Close your eyes. Picture open plains, wheat stalks swaying gently in the wind. Picture the quaint Main Street of a one-stoplight town. Picture endless summers on sunny, tranquil lakes. With four provocative novellas, Kill Creek author and Kansas native Scott Thomas takes a hatchet to the idyllic tropes of the American heartland.

In The Door in the Field, Thomas follows a quarrelsome construction worker named Rayland Allen whose bad day becomes a far worse night when drinks at an off-the-books establishment deep in the woods set Ray down an unforeseeably bloody path.

In The Boy in the Woods, Thomas follows young Eddie Reicher, who lingers a day too long at summer camp as unholy terror creeps in. Something evil has infected the counselors. And Eddie will have to do everything he can—even kill—if he hopes to survive the night.

In One Half of a Child’s Face, Thomas follows the recently divorced Sienna Franklin. Spying on her daughter and ex-husband, she notices an odd painting hanging on the wall of an adjacent apartment. Over the course of the next few days, Sienna will watch with growing horror as the children in the apartment building begin to gather before the painting as if called to it.

And in Wear Your Secret Like a Stone, Thomas follows Tara Bright, whose low-stakes job at the Blatonville BuyBig superstore takes a turn when a mysterious customer complains about her book pick for the Halloween display. It soon becomes clear that the pagan totem within the pages of the book bears a remarkable resemblance to a forgotten artifact from Blatonville's history, and speaks to the darkness of Tara's own past.

With this collection, Thomas digs his hands into the soil of the American heartland and establishes himself as the master of Midwestern Gothic.