Little baby psychopaths who had found their bloodthirsty niche while young, like Manson girls, but with better weapons.Īnd they were part of the local folklore, naturally. Sharp eyed men in expensive jeans, or monsters barely turned twenty, downy faced and bulging with government firepower and insignias. If you walked into any one of the handful of far flung diners around here, you could meet them over a cheeseburger. Blank spaces were good news for monsters, and there were plenty of them drawn to this one. While Arturo didn’t believe in the white draped women said to walk, weeping tears of blood, along the side of the highway, he knew in his bones that there were bodies dumped out here. People made up stories about this blank space of California desert, some based in fact, others pure nonsense. People thought themselves very sophisticated these days, but they were only a handful of dinners and smart phones away from hairy, nervous huddled figures sitting around a fire in the dark.

Once you passed that point where the phone signals blinked out, and kept on driving into the darkness, the ghosts came pouring back in. There was something about no longer being under constant electronic surveillance (sinister enough in Arturo’s opinion) that made people revert to much older anxieties. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.Ĭover photography by Tony Marturano, licensed by Shutterstock.Īmazon * Twitter * Booksprout * NewsletterĪrturo had heard all the stories about this stretch of desert.

Making Magic by Jess Whitecroft