Wind Chill - by Patrick Rutigliano (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

What if you were held captive by your own family?

Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother's death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions. Obsessing him, controlling him, they now whisper the end days are finally at hand.

And he doesn't intend to face them alone.

Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn't enough to weather the end of the world.

Everything she knows is out of reach, lost beyond a haze of white. There is no choice but to play her father's game while she plans her escape.

But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it's already had a taste...

Wind Chill also contains eight original bonus stories:
-The Fear Merchant: The local king of Halloween finds himself outdone by a new neighbor and becomes compelled to discover what secrets lie in the haunted house across the street.
-Bang!: A rivalry between two creatures of the night takes a black-humored twist.
-Little Red Vest: A break down leaves a woman stranded on the wrong side of town--and witness to a bizarre performance that can warp time as easily as it does flesh.
-Shadowplay: Still mourning his little brother's death, an aging wave slave finds comfort in the local playground. But he can't help but wonder about the strange child who lingers there after dark.
-Jump Cuts: Bitter and dejected, a spinster discovers a way to reconnect with the warmer shades of the human experience. And her own regrets.
-The Skin Trade: A one-night stand leaves a businessman with an unthinkable cargo.

Review Quotes

"At turns heart-rending and terrifying, Wind Chill plumbs the costs of love, family, innocence, and the supernatural with a grace rarely seen in horror fiction. Rutigliano understands the human condition, and we're prisoner as he leads us down a dark and claustrophobic hallway all too real, and, more importantly, actually scary. His career will be a long and fruitful one." - Ben Eads, author of Cracked Sky "Patrick Rutigliano's Wind Chill is a nice blend of old world meets new when an ancient myth comes to life for a modern doomsday prepper. Come for the title story and stay for more of Rutigliano's bleak short pieces. This is a good little bundle of terror in one sick package." --Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Little Dead Red. "You are in for a treat. Wind Chill is a story of survival in the most horrific way. When a daughter can no longer trust her father she must find a way to save herself." - Horror Novel Reviews "Patrick Rutigliano writes crisp and lean, with a deft delivery, a vivid imagination and an ability to immerse the reader in the fear his well-developed characters suffer. Wind Chill evokes atmospheres as cold, claustrophobic and as intense as the environment it is set in, and with it, Rutigliano crafts a memorable tale where not one word is superfluous. In addition to the novella itself, this book contains the bonus of several other short works, each one a diverse slice of horror pitching ordinary folks into extraordinary situations where anything can, and usually does, happen. Highly recommended for all those who like a clever mix of both the cerebral and the visceral." - Jim Goforth, author of Plebs