"The Dread Doctors" is an in-story science fiction/horror novel appearing in MTV's Teen Wolf during Season 5.
It was written by Dr. Gabriel Valack under the pen name "T.R. McCammon" and details previous experiments on a group of teens by the Dread Doctors.
Within the context of the series, the book was published as fiction. Valack says he designed it so that anyone who read it would be mentally conditioned to remember the Dread Doctors.
Background[]
Valack tells Lydia Martin and Stiles Stilinski in A Novel Approach that he wrote the book because no one believed his earlier encounter with the Dread Doctors. He say he used a pseudonym for the book because he had to protect his professional reputation from the ruination of putting it on a "second rate piece of trash."
Effect on Readers[]
Valack explains that reading the book clears the memory centers of the brain and allows the reader to remember the Dread Doctors. He claims that, if you’ve seen them or if they’ve done something to you, the book will help you remember.
Anyone taken by the doctors would be able to remember after reading the book. He wrote the book in hopes of finding others like himself who had seen them before.
The Scott McCall Pack read the book in Required Reading in hopes of learning if they've been experimented upon or if there are any clues to help them fight the Doctors. Lydia, Scott, and Stiles all suffer flashbacks after reading the novel.
Kira Yukimura has the most difficult time reading the book due to her Kitsune's trouble with certain forms of language. Mason Hewett explains that the novel is just one big "language trick". After reading it backwards, Kira remembers her own encounter with the Dread Doctors in Ouroboros.
Text Presented Onscreen[]
Cover and Tagline[]
The Dread Doctors
by T.R. McCammon
A terrifying tale of science fiction and horror
Back Cover[]
In a small New England town, teenagers are taken in the night and buried alive. Days later they emerge transformed wreaking havoc and spreading terror, commanded by an ancient order of parascientists known only as the Dread Doctors.
Chapter Excerpts[]
It was her salvation.
As if she knew what Judy was thinking, Amy turned and hissed a challenge. Her jaw extended impossibly low, revealing rows of deadly fangs.
With a roar, Amy charged her friend. Judy swung the bat as hard as she could and connected with the side of Amy's head. The creature went down but was up again before Judy could react. In an instant the bat was out of her hands and clanging at her feet. Amy swiped her taloned hands ripping Judy's shirt and the skin beneath.
Judy cried out as she collapsed to the floor.
Before she knew it, Amy was on top of her, but not before Judy could get her foot up and under Amy's chest. Amy snarled and squirmed gnashing her teeth inches from Judy's face. With all of her might, Judy kicked as hard as she could sending Amy backwards against the concrete wall. Amy righted herself, looked back to Judy and..
Crack! Judy smashed the bat across Amy's face. Amy hissed and...
...the floor and roll away. Her chest rose and fell again and again as she sucked air into her lungs. As the adrenaline began to wear off, Judy felt her eyes sting with tears. She looked away from the twisted remains of the creature that was once her friend as a wail escaped her lips.
With a labored step, Judy turned toward the open door at the end of the walkway. Blood pounded in her ears every step of the way like the droning of a great cloud of bees. She pushed the door open until it clanged against the outside wall. Night air filled her lungs and for the first time in weeks Judy felt like everything was going to be all right.
She stepped outside into the darkness and ran like hell.