In the 1970s, the town of Boston Mills, Ohio was turned into a ghost town practically overnight when the U.S. Department of Interior seized lands and condemned homes and properties in order to expand the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In the years since, a multitude of mysterious tales and ghost stories have sprung forth concerning the macabre remains, known as “Helltown.”
Newspaper reporters Jerry Wolanski, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Susan Wong, of Toronto, Ontario, are both sent to Akron, Ohio by their respective editors, tasked with writing “fluff” Halloween pieces about Helltown. They happen to meet under bizarre circumstances in a cemetery, and decide to join forces. Soon they find themselves experiencing first-hand Helltown’s reputation for horror, intrigue, and the supernatural.
Along the way, Jerry and Susan meet up with a pair up of unlikely allies: Astarte, a New Age bookstore proprietor who practices witchcraft, and her ex-husband, Frank, a retired police detective turned private eye. With Astarte and Frank’s assistance, the reporters chronicle Helltown’s sagas and–in the process–must destroy a malevolent force that they’ve unwittingly unleashed before it destroys them.
