In a single day, every child on Earth dies.
Then, three days later, they come back.
Suffer The Children is a 2014 horror novel by Craig Di Louie following the inhabitants of Lansdowne, a small American suburb, after an incident known as Herod's Event kills (and later resurrects) every child.
Although seemingly a miracle, it soon comes to pass that something far more insidious is happening...
This work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Downer Ending: The world collapses into a post-apocalyptic nightmare and there's no cure in sight.
- Hope Spot: Nadine's treatment. Note 'treatment'; not cure.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Herod's Event and later, Herod's Syndrome. Though the CDC finds a parasite responsible, this still doesn't answer how and why every human on Earth carried it and why it suddenly decided to 'switch on'.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Ultimately what the children become. The Herod parasite drives them to demand blood and will (re)kill them when it isn't provided. Even more obvious in the epilogue.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Initially played straight and later played with/subverted/inverted depending on how 'alive' one views the children to be.
