A breathtaking collection of wonders and horrorsincluding robotic surrogate parents and zombie votersfrom a new acknowledged master of darkest fantasyWhether speculating on an all-too-possible future or plumbing the stygian depths of supernatural evil and human degradation, Dale Bailey's award-winning short fiction has been justifiably compared to the work of some of the true giants in the fieldRay Bradbury, Stephen King, and Theodore Sturgeon, to name but a few. In this first collection of astonishing stories, the acclaimed author of the modern horror masterworksThe FallenandHouse of Bonesdemonstrates his remarkable range with tales that exhilarate, terrify, and touch the soul.A young boy comes of age on a secluded farm that grows a particularly grisly crop. The dead rise up to cast their ballots in a close presidential election. An assassin plots his next kill from inside the body of someone frighteningly close to the victim. An African American census taker discovers a hidden bayou town where time has stopped at a nightmarish point in history. Bailey takes readers inside the tents of a circus of shadows and explores an expectant father's dark and terrible legacy for his unborn child. This extraordinary collection runs the gamut from fantasy to horror, from science fiction to heartbreaking reality, speaking in voices, old and young, that brilliantly capture the light and the darkness of their ingeniously imagined worlds.