As you've probably seen from the social media posts as well as the front page of my website, I have another new novella coming out June 30. This one is called The Cut-Through. and you may be wondering what the hell is that about?
Well, writing this one reminded me a lot of writing my novella Strange Fruit and the Slender Man, which remains one of my scariest and best-reviewed stories of all time. If I had to point to one particular story that I felt someone who wanted to be creeped out should read - it would be that one. The one story that I think best represents the type of horror I really love, it would be that one.
I felt much the same way when I was writing The Cut-Through. It was a story bubbling in my head for a while. Not far from where I live, there really is a pathway cut through some backyards that connects by subdivision from another. This allows kids to run through to gt to school and back day in and day out. However, it's also weird. There are high fences on either side, and you feel like you're cutting right through their backyards. It's only twenty yards long, maybe? And yet it feels like transitioning from one world to another.
I would walk my dogs through it and it always just felt - odd. I knew there was a story here, but wasn't sure what. I had the basic idea. but it just didn't click. Then, suddenly, it all clicked into place.
I would say there are other comparisons to Strange Fruit. It starts off as a detective story. Two detectives again, this time investigating a young girl who vanishes while running through the titular cut-through. Like Strange Fruit, two detectives also investigate two missing girls, which just leads to a world of horror and supernatural terror.
The same thing happens in The Cut-Through. Three weeks after the little girl vanishes, a young woman in her twenties arrives, claiming to be the same girl. She has the same markings. scars and memories, but how could it be? And what has come back with her?
The Cut-Through ran out of me like water, onto the digital page. It builds and builds to what I hope readers will find to be a shattering, horrifying, conclusion.
I am so proud of this story and I truly feel this is one of the creepiest, scariest things I've written in a while. I hope you'll pre-order it now and leave some great reviews.
You can pre-order The Cut Through here. Also, listen to my sci-fi fiction podcast, Ovule, is out now.