When the Night Comes Knocking

Lock the doors and live through the night... A quiet roadside convenience store, in the heart of Appalachia. The customers mind their own business, focused on the long journeys ahead of them. Until, that is, two men stumble in, one of them mutilated beyond recognition and claiming to have been attacked by a monster. At first, no one believes the man’s ravings, but then the next person to leave the store is brutally killed. And when, impossibly, he returns and begs to be let back in, it seems that a local legend might be true, There’s a beast in these mountains who can wear others’ faces and feasts on guilty hearts… and someone among them has lured it out of hiding. As the creature’s attacks become bolder, cracks start showing within the group. The dwindling survivors begin to turn on each other, desperate to save themselves by uncovering the guiltiest among them. If the group can’t band together and survive the night, they’ll surely become the monster’s next victims…or worse, become monsters themselves. © Katherine Daniel 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026