Faces in the Dark

Book excerpt: A girl begins to question why she and her parents wear monstrous masks they have never, ever taken off, though she may have been better off not knowing. An insomniac spends every night watched by a dark, silent figure in the bedroom, and while this figure disappears by morning, he seems to be growing stronger and bolder. It turns out that when things go missing, spidery little creatures with the missions of disarray and madness, gathering and harvesting are to blame; humanity has deeply wronged them, and between their antics they’ve been planning a much more sinister revenge. These and several other horror stories await in Set Sytes’s new collection, which includes The Violet Dark, an unsettling, dreamy (or nightmare-y, rather) novella revolving around an addictive drink.