Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife: A Novel - Hardcover

Tynion IV, James; White, Kiersten

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593799380 ISBN 13: 9780593799383

Verlag: Crown, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

Welcome to the dark. It has very sharp teeth.

Based on the internationally bestselling comic series, with millions of copies in print,​ the first full-length novel from the terrifying world of Something Is Killing the Children—a stunning collaboration between Eisner-winning co-creator James Tynion IV and #1 New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White

“Tynion and White reveal that, yes, there is something even worse than killer demons. A small-town horror that packs a dark, nightmarish gut-punch.”—Matt Kindt, New York Times bestselling author, Harvey Award–winner, and co-creator of the BRZRKR series

As a Black Mask, Erica Slaughter has a very straightforward job: find the monster, kill the monster, then do it all again. But when she arrives in Badwater, Idaho, nothing is simple. She can’t determine whether the horrific killer of a twelve-year-old was a bear, a person, or something much worse. Complicating matters is the charismatic doomsday preacher who is quickly leading the small town to the verge of hysteria. If Erica wants to save the surviving children, she has to figure out which kid’s fears might have summoned a monster—and fast. Erica must get to the truth before the Order and the town come to the same conclusion: to stop the monster, you have to kill the girl.

Hope Is a Knife is a chilling, original tale in SIKTC lore, where monsters are real and only the hunters of the Order of St. George are equipped to challenge them. Whether or not you’ve already devoured the Eisner Award–winning comics, this standalone vision of supernatural horror is a thrill ride of the highest order.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Tynion IV is an Eisner Award-winning, New York Times bestselling writer and publisher of comic books. He is best known for co-creating hit horror comics series like Something Is Killing the Children, The Nice House on the Lake, and The Department of Truth. He is also the writer of young adult adventure series like multiple GLAAD Media Award-nominated Wynd and the GLAAD Media Award winner The Woods. He spent ten years writing various Batman titles at DC Comics, where he co-created exciting new characters like Punchline and Ghost-Maker. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Kiersten White is the #1 New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award–winning, and critically acclaimed author of dozens of books for readers of all ages, including The House of Quiet, the And I Darken trilogy, Star Wars: Padawan, Lucy Undying, and The Fox and the Devil, as well as Hide and Mister Magic and their graphic novel adaptations. She lives in San Diego with her family and their surly tortoise, Kimberly.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

“What happened to your face?” Mitali asked with genuine sympathy.

Cole couldn’t, wouldn’t accept sympathy. Not from anyone, but especially not from that freak.

“What happened to yours?” he sneered back.

Mitali, as usual, was too stupid to know when she was being insulted. She never reacted the way he wanted her to. When she showed up with buzzed hair and he called her a boy, she’d just shrugged and said hair was hair. When he made fun of her big anime tees, she said he’d probably like Naruto if he gave it a chance and invited him over to watch it. As if he’d ever go to her house.

But Cole wasn’t going to give up. Not today. He needed to hurt her for caring. Because when people cared, it made it worse. It made it real.

“If someone hit you,” Mitali said, “you should tell a trusted adult. If you don’t have one, you can talk to—”

“Shut the f*** up, loser!”

That got a reaction. They weren’t allowed to swear at school, not even at recess or lunch, when they mostly just sat around and listened to Dylan drone on about whatever video game he was playing lately. As sixth graders, they were all too old for the playground now, a fact that made Cole sad. He wanted nothing more than to play four square, tag, wallyball, anything that let him run around and not have to think for a few minutes.

Mitali’s expression cooled. She narrowed her round brown eyes, tilting her chin up. “I was just trying to be a friend.”

“If you need a friend, go be friends with Charity-case over there.” Cole pointed at Charity, sitting nearby on a bench in the shade, hands clasped in front of her. As usual, she was in a faded floral dress that looked like it came out of a donation bin. Her blonde hair was in those two braids he’d tugged on more times than he could count. He wished he could grab them now and pull as hard as he could, just to feel something. “No one wants to be friends with her, either. You two would be perfect for each other.”

Color rose in Mitali’s cheeks. “Leave her alone.”

Cole felt a mean spike of triumph. He could make fun of Mitali and she didn’t care, but she cared if he talked shit about creepy Charity. Charity wasn’t fun to tease. She just did that thing where she went blank and muttered words to herself that he couldn’t quite make out. But if Charity was a sore spot for Mitali, he’d stick his thumb in and press as hard as he could.

He raised his voice to make sure Charity could hear him. “Why? Is Charity your girlfriend? Is that why you’re trying to become a boy? So you can date her?”

Charity flinched even further into herself, like she wanted to blend in with the bench. The other kids had started gathering now. There were five of them in their grade. Used to be six.

Mitali rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to become a boy. I’m just being who I am. Everyone should be.”

“I bet Sarah’s glad to be dead.” Cole threw each word like a rock. “At least now she doesn’t have to pretend to like Charity.”

Charity closed her eyes and put a hand over her mouth, letting out a low, pathetic noise. It was satisfying, in the way scratching a bug bite was—euphoric and painful at the same time. Cole didn’t know why he felt driven to be mean to Charity. But he knew why he wanted to make Mitali cry. She thought she was better than him. Better than all of them. She wasn’t, and she never would be, and he’d show her.

Mitali stepped right up to Cole, jabbing him in the chest with her gross finger. “You’re a pathetic little worm and you’ll never be happy. But you still don’t deserve whatever happened to your face, so just come talk to my dad about it and we can—”

Mitali staggered back, hand over her nose. It was spurting blood. Cole’s own hand was still in a fist. He stared at it in shock. It was numb, but he could tell it would hurt soon. He hadn’t meant to hit her. It was like time had skipped. Like someone else did it.

He really didn’t mean it. Didn’t want to see her crying, after all. But he couldn’t say any of that.

“I’ll kill you if you ever talk to me again, you f***ing freak,” he shouted. Then he ran. There was a gap in the fence at the back of the weed-strewn baseball diamond. He darted through it into the trees that surrounded the school.

Cole had hit a girl. That meant the principal’s office. Principal O’Neill would be on his own kid’s side, obviously, but that wasn’t who Cole was afraid of. He’d have to sit there with his dad next to him, knowing he’d made him get up from his chair and come to the school, knowing what would be waiting when they got home.

Never hit a girl, his dad had said to him last year. If you can’t get them to obey without hitting them, they already know you’re weak.

But he wasn’t trying to get Mitali to obey. Just to shut up and stop looking at him like he was broken. Besides, Mitali didn’t even count as hitting a girl. Not really. He knew exactly what his dad thought of her and her mom, referring to Mrs. O’Neill as “that foreign bitch.” Maybe he’d even be proud that Cole hit Mitali. His son, standing up for the rest of the town against the invaders.

But the fact that Cole hadn’t slowed, pushing deeper and deeper into the forbidden trees, was proof enough that he didn’t really believe what he was telling himself. The best he could do was avoid pissing Dad off, but that was getting harder lately. A call to sit in front of Principal O’Neill? Cole couldn’t even imagine how angry Dad was going to get.

And what if Mitali came to the meeting, too, and brought up Cole’s black eye in front of the principal? Their teacher, a grouchy woman who made a daily two-hour drive to teach grades four through six, hadn’t so much as glanced at it. What story could he tell that would reassure an adult who actually paid attention?

Cole stopped. The thick ferns were starting to trip him up. He’d lost his usual path, and the cedar trees felt menacing. Like anything or anyone could be behind their thick trunks. After Sarah died a year ago, all the grownups decided that no kids were supposed to play in the woods anymore. Some of the parents actually enforced it. But Cole had never stopped.

He came here nearly every afternoon, lying on his back beneath the ferns, sometimes until it got dark. He pretended their leaves were a roof and he was a wild thing safely burrowed away. He’d imagine finding Sarah out here. That she’d never really died, she’d just been hiding the whole time. She’d smile and show those dimples he always liked as she suggested they hide together forever.

Any future Cole used to picture included Sarah. Out here in the woods, he could pretend she still had a future. Pretend he had one, too.

Besides, he’d do anything to spend a little more time away from home with the crack of beer cans and the constant threat of pain. These were his woods. He was safe here.

“I’m safe,” he whispered. The lie tasted bright and coppery, like blood. He crouched, pressing his forehead against his knees, trying to be anywhere else, be anyone else. He imagined he was back on the playground, playing tag. Like they used to when they were little, back when Sarah was still alive, before he knew that kids could be gone forever. Her death was when he learned to be truly afraid. When he realized that one of these days, Dad could just . . . kill him.

A soft rustling sound snapped Cole back to the present. He stood, wiping under his eyes, clenching both hands into fists. Maybe Mitali had followed him, but creeping quietly didn’t seem like her. And if it was her, and she was being that sneaky, she wasn’t here to make sure he was okay. She was here to hurt him back.

He waited, ready for the attack. But his heart didn’t stop racing. It picked up. His breath kept catching, like it wanted to stay safe and hidden inside the cage of his bones.

There weren’t any other kids out here. Cole knew it the same way he knew these woods.

“I’m safe, I’m safe,” he tried to whisper again, but even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. His body had realized something his brain hadn’t yet. At last, it clicked: There was no noise now.

The forest was never quiet. Birds chirping and scratching the forest floor, tiny things skittering, the hum and drone of air heavy with summer insects. It was like someone had hit pause on the television. Nothing was more dangerous than when Dad hit pause and turned to look at him.

Cole needed to run. He tried to whisper it to himself, tried to scream it at himself, but he’d been so trained to freeze that he couldn’t help it now. Besides, he couldn’t feel his hands or his feet.

He was going to be just like Sarah, here and then gone. Instead of dread, though, relief descended on him. He’d been so afraid of dying. Of wondering when it would happen, what it would feel like, whether anyone would care.

He was going to get at least a few of those answers now. He waited, trembling, for his dad to break free of the trees. Because Cole had always known the truth. There was only one person in Badwater capable of ripping a girl to pieces, and Cole lived with him. Now Cole would die because of him.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Crown
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593799380
• ISBN 13: 9780593799383
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Libri GmbH; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; Hessen; Deutschland