Man has always been his own worst enemy. There is a darkness that lives inside of him: a cold, black thing that demands he impose his will on the world around him, that he inflict pain upon those in whom he senses weakness, and that he create and worship gods even more violent than he. And then there are some who find that darkness too powerful to contain… A scientific expedition into a godforsaken jungle opens the gate to hell itself…A psychology student's descent into madness begins with a cryptic phone call…The creation of an artificial limb unlocks the secrets of eternal life…A woman awakens to the patter of blood dripping from her ceiling…An investigator for the CDC discovers that the mechanism of our ultimate extinction is hiding in plain sight… These are just some of the manifestations of the darkness that resides within an author who neighbors will undoubtedly one day describe in newspaper interviews as "quiet, keeps to himself." Michael McBride's first collection features over 70,000 words of his finest short fiction—more than half of which is new to this edition—including two original novellas, an exclusive foreword to each story detailing the inspiration for the work, and an introduction by the legendary Gene O'Neill. White Lightning Series #4