A Sick Gray Laugh

Award-winning author Noelle Cashman is no stranger to depression and anxiety. In fact, her entire authorial brand, showcased in such titles as The Girl with the Gun in Her Mouth, Leather Noose, and The Breath Curse, has been built on the hopeless phantasmagoric visions she experiences when in the grip of paranoid psychosis. But Noelle has had enough, and, author brand be damned, has found help for her illness in the form of an oblong yellow pill, taken twice daily.

Since starting on this medication, Noelle's symptoms have gone into remission. She's taken up jogging. She's joined a softball team. For the first time in Noelle's life, she feels hope. She's even started work on a nonfiction book, a history of her small southern Indiana town.

But then Noelle starts to notice the overwhelming Grayness that dominates her neighborhood, slathered over everything like a thick coat of snot, threatening to assimilate all.

From Bram Stoker Award-winning author Nicole...