LAST EXIT TO FERAL

A creepy creature in a creepy well in the creepy basement of a creepy old house isn’t all that’s creepy in the small town of Feral.

Tying together and continuing several tales from Welcome to Feral (2022), the search for the ghost of a long-vanished teacher leads intrepid young investigators Freya and Monica to free children trapped in a haunted playground, the even more haunted middle school basement, and other sinister locales. They also explore a labyrinth of spooky tunnels, resulting in encounters with a hulking “franken-farmer,” a hideous witch who is eager to turn children into rats, and other subterranean terrors on the way to a climactic struggle with a raving, tentacled well monster. Readers who like their horror on the light side will appreciate the (relatively) happy endings that attend on all the eerie settings and screamworthy twists, not to mention the map of the town’s tunnels and attractions (“Deserted Circus Grounds,” “Red Water Bog”), postcards from unwary visitors, and the jokey local news clippings Fearing provides to thicken the atmosphere. Monica has brown skin and Afro-textured hair, and Freya has light skin and red hair; most of the remaining cast is either warty green or a glowing, ectoplasmic blue.

Thrills and chills aplenty but low voltage enough to keep the nightmares at bay.