Back in East Texas for the summer break, college student Kevin Harvey wants nothing more than to escape the mind-numbing monotony of bagging groceries. Desperate for a change of pace, he signs on with a local logging crew, trading air-conditioned comfort for the grueling, sweat-soaked reality of a "flathead" (a title earned on the very real chance that a man doesn't get out of the way of a falling tree in time).

But as Kevin and his hardened crew soon discover, the dense canopy of the Texas piney woods conceals far more than treacherous timber and suffocating heat. Deep within the suffocating, shadows of the thicket lies a web of unsettling secrets buried by time. In a place where a single misstep can be fatal, Kevin quickly learns that the wilderness holds dangers far more terrifying than the falling trees... and some secrets are better left undiscovered.

Byron Starr has spent his writing career performing genre gymnastics, leaping wildly between nonfiction, horror, fantasy, historical fiction, and satire. Having recently survived his own restless habit of switching literary identities with every new manuscript, he has taken a solemn vow to settle down and commit exclusively to satire. Maybe.

When he isn't breaking genre barriers, Byron resides in Hemphill, Texas, alongside Ace, a fourteen-year-old golden retriever who handles all executive decisions.