Alex Weller’s Reviews > Night Shift > Status Update

On October 22, after recovering, Charles reveals what they saw in the cellar that's been causing all the noise: the undead corpses of his uncle Randolph Boone and Randolph's daughter Marcella, who both died in the cellar. Charles comes to realize that his arrival at Chapelwaite has awakened a curse his family got involved in that's holding them captive as vampires. Holy shit!

Charles has fallen ill, but not from anything in the diary. It was something in the cellar that made him this way. Calvin stays by his side while he sleeps, too afraid to move him or leave for the village. What the hell is in the cellar?

That same day, Charles starts writing another letter to Bones, but says he can't write about whatever it is he wants to yet, and the letter trails off without being completed. Did something in the diary send him into hysteria? Holy shit!

On October 20, Calvin finds an old locked diary hidden in Chapelwaite's library, but he's unable to read it, due to it being written in a cipher. He doesn't get to write much about the diary because Charles soon arrives in the library. Wonder what the diary will tell us!

On October 19, Charles visits Mrs. Cloris to learn why the town shuns him. She reveals that bad omens have been occurring since he arrived, and that Charles's great-uncle Philip was a Satanist; "De Vermis Mysteriis" was a Satanic Bible he used that Robert, Charles's grandfather, tried to dispose of, causing the fall-out between Philip and Robert. And in 1789, Philip and all of Jerusalem's Lot disappeared. Yikes!

On October 17, Calvin writes a letter to a local merchant, placing an order for Rat's Bane. Are they going to use this to defeat ... whatever it is running around in the walls? Will they succeed? Somehow, I think not.

After a visit from the superstitious cleaning woman, who has heard the noises in the walls, Calvin finds a map of Jerusalem's Lot hidden in a bookshelf. Charles and Calvin travel to the town, finding it abandoned and untouched by anything but dust. They find the church turned into a Satanic Mass, with a book titled "De Vermis Mysteriis". When Charles touches it, a horrible noise is heard, and they flee. Yikes!

On October 16, Charles writes to another friend of his, Richard. He wants Richard to contact a historian he's acquainted with and ask him what he knows about a deserted village called Jerusalem's Lot. That must be the deserted town the townsfolk were talking about in the previous letter. But why is it deserted? It's perfectly fine in 1975 (until Kurt Barlow arrives, of course).

On October 6, Charles has been informed that the townsfolk are freaked about his arrival at Chapelwaite and say he's mad to live there, saying crazy things about a deserted village and worms. Charles, however, turns it down as gossip. He has come to appreciate the manor. However, he starts hearing rats in the walls but can't find any sign of their presence. Something doesn't seem right here.

Just started reading the first story, "Jerusalem's Lot", a prequel to Stephen King's "'Salem's Lot". On October 2, 1850, Charles Boone writes to his friend Bones, describing his arrival at Chapelwaite, a manor owned by his cousin Stephen that was willed to him. While the manor and estate are pretty creepy, it has a wonderful parlor view, and Charles loves the solitude, hoping to write a novel there. Awesome!