his ex and her lover with an axe in the lover's car. There's even an old, abandoned car in an overgrown area that lends the story an odd credibility.
