The Witching Night by C.S. Cody

JetBlackDragonfly

9 minutes ago

2 min read

Chicago doctor Joe Loomis reunites with an old college friend, Colin, who suffers from debilitating headaches. Twisted with a pain codeine and morphine cannot abate, he is hospitalized. Resigned to death, Colin blames it all on Abbie, a young woman Loomis vaguely recalls as a patient a year ago. Colin leaves his possessions to Loomis, including a cottage, and oddly, a box with a black communion wafer inside.

The ramshackle cottage is in dune country, and Loomis meets the other residents of the closed community, including nervous young Jason Flye, obese Mr. Kelk, and Abbie, a radio actress. Tall and beautiful with flowing dark hair, like wings—which Colin called the wings of the angel of death. Over each window and door of the cottage was a sprig of mistletoe, which Loomis has to remove before Abbie would enter. That night he sneaks out in the dark to witness the residents holding a bonfire ritual, where Abbie kills an animal to drink its blood, before disrobing for a naked orgy. She has soiled herself in the most degrading manner, yet he sort of falls in love with her, believing she is under the influence of the group—catatonic, sleepwalking or hypnotized. From that day Loomis is plagued by headaches, which he refuses to show to the residents, lest they feel they are winning. Seemingly powerless against their spells, the only way to conquer them is to turn them against each other—until one by one they are eliminated.

This has primitive magic, the supernatural, and psychopathology in abundance. There is a good thriller in here, but I found it so overwritten it wasn't enjoyable. The thick pace was a problem, and his willingness to entertain Abbie after what he witnessed stretched disbelief.

C.S. Cody is a pseudonym for writer Leslie Waller, a prominent novelist whose work includes Dog Day Afternoon (1974) written as Patrick Mann, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) ghost-written for Steven Spielberg.

1953 / Paperback / 256 pages