Route 666 is a comic series by CrossGen Entertainment. It follows the adventures of Cassie Starkweather, a college student who enters The Masquerade when, after the accidental death of a friend, she starts seeing ghosts. Her ability to see and converse with the dead is shortly followed by an ability to see monsters, or rather to see the true form of monsters pretending to be normal people. She is put into a mental institution after the trauma, but finds out that the institution is run by the monsters.
Escaping the institution, Cassie kills a few of these monsters. Unfortunately, once dead, they revert to human form, and she is now pursued not only by monsters and dark ghosts, but also by the police as a psychopathic killer.
Not to be confused with the 2001 horror film or the episode of Supernatural about a demonic truck.
Route 666 provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Rodina has developed "necro-nuclear" weapons technology, some of which apparently involves missiles with a demonic payload.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: A Dark Spirit tries this in Cassie's mind, but is defeated right at the get-go.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: When first meeting the circus people, Cassie wishes she could forget this whole horrible mess. Due to Galina's machinations, her wish is granted, placing her in terrific danger.
- Creepy Twins: The Twins, a pair of circus freak sisters with Psychic Powers and Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Defcon 5: Used correctly. After Cassie's stunt, the threat level is said to be at "threatcon 2", one level away from firing the missiles.
- Elite Mooks: Chairwoman Byleth and the board of directors of Harlequin Healthcare company; unlike lesser mooks, they're Immune to Bullets.
- Fate Worse than Death: In Braathewaate's moment of You Have Failed Me, he attempts to explain the circumstances. The Adversary then says Braathewaate can give half of his explanation, the Adversary will eat him whole, and he can give the other half when he comes out the other side. It's unclear whether this is enacted (or even practical) or just a bizarre, gruesome threat.
- Fauxreigner: Granted, Braathewaate technically is rather foreign (being from Hell), but he spends most of his appearances speaking with a fake Scottish Funetik Aksent.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The ghost of Cassie's grandfather turns out to be some other mysterious, albeit benevolent entity, who took her grandfather's form from her memory.
- Game Face: When killing, it's organization policy for perdition mooks to drop their human "day face" in favor of their Game Face. Some of them have their own unique forms, but a lot of them base their Game Faces off of monsters from horror movies.
- Government Agency of Fiction: The National Bureau of Investigation serves as this setting's version of the FBI
- Impersonating an Officer: Byleth and her board of directors pose as NBI agents in an attempt to take custody of Cassie.
- Invisible to Normals: The ghosts and other paranormals can't be seen by anyone other than Cassie.
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): In this world, the People's Republic of Rodinanote is the apparent counterpart to Communist Russia.
- Mind Rape: Cassie makes a Serial Killer relive his first murder from the perspective of the victim.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Melchior and Dr. Mastiphal, and probably many others, since agents of Perdition tend to infiltrate occupations that put them in close proximity to the dying, so they can harvest their souls.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Dr. Mastiphal
, Dr. Melchior, head of the Melchior Asylum; Harlequin Healthcare Chairwoman Byleth, and board members Mictlan, Naamah, and Damballa.
- Self-Made Orphan: Berkely. He did away with his own father.
- Stock Parodies: Issue #16's cover parodies American Gothic Couple; #19's parodies Uncle Sam Wants You; #20's is based on Soviet propaganda; #21's parodies the Coppertone girl ad.
- Technical Pacifist: The Twins refuse to use their powers to kill, even when it comes to murderous monsters. They are however perfectly fine with mindwiping one survivor to forget his true nature and join the circus as a Geek (a performer who does disgusting acts like biting the heads off chickens and eating vile things).
- Waif Prophet: The Twins of the Potterfield Circus have microcephaly and a variety of Psychic Powers.
- Wolf Man: Many Mooks base their Game Faces on The Wolf Man (1941); one of the members of the Potterfield Circus is a non-supernatural wolf boy who looks that way because of a gland condition.
- The Worm That Walks: Elite mook Naamah transforms into hordes of leech-like creatures and bees.
- You No Take Candle: When speaking English, all but one Rodinan character speaks like this, in addition to occasionally using Gratuitous Russian.
