In Joe Lyon’s horror novel, what begins as a mundane missing persons’ story quickly becomes a tale combining ancient mythology, murder, mayhem and a 2,000-year-old dog.
Two young boys ignore the No Trespassing sign and fish in a pond on the property of Ohio’s richest man: Colman Moyer, or, as the boys have nicknamed him, Old Man Moyer. The boys never return home, and a local detective visits a spiritualist to try to locate them.
Meanwhile, good jobs for ex-cons are hard to find, and Jimmy Myer feels lucky to drive a hearse, transporting bodies from the morgue to their final resting places. While driving through rural Ohio one day, he tops a hill and hits and kills a gigantic dog. Jimmy carries the animal to a nearby mansion, where the dog’s owner, Old Man Moyer, tells him that the dog, Belky, is a Molossus: a breed that became extinct in the 19th century. Belky is not only 2,000 years old but the repository of two Mesopotamian gods. Jimmy is stunned when formerly dead Belky hops up off the floor.
Over the centuries, Belky’s caretakers have learned that being the dog’s companion is both fortuitous and a curse. The person the dog chooses can have most anything he/she desires, including wealth, fame and power—but will meet a violent death when Belky opts for a new caretaker. Thus, Moyer murders anyone he suspects the dog will become attached to, putting Jimmy in peril.
If he’s aiming for the “gross-out” factor, Lyon succeeds in his graphic scenes: a dog eating its owner’s face, a victim who dies after Moyer injects bleach into his veins, etc. However, readers may end up pondering Belky’s endgame: Just what is the 2,000-year-old hound waiting around for?
This unique horror novel should satisfy most devotees of the genre, who will surely wonder: Would I be willing to suffer a violent death if I could live in luxury until then?
Also available as an ebook.
