The House Inside

A chapbook. Cover art by Alan M. Clark.

A changed and merciless sun beats down upon a suburban backyard. A boy falls dead beneath its unforgiving rays... and his toys come to life.

A plastic cowboy and a rag-tag band of survivors set off in a miniature covered wagon, searching for answers as they cross the blistering wasteland that leads to the dead boy's house and the shadowy safety of the toybox they call home.

But the boy's house isn't empty, and it isn't a refuge. Other survivors wait inside – a squad of plastic soldiers, a porcelain ballerina, and a spider that hunts its prey in a dead little girl's dollhouse – all of them fighting a desperate battle of survival in a world where nothing that casts a shadow is safe.