These 23 stories blend science and horror, hard realism and the otherworldly, myth and the everyday grotesque. A teenage girl bonds with her estranged mother over a mutual love of slasher films; employees are literally and metaphorically trapped in their corporate office as a mysterious creature roams outside the building; and a family battles over the cremated remains of the patriarch at a rattlesnake roundup. These stories are brutal, fearless, and oftentimes funny.