Persephone’s Escalator by Joe Taylor
Sley House Publishing, October 2024
The world is all we know, claims the philosopher Wittgenstein. But Professor Dean Kirby is painfully learning this is not so, for his new neighbor in the mid-state swamps of Florida has turned his wife into a zombie, has turned him into something taunted by a darkly evil alter ego, and she has driven his son into suicidal insanity. On top of this, she’s opened a cavern that leads to the primal murderer Cain on her creepy, statue-filled property.
Rumors persist those statues stalk the swamps nightly, and that they could have been involved in the sacrificial murder of a child. When the police prove to be no help, a strange airline attendant and her beguiling daughter with the oddest interest in ancient Egyptian mummification arrive, but even they might be too late to help Professor Kirby and his family.
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