Stranger Words

A song that turns people into maniacs, a terrified street where only one child is allowed to trick 'r treat, a broken man who is slowly turning into a Christmas tree, or a ghost with no home left to haunt. These are strange and frightening things, and the words needed to describe them must be stranger and more frightening still because who knows when such horrors might show up at your own door...

Here are fourteen new stories of the unsettling and weird from Jef Rouner (The Rook Circle), eight of which have never been published before. Presented with an intent for teaching people new ways to talk about the most monstrous of circumstances, the collection mixes empathy with the macabre to create a new, dark language. Prepare to define terror.