Colton Mathers

"HE WHO SPARETH THE ROD, HATETH HIS SON!"

- Colton Mathers justifies his evil punishment for the youths

Colton Mathers is the chairman of Black Spring town, the councilman of the titular HEX organisation and the main antagonist of Thomas Olde Huevert's 2013 novel HEX.

He is a formidable, delusional old religious fanatic who runs his town with a fist of iron. He means well, but goes to extreme lengths to protect his town and brutally punish those who break his strict rules.

Background
He became chairman of the HEX organisation earlier on before 2012 (the year in which the novel takes place) and was ruling the town with a fist of steel. Chairman of the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance's HEX committee, he kept a watchful eye for any goings on, normal or supernormal.

You see, it all started back in 1664, when an old lady named Katherine van der Wyler was accused of witchcraft for apparently resurrecting her son from the dead. The furious town elders confronted Katherine and made her kill her son again. Then they lynched her and thus a philosophy developed amongst the town: If you have to kill one of your children and spare the other, who would you chose?

Things only got worse when Katherine herself was reported walking the streets months after her execution. People became terrified of the ghost that stalked the streets, and thus HEX was created, to keep a watchful eye on the ghost of Katherine who walked the town and its countryside.

Biography
Colton Mathers is introduced along with other key characters, such as Peter Vandermeer, who is the exposition to (very rare) newcomers regarding Katherine's haunting, Robert Grim, who is one of the only good members of the entire town, and Marty, a technician working with the council. Colton is furious with Robert when three youths - Tyler Grant, Jaydon Holst and Burak - taunt, film and mock Katherine when she falls onto a lamp post. Her eyes and mouth had been stitched up and she had been wrapped up in a heavy seventeenth century chain by the town elders back in 1664, but this was before the town was found abandoned months later, so no one has tried to undo Katherine's chains or unstitch her eyes. In fact - this is Colton Mather's RULE NUMBER ONE: NEVER UNDO THE STITCHES. Otherwise, he fears, Katherine will unleash Biblical doom upon the town, and it is partly his fearmongering nature which eventually enrages and dooms the town. Because, being an utterly Puritannical Christian, he sees anything unGodly as evil and thus Katherine must be an evil witch.

Anyway, Colton is furious with Robert for how close Tyler, Jaydon and Burak came to revealing the witch to the world. Tyler has a YouTube channel and threatens to his concerned father Steve that he will upload it to the world and encourage scientists to come down to examine the discovery of the century. Tyler knows the town of Black Spring has a very strict Internet usage and thus keeps a blog, protected from HEX by a proxy, and chats with his friends about the witch and how much they hate the town. However, Colton eventually finds out about the blog when Jaydon and Burak remorselessly stone the witch one day in November and word gets out when two elderly residents die in heart attacks, as punishment from Katherine.

Colton storms into Jaydon's house and calls him horrible names such as "A little piece of shit" and then sentences him to their local prison, Doodletown, however, Jaydon's shocked mother Griselda hopes Doodletown is the worst of it. Knowing Black Spring, however, it isn't.

Enraged, Colton Mathers summons a town meeting and flaunts his weight around - he recites Biblical verses of doom and condemns Jaydon and his friends Burak and Justin Sawyer to a brutal public flogging, something straight out of the Seventeenth Century - and thus by far Colton's most evil and despicable act. He even convinces himself he is doing this barbaric act out of love, saying that because Jaydon was mature he deserves twenty lashes, but his underage friends can only get ten lashes.

During the brutal, horrific punishment, which takes place in the town square, Colton appoints Theo Stackhouse as the town executioner and Theo gleefully and sadistically practices with the brutal cat of nine tails beforehand. During the brutal punishment, Colton is watching proudly as the events unfold. Halfway through, when Jaydon is hanging limp, Katherine appears, scaring off half the townsfolk.

Colton is then proud of what he has done for his town and resumes normal duties as chairman. However, things suddenly take a turn for the bizarre when the Grant dog is killed by Katherine and Tyler kills himself and maims his brother, Matt. Matt is put in hospital, the mother Jocelyn goes insane, and Colton is furious when Steve is ordered, by Katherine, to cut her chains and undo her stitches, finally enabling her to do as she pleases.

Katherine's first move is to abduct the Hoffer children, and to treat them kindly as hers. She inadvertently makes half the town kill themselves due to causing a blackout when she is freed. All her pent-up power causes a blackout and stops water flow from working, thus plunging the town back into the Seventeenth Century. Despite Grim causing a spectacular firework signal, no one from the Hudson Highlands comes to their aid. Only a few lucky townspeople overcome the spell and leave town - they are never heard from again.

Colton Mathers attempts to keep order, but all the time a voice is whispering in his head that Hell is a fair price to pay for what the future holds, so, in total disregard to all his Christian upbringing, he jumps out of his upper-floor window, breaks all the bones in his body, and dies minutes later.

Personality
A cruel, cruel man, Colton Mathers ran the town as if it was still in 1664 and deeply feared witches, the Devil and anything unGodly. His deep-rooted superstition eventually got the best of him, as Katherine turned on him and used her dark powers to convince him to end his life.

He valued his own safety above all else, never even flinching at the thought of brutally punishing a young boy - in his own sick view, Mathers was doing this out of love and therefore doing the boy a favour. Mathers was a very intimidating individual and often spoke with passion and fervour, reminding Steve of an old-fashioned Hellfire-and-brimstone preacher.

Colton Mathers was a hypocrite, he preached suicide was evil, and yet this was what ultimately ended his life. Mathers was, initially, much admired in his town, but suddenly after his death he was denounced as an evil coward.