THE NIGHT WALKERS

by Otto Coontz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 1982

Gulls are dropping all over town; the dump caretaker has been spraying pesticides; and Tony and Martin both get sick after eating carrots from the caretaker's garden. But what seems at first like contrived medical detection with a message becomes sheer sensationalistic horror story: for Martin, sick in bed, is also visited by his car, who breathes his luminous dusty breath into the sleeping boy's lungs. Martin, whose symptoms new include a rash and an aversion to light, is then possessed of a need to breathe the infection into his friend Tony . . . and so begins a chain that soon bas half the school out sick and the night streets crawling with suffering teenagers in pajamas, out stalking further victims. Nora, Tony's sister, is visited in her bedroom by Martin and later by Tony, but both times she turns on her lamp and is saved, Her doctor father, though, takes her reports as nightmares, and so Nota and her friend Maxine must take it upon themselves to save the others. Their action puts them in danger, but it works, and meanwhile the medical team identifies the infecting agent as a fungus that the dump's pesticides have caused to mutate. If you're looking for a book to compete with this year's Halloween horror film, you've got it.

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION