Publisher's Synopsis
* National IPBA Award-Winner * ReadersFavorite.com Award-Winner * 4-time ReadersFavorite.com 5-Star Selection
"The Dark is everything that horror fiction fans want: scary, unsettling, relentless and so creepy that you will not want to read it at night." -ReadersFavorite.com
"This is horror at some of its finest." -ReadersFavorite.com
"The Dark compares with works of King and Koontz and is tremendously difficult to put down." -ReadersFavorite.com
"I haven't enjoyed a novel this much since the early days of Stephen King." -Amazon Reviewer
A chilling award-winning novel with terrifying twists and turns.
Prepare yourself as award-winning author David C. Cassidy draws you into a frightening realm of terror. With a haunting darkness lurking on every page, The Dark will leave you breathless, reminding us all that for all we desire there is always a price, the currency in suffering and sacrifice. Brimming with insidious evil and a pulse-pounding pace, this astonishing tale will grab hold of your most primitive fears and won't let go.
One by one, they vanish. For the living, hell is on its way.
In the remote mining town of Key Corners, children have begun to vanish in the dead of night. Gripped by fear of a creeping presence that grows with each passing day, Susan Lisk, a recent widow with two boys, soon realizes that what she is facing is an ancient entity called the Dark--an insatiable evil that preys on our deepest desires and our darkest fears--an evil that feeds and flourishes on the blood of the young. All encompassing, she cannot shake the chilling sensation of being watched, that this vile menace looms in every corridor, beyond every door, of her home.
As the cold December days pass and more children vanish, she grows certain that the presence is stalking her youngest son, Kelan. More frightening, she fears that from him it wants more--wants his soul. Once a kind and gentle child, his sudden odd behavior comes charged with unpredictable fits of violence and rage. His disturbing connection to a hideous stick from the local park--and his inexplicable knowledge of things he couldn't possibly know, as if he can read her very thoughts--deepens her terror. Only after several attempts to rid her home of the stick does she learn the horrific cost of her desperation ... and that the horrors have only begun.
Kelan Lisk is consumed by guilt. After causing the accident that killed his father, he has grown obsessed with a deadly sledding hill that could end his bleak existence. Risking a plunge into an icy creek, he is saved by a mute and mysterious boy, one so out of place, he seems more like a ghost from another time. With mere thought, the boy compels him to snap a small branch from a menacing oak tree at the edge of the creek. To his surprise and shock, he discovers it has the power to transport him to a magical and perilous realm that includes his father. Torn between worlds, he soon learns the price of his desire. Given an impossible choice--to stay with his father, or say his final goodbye--he must give himself willingly. Give his soul to the Dark.
As the Dark descends in a bloodthirsty rampage, a savage snowstorm turns Key Corners into a feeding ground. And when Kelan vanishes without a trace, Susan must confront her darkest fears to save him, in a race against time as an epic disaster strikes. In her heart she knows that the root of it all is that monstrous oak, and as her world crumbles into chaos, the town becomes a nightmarish hell of unspeakable horrors, destined to bring death and destruction in a terrifying apocalypse.
