Something Is Killing the Children is a 2019 ongoing monthly comic book series created by writer James Tynion IV and artist Werther Dell'Edera and published monthly by Boom! Studios, beginning in September 2019. The series centers around Erica Slaughter, who hunts down monsters killing children, and the secret society to which she belongs.
Plot summary The Archer's Peak Saga (Something Is Killing the Children #1–15) In Archer's Peak, a small town in Wisconsin, children begin to vanish and turn up dead, their bodies mutilated in horrific ways. Erica Slaughter, a mysterious woman with pale blond hair, big green eyes, and a small stuffed octopus, arrives in town, seeking a monster adults can't see. Erica is part of the Order of St. George, and one of their black masks, solo hunters trained to locate and kill monsters, and gifted with the ability to see them into adulthood. She meets James, a young boy and the lone survivor of an attack that massacred his friends, and reveals to him the truth behind their deaths and the deaths of the other children in the town, reluctantly allowing him to help her kill the monster. Their mission is complicated by a local restaurant worker Tommy Mahoney, whose sister Sophie is among the missing children and presumed dead, who becomes suspicious of Erica and James and follows them to a monster den. There, he finds Sophie's body among the corpses of the other children, and inadvertently shoots James while trying to attack Erica, believing her to be responsible. Erica stabs him with special gold, allowing him to see monsters, and they are able to kill it in the den and rescue Bian, a small girl and the only survivor in the cave. Bian then reveals that the monster they killed was the mother and that it had five babies who will also need to feed.
While Erica is focused on saving the children, the Order of Saint George is far more interested in keeping their organization a secret, willing to kill the locals if need be, sending Erica's fellow black mask Aaron to the town to cover up her breaking of the Order's rules by allowing a civilian to see the monsters. Aaron initially attempts to kill Tommy, but is convinced by Erica to help defend Archer's peak, and he is ripped apart by the monster children. In response, the head of the Chicago Order, the Dragon, dispatches Cecilia, leader of the House of Slaughter's white masks, to the town to apprehend Erica. Tommy and the local sheriff, Joe, have the townspeople hide in the school gym from the monsters while Erica has James and Bian act as bait to draw them away. Erica is able to kill the monster children, and calls off Cecilia and the white masks, who are planning to kill the locals in order to keep their organization secret. Tommy falsely confesses to murdering the children, forcing Joe to arrest him but satisfying the Order, who leave the town with a sizeable anonymous donation to rebuild. Erica meets with the Dragon and insists that more people and children would have died if not for her actions. She refuses his offer to lead the black masks of the House of Slaughter and renounces the Order altogether, departing on a bus.
Me and My Monster (Something Is Killing the Children #16–20) In a flashback arc, a young Erica nearly succeeds in killing a powerful monster that killed her parents and best friend. She is aided by Jessica, a black mask hunter from the Order, who shows up and seals the monster inside her stuffed octopus toy, Octo. Seeing promise in her, Jessica goes against protocol and brings Erica with her, requesting that she is given the chance to join the Order's ranks. Gary, one of the azure masks, prepares an induction ritual, though everyone aside from Aaron believe that Erica will not be strong enough to survive the trial. In her mind, the monster trapped inside Octo tries to deceive Erica and consume her while she fruitlessly searches for a way to save her family. Remembering that they are already dead, Erica stands up to the monster, passes the trial, and is inducted into the House of Slaughter, the branch of the Order based in Chicago, Illinois.
The Tribulation Saga (Something Is Killing the Children #21–35) Since going rogue from the Order, Erica has travelled around the country hunting monsters and protecting children with the help of Gary, who has been secretly covering her tracks and feeding her information. She travels to Tribulation, New Mexico, and forms an uneasy alliance with Gabi, a young girl whose entire family were torn apart by a shapeshifting monster, and Riqui, the girlfriend of Gabi's sister. The House of Slaughter hire the ruthless and sadistic assassin Charlotte Cutter, a black mask from England, to kill Erica. Determining that she must be getting help, Charlotte kills Gary and tracks Erica to Tribulation, where she captures a local child and allows the monster to kill him, forcing it to change shape into a copy of Erica. Charlotte poses as an Interpol agent and has the sheriff, Carter Thomas, arrest Erica for the murders of Gabi's family before killing several policemen and forcing Erica to flee before the monster kills again.
The Dragon tells Cecilia that he doesn't have long to live and that she must make a move if she wants to take over the House of Slaughter. He explains that the Order is aware that Charlotte will one day make a mess too big for them to cover up, and suggests that they will be satisfied if Charlotte is killed and Erica is convinced to return to the fold. Cecilia travels to Tribulation and gives Erica a special poison that will kill the shapeshifter and will cause Charlotte to die in agony, as revenge for killing Gary. She also tells Erica that, if she were to provide enough evidence to suggest she has died, Cecilia will have no cause to continue pursuing her when she becomes the next Dragon. A deranged Charlotte strikes just as Gabi and Riqui draw the shapeshifter to them and, though Erica is able to kill Charlotte after a brutal fight, she has already used some of the poison to infect Gabi. In an act of bravery, Gabi allows the monster to bite her, and it immediately dies from the poison in her bloodstream. Cecilia uses the corpse of the monster, still in Erica's form, to convince the Order that she and Charlotte killed each other, and encourages Carter to pin Tribulations deaths on her as well. Grief-stricken, Riqui swears that she will kill Erica for allowing Gabi to die.
Road Stories (Something Is Killing the Children #36-40)
An arc composed of a series of one-shot stories from Erica's time as a member of the Order: Erica and Aaron hunt a rare monster that was created from a puppy's fear. In Flat Rock, South Dakota, Erica kills a monster created by a little girl in a grocery store. She tells the employees that she was duty-bound to kill any "loose ends" to keep the Order a secret, but that Jessica trained her with empathy and that she will allow them all to live as long as they don't tell anyone what they saw. Two girls find an injured Erica in their treehouse and are told by Octo about the existence of monsters. He offers to teach them how to hunt them while Erica's wounds are tended to by their older sister. When Erica wakes up, she tells the girls she was drunk and passed out, and encourages them to forget that they ever encountered her. She calls Aaron and tells him there's no need to send anyone from the Order, and then berates Octo for his machinations. Erica visits a therapist and discusses the impact of Jessica's death from alcoholism, and her inability to regulate her emotions. The therapist tells her that strong emotions like sadness and anger are a tool used by the brain to help us to remember people. Erica is consoled by Aaron after a particularly challenging hunt which brings up old memories of Jessica and resulted in the accidental death of a young girl.
All Her Monsters (Something Is Killing the Children #41–) A flashback arc set during Erica's childhood as a new inductee working under Jessica. Aaron contacts Erica, demanding to know the status of their latest mission and telling her that he's receiving increasing pressure from Cecilia to provide an update. Erica has started covering for Jessica, who is overworked as the sole adult black mask in the House of Slaughter and descending further into alcoholism, and is killing monsters on her behalf. Cecilia sends them to Valmont Mountain House, a ski resort where she, Jessica, and their mentor Adelaide had a traumatic experience in their youth. The resort's owner, Mr. Wheeler, is reluctant to close the resort despite the deaths of several children. When a young girl, Bex, is the sole survivor of another attack bringing the total number of victims to nine, Jessica poses as a member of the FBI while Erica speaks with teenage staff members Max and Barney. Adelaide grants Aaron access to the files on the Valmont mission, while Cecilia and Gary travel to check up on Jessica. Erica and Jessica argue, with Jessica telling her that she's allowed her to remain on her apprenticeship despite having already made her first kill because she knows she is struggling to let go. Erica retorts that Jessica has been so drunk that she doesn't even know which monsters she's killed herself and which Erica had to kill for her. Octo uses Erica's fear over Jessica's death to draw out the monsters, which allows Erica and Jessica to fight them off together. A flashback to the previous mission to Valmont shows that young Cecilia killed a child to protect the Order, devastating Jessica and enraging Adelaide. When Cecilia and Gary arrive, Cecilia recruits Bex into the Order instead of killing her.
Development and publication history In June 2019, Boom! Studios announced SIKTC as a five-issue limited horror series (with artist Werther Dell'Edera) to debut that September.
Something Is Killing the Children #1 was released on September 4, 2019. The publisher upgraded the title from a limited series to an ongoing monthly book before issue #1 was in shops.
Spinoff titles Something Is Killing the Children (SIKTC) spurred a franchise that Tynion and his readers call the "Slaughterverse". In May 2021, Boom Studios released the one-shot Enter the House of Slaughter as part of Free Comic Book Day, which was set during the first six issues of the main series and functioned as an introduction to the House of Slaughter series.
House of Slaughter launched in October 2021 and ran for thirty issues through February 2025. The series alternated between two storylines: one focusing on Jace Boucher, rogue black mask, and the other on a group of red, blue, and white masks within the House of Slaughter.
On December 28, 2022, the first of three oversized one-shots in the Books of Slaughter series was published. The series focused on Maxine Slaughter's shifting from a white mask to a black mask, including spending time at the House of Butcher in New Orleans and the House of Cutter in London. Book of Slaughter #1 was followed by Book of Butcher #1 on December 27, 2023, and Book of Cutter #1 on January 29, 2025.
In September 2024, a prequel to the Archer's Peak saga, Something Is Killing the Children #0, was released with a House of Cutter violet mask investigating Erica's monster hunting activities.
A one-shot titled A Monster Hunter Walks Into A Bar was released on October 8, 2025. Originally serialized across six issues of Hello Darkness, the one-shot collects the stories perspectives of different people who had encountered the victims of a monster Erica recently killed.
On May 6, 2026, the first issue of the four-part miniseries Fall of the House of Slaughter was released. The miniseries was previewed in the 2026 Comic Give Away Day one-shot Road to Slaughter and picks up with where Book of Cutter ended with a focus on machinations within the House of Slaughter and who will succeed the ailing old dragon as leader of the house.