Demons, Dolls, & Milkshakes by Nelson W. Pyles

Retro Review

Demons, Dolls & Milkshakes by Nelson W. Pyles
Horror Fiction, 253 Pages
Amazon ♦ Goodreads

After years of watching horror movies, Kat Dougherty has learned one true thing about the supernatural.
Demons are dicks.

And the biggest dick of them all just showed up at her house, trapped inside an ugly six-inch doll. If there’s one thing that will piss off an unemployed, unhappy chain smoker more than anything, it’s a six-inch dick running amok in her house.
Maybe a little background first…

Kat returns home from getting creature comforts to ride out a snow storm in Pittsburgh. She has cigarettes, a milkshake, horror movies and an ugly little doll that was given to her by a friend. As she starts her first movie, the doll comes to life and begins to make demands for a new body to occupy. Being an irrational and desensitized girl, she flatly refuses. After all, what’s so scary about an ugly six inch doll?

The doll, who calls itself Stitch, tells Kat of how he came to be and where he came from; a place scarier than hell itself.

New Jersey

The demon who would become Stitch is conjured into the doll by a confused teenaged boy named Marty. Although technically this makes Marty a demon master, he has no idea of the power he has, or the kind of evil that kind of power attracts. Soon, people start dying and other demons show up, looking for Marty’s pet demon. All the while, Stitch looks for a way to transfer himself into a larger body or at least get the hell away from the kid he has to call ‘Master.’

As the body count rises and the demons circle ever closer, a creature that may or may not be the Almighty arrives to ‘fix’ everything. Which means horrible things for Stitch who finds himself stuck in the doll until he learns to be humble. An impossible task if you’re a demon like Stitch. 

Kat, taking pity on the sad little doll thingy, decides to help Stitch; a decision they both seem to regret almost instantly as once again, demons and evil minions start showing up at Kat’s house looking to destroy Stitch and anyone who might be helping him. 

See? Dicks. The whole supernatural lot of them.

Can Kat hold herself together to get through a day filled with demons, death, violence and extreme terror?

Only if there’s a milkshake waiting for her at the end of it. Maybe.

Who wouldn’t want a sarcastic little demon of their very own? Especially one who is at your beck and call, subservient to your every whim, small enough to stick in your pocket and who has the ability to inflict great pain and suffering upon those who have done you oh-so-wrong.

Image Courtesy of vamp1967.deviantart

I know you want one!

Martin is in possession of a book called “Raising Demons” and he and his two dim-witted acquaintances decide that raising a demon and forcing him inside a tiny, poorly constructed totem is a brilliant idea. Martin plans to use this demon for nefarious purposes such as ridding himself of his high school tormentors and such. Surprisingly Martin succeeds but now he’s gone and opened up a world of hurt and finds himself at the center of a demon feud. He’s still a miserable young fool but now he’s stuck with an annoying as hell demon too.

Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

My advice to angry, hurting teens everywhere? If you stumble across a book titled “Raising Demons” leave it be and call in the pros.

Bad things occur. Oh, such terrible, revolting things (cannibalism, mutilation, necrophilia and more!). These are demons, after all. Fortunately, the writing doesn’t linger long enough on those horrible things to disturb one too deeply. It’s all written a little tongue in cheek, splashed with a good amount of gore and a whole lotta “you get what you wished for, sucker!” and I liked it quite a bit. The characters are lively and most of them are very sarcastic and that’s always a win in my book.

I’m a hard sell when it comes to funny though. I may snicker at silliness and human follies but laughing at words on a page doesn’t happen often for me. Most of the story was amusing when it wasn’t busy being horrifying but it didn’t make me spit out my coffee or laugh like a loon. But there’s this one scene where the little demon decides to be a nosy mofo and goes through a female characters text messages just because he’s a jerk. He soon realizes that he messed with the wrong girl and it was Hilarious. Totally made the entire book for me.

This was a fun, nasty little adventure filled romp and If you like such things something might be wrong with you but who am I to judge? Check it out.