Author: Christopher Golden

From New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden comes a high concept horror novel about a man trying to protect his dead mother's body from the evil that is hunting them.

Maggie Wise will take your eyes.

When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.

But they're not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer's cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie's demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.

From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way.

Publisher: Macmillan Publishers (MPS)
Published: 07/21/2026
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.06oz
Size: 9.25h x 6.12w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781250404527

About the Author
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling and Bram Stoker award-winning author of Ararat, Snowblind, Dead Ringers, and Of Saints and Shadows, among many other novels. He is the co-creator of two cult favorite comic book series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. He is also the editor of such anthologies as Seize the Night, The New Dead, and Dark Cities, and the co-host of the popular podcast "Three Guys with Beards." He lives in Massachusetts.