"J.S. is leaving her footprints on a path blazed by luminaries such as M.R. James, Robert Aickman, Tanith Lee, Kelly Link, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Jeff VanderMeer, Gustave Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, Daphne DuMaurier, Leonora Carrington and Charlotte Bronte, to name but a few." -Angela Slatter, Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories, Vigil, and Corpselight A collection of twelve of J.S. Breukelaar's darkest, finest stories with four new works, including the uncanny new novella "Ripples on a Blank Shore." Introduction by award-winning author, Angela Slatter. Relish the Gothic strangeness of "Union Falls," the alien horror of "Rogues Bay 3013," the heartbreaking dystopia of "Glow," the weird mythos of "Ava Rune," and others. This collection from the author of American Monster and the internationally acclaimed and Aurealis Award finalist, Aletheia , announces a new and powerful voice in fantastical fiction.

"- Mommy? Are you there?

- Norma?

- Is everything all right?

- Everything's fine. I just want to go home is all.

- Where are you?

- I already told you.

- Tell me again.

- Outside a pharmacy on the coast. It's almost dawn and I'm barefoot.

- Barefoot?

- I don't know if he's the guy.

- When you find the guy, you can come home.

- I know. It's just, the longer I'm here the more it...

- it hurts?

- And it's just that we dropped I don't know how many pills. Couldn't you just come get me? You can drop me back, okay? I just need a break. I'd like to see

to hold, to touch, to have

to be"

In the beginning, KALI I8 created Norma (a network operation requiring minimal access) with a singular goal: bring back the horn of the perfect male.

Spill City: the coast of a near-future California, newly broken from the continental United States. In a temporary calm between storms, Norma combs the exposed intestines of the human world for the Guy. The Guy, the horn, is the only way home. If home exists. If home ever existed.

The longer Norma stays, the harder it is to remember.

She is a woman, a mother, a harbinger, a vessel, a tool, a program. She can be written and unwritten over and over again until something, someone, sticks.

And people, humans, are starting to stick.

Mommy is not pleased.