Libbie Milligan is stuck. She works a dead-end job at a motel, tends to her agoraphobic mother, and tries not to think about her sister's murder from sixteen years ago. When a mysterious woman shows up to work at the motel, she befriends Libbie and turns her world upside down. Sometimes the answers come from the most unexpected places.Also includes the following stories:"Kill Your Neighbor""We Don't Talk About Her""Discovering the Shape of My Skull""...

From Dust Bowl freakshows to modern day existential horror, Deathtripping collects thirty-five short stories written over a twenty-year period. Disturbing, provoking, surreal, absurd, and bitingly morbid, these stories are invitations to a world that wants to swallow the reader whole.Contains the following stories:ROOM 19 • MARKET ADJUSTMENT • THE DUST SEASON • THE MAN WITH THE FACE LIKE A BRUISE • THE PHOTOGRAPHER • THE FUNERALGOER • THE NIGHT THE MOON MADE A SOUN...

When three friends receive a startlingly incoherent invitation to a "Reeyoonyun" they seize upon it to break up the monotony of their middle-aged lives. The host, one of their old friends, seems battered and out of it. The maid acts like a weird robot. The host confesses the house might not actually be his. Over the course of a tense, bizarre evening, the friends soon realize the invitation was to something much more sinister than a reunion: the past. Twenty-five years ago, in 1993, the gr...

A private detective joins an insane search for a missing person who's looked upon with something like spiritual awe. A young woman is taken hostage in a deranged plot by a very severe man. Two guys named Cobra and Rambo chug gasoline and help their friend build robots to save the world because the world is no longer theirs. It belongs to the slug-like maggots that came from the sky, burrowing inside people, consuming their insides, turning them against one another, and evolving at an alarm...

Clint is a laughable stalker who lives in a hoard with his decaying mother. Stella is his current fascination, but Clint has no idea what kind of woman Stella is. She's playing a lifelong game and only she knows the rules. Now she's made a wrong move and finds herself at Clint's house, victim to his perverse attentions and bizarre behavior. Is it the perfect place to hide from her past or an insane prison from which she may never escape?

A retired man loses his wife to cancer and his daughter to a mysterious accident. He mostly lives alone, occasionally taking care of his grandson. When he sees a black van drive over a young woman before disappearing into the dark of night, he loses what little faith he has in humanity and discovers a sense of vengeful purpose. Now he's in danger of losing himself to long-repressed demons and a terrifyingly bizarre world that has always surrounded him, a world he's spent his entire life ke...

Who will become enlightened and what will be left of them?Scott Champion knows the meaning of life. And his life is great. He has everything a guy like him could want: a beautiful wife, a precocious daughter, a nice house in the perfect location, a great paying job that's so easy he doesn't even know what he really does, and a trust fund to help with his long-term goals. If he has a problem, it's other people, not himself. He's as surprised as anyone when he downloads the ...

Ryan Noman is stuck in a house on a dead end street in a dying city, a loveless relationship, and a job where the owner challenges his employees to fights in the parking lot. He also has a mystery rash. When Ryan's best friend, Gus, convinces him they need to contaminate the source of the artisanal bottled water facility where they work, Ryan goes along with it because, hey, what else is he going to do? This proves to be another bad choice in an increasingly lengthening list of bad choices...

This collection of short stories by author Andersen Prunty features "Room 19", a post-apocalyptic nightmare based on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' song "From Her to Eternity", appearing for the first time anywhere, and "Market Adjustment", about one man's battle with the wealthy, previously available only in a very limited edition. Also includes: "The Dust Season", "The Man With the Face Like a Bruise", "The Photographer", "The Night the Moon Made a Sound", and "The Funeralgoer."

Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They move in together and start a new life. They're beautiful and they have new things, expensive things, the best of everything, whatever they want. But that's only the surface. Beneath the surface is something much different. Something much darker. Theirs is a love like no other and only one of them will survive it.

A pocket guide to the twenty-three most painful things in life, written by the most well-adjusted man in the universe.Does it make you sad to be alive?Boo-hoo. You're living all wrong.My name is Andersen Prunty. I'm happiest while napping. I am a man with tennis shoes. They get older every time I put them on. This is how I deal with the pain of being alive. Now is our chance to deal with our pain together. You'll thank me later.Love and euphoria,Ander...

The papers call it "The Suicide Virus." The teenagers of Gethsemane, Ohio, are killing themselves at an alarming rate.Steven Wrigley is trying to survive his senior year of high school, still reeling from the death of his mother and adjusting to life with his father. Along the way, he meets a girl who becomes another kind of obsession: Elise Devon.Elise's secrets keep her distanced from everyone. She has a special place she calls the Obscura. She goes there when she is depr...