Downlines

by Kristin Dearborn

Cassie Freidman has it all. Just ask any of her social media followers. They see her big house, her handsome husband, her perfect children. She’s a self-made woman, helping other women be their best girl boss selves, selling fitness drink Serenity. Until one night, Cassie and her daughters go missing.

Cassie’s best friend Sarah knows something is wrong. Thinks husband Derek is acting peculiar. She’s suspicious of him, but could this actually be worse than a simple family annihilator? Under the blistering Las Vegas sun, Sarah has to figure out where her best friend is, what her husband has done and why, and get out alive.

“I adore Kristin’s horror for its deft combination of monsters with a social critique, and she has the perfect eye for capturing the dark side of modern capitalism.” – Aimee Picchi

61 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 19, 2023

About the author

If it screams, squelches, or bleeds, Kristin Dearborn has probably written about it. She revels in comments like “But you look so normal…how do you come up with that stuff?” A life-long New Englander, she aspires to the footsteps of the local masters, Messrs. King and Lovecraft. When not writing or rotting her brain with cheesy horror flicks (preferably creature features!) she can be found scaling rock cliffs or zipping around Vermont on a motorcycle, or gallivanting around the globe.

Reviews

[Matt Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the future...Oh. Wait.

By far the bleakest story I've read by Dearborn so far. Seems not all that long ago, the petty, rotten social-media-driven world of influencers pushing an addictive heathshake with deadly side effects would have been the stuff of caustically satirical cautionary sci-fi such as Ellison's DANGEROUS VISIONS anthology series would be proud of. But nope, here we are. Well, except for the lizard-people body-horror. Probably.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun story!