First published 2025
A man wanders through a surreal Halloween landscape in "Reflections in Black," pursuing traces of a former lover through shifting shadows and impossible geometries. In "The Parts Man," another protagonist strikes a fatal bargain with a mysterious figure who arrives in an ancient car, offering solutions that demand terrible payment. The dead gather outside a survivor's door in a post-apocalyptic world where the boundaries between life and death have dissolved. A Christmas wish transforms into nightmare in "Whatever You Want," while "Torn" plunges its subject into a hell crafted specifically for his sins. These twenty-one tales circle around mortality's gravitational pull. Tem constructs scenarios where grief becomes a living force, where aging reveals hidden horrors, and where the fear of death manifests in concrete, inescapable forms. The stories move between intimate psychological terror and cosmic dread, examining how humans respond when confronted with their own fragility and the certainty of loss.
Genres: horror, psychological-thriller, dark-fantasy, short-story-collection
Vibes: dark, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: psychological-horror, surreal
254 pages · Paperback · Valancourt Books
Content warnings: death