Smog - Baggage of Eternal Night (JournalStone's Doubledown)

The DoubleDown series continues with two novellas that cast mid-twentieth-century America in a dark light. In Smog, tomboy Joey thinks she's got the perfect life: It's 1965 and she lives in an idyllic Southern California suburb where everyone works for the aerospace industry. But when something goes wrong with a rocket test, the smog thickens and the teenagers change into rampaging killers. Can Joey survive long enough to escape the neighborhood before she joins their ranks? Joey Third will gamble on anything, but the old suitcase he wins at a baggage auction turns out to be a bad bet. Inside is a record player, and the song it repeats lures the listener to surrender to its mysterious voice. Charlie Stewart senses the music's intent, but can he find a way to turn it off forever, or will the cursed song possess the souls of all who listen?

About the Author

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert. Her work was described by the American Library Association's Readers' Advisory Guide to Horror as "consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening", and Famous Monsters called her "one of the best writers in dark fiction today". She began her career in Hollywood, co-writing the cult favorite Meet the Hollowheads (on which she also served as Associate Producer), but soon made a successful transition into writing short works of horror. After appearing in dozens of anthologies and magazines, including The Mammoth Book of Dracula, Dark Delicacies, The Museum of Horrors, and Cemetery Dance, in 2010 her first novel, The Castle of Los Angeles, was published to critical acclaim, appearing on numerous "Best of the Year" lists. Her book The Halloween Encyclopedia (now in an expanded second edition) was described by Reference & Research Book News as "the most complete reference to the holiday available," and Lisa has been interviewed on The History Channel, the Discovery Channel's series Perfecting History, and in The Wall Street Journal as a Halloween authority. She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, a recipient of the Black Quill Award, and winner of the 2012 Grand Prize from the Halloween Book Festival, and her most recent releases are the novel Malediction (Evil Jester Press) and the novellas Smog (Double Down #2) and Summer's End (both from JournalStone Publishing). A lifelong Californian, she lives in North Hollywood.Eric J. Guignard writes dark and speculative fiction from the outskirts of Los Angeles. This novella, Baggage of Eternal Night, was a finalist for the 2014 International Thriller Award. As an editor, Eric's published the anthologies, Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations and After Death..., the latter of which won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award®. Watch for many more forthcoming books, including Chestnut 'Bo (TBP 2015).

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