Review: ‘Mercy House’ by Adam Cesare

Mercy House by Adam Cesare
Hydra (June 9, 2015)

Remember that scene in The Return of the Living Dead, when Linnea Quigley’s character is describing her idea of the worst way to die?

“Well, for me, the worst would be for a bunch of old men to get around me and start biting me and eating me alive.”

It’s a nightmarish image for a variety of reasons. I don’t know if  Adam Cesare had this quote rattling around in the catacombs when he conceived Mercy House (out now in various digital formats from Hydra), but the imagery he conjures up in the book makes Quigley’s throwaway line pale in comparison.

Mercy House is a huge Gothic mansion that now serves as a nursing home for elderly residents. As the book opens, Don and Nikki Laurel arrive with Don’s mother, Harriet, in tow. Harriet is in the early stages of dementia, a condition that is particularly straining on her already complicated relationship with her daughter-in-law. The three are whisked around campus by a cloyingly chipper tour guide, a woman in expensive clothes who has had plenty of practice spinning even the most depressing elements of retirement home living into polished gold. The tour culminates in a dinner attended by several members of the staff and some of the higher- functioning residents – and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

Something has been brewing at Mercy House all day, something only the residents have been able to detect. Residents have been feeling stronger, fresher, and sharper than they have in years. One woman emerges from a months-long coma with surprising strength and a noticeable change in demeanor. But the changes go beyond helping these old, broken-down people feel better – they continue to evolve; their base instincts become amplified, and it doesn’t take long before any semblance of civility or self-control is abandoned.

The dinner erupts into a shocking bloodbath, and chaos simultaneously breaks out all over Mercy House. The residents soon form loose factions and begin hunting down the young, unaffected staff members for a variety of purposes: a group of military veterans seek to control the facility’s food and drug supply using brutal tactics; others roam the hallways
seeking to violently settle old feuds with staff members and fellow residents; another group, led by a woman known around Mercy House for her insatiable sexual appetite, heads down to the facility’s lower levels to indulge in more carnal pleasures.

I know I’m being almost coy in my descriptions here; rest assured that is not the approach the author takes. Cesare has always brought a cinematic feel to his writing, and Mercy House is no exception. Spilled blood, broken bones and geriatric sex are all unspooled with gleeful abandon by the author, who has yet to meet a taboo he’s afraid to describe in vivid terms.

But it should be noted that Mercy House marks another step forward for Cesare, who continues to hone the elements of his work that go beyond blood and guts. His pacing and characterization gets better with each new release, and there’s a growing maturity to his work that’s a joy to see. Cesare has written a lot of good horror in his short career; I think, eventually, he’s going to write something great. In the meantime, Mercy House is the kind of no-holds-barred thrill ride that horror junkies like us love to find. Download and digest it at your earliest convenience.