A gothic horror novel set in a small southern town, perfect for fans of It: Welcome to Derry, Stranger Things, and The Fog.
Vanishing children. An ancient secret. A hunt for the truth.
Each year before school starts back, two boys vanish, and the small town of Harrow, Arkansas folds itself neatly around the silence. No one asks where they've gone. People have always made excuses. In 1988, they say "the forest got them."
But twelve-year-old Michael doesn't believe that. With his dog Gus and a secondhand camera, he sets out to photograph the creature that haunts Harrow. He finds not just the monster, but the truth it's built upon: a secret older than the word summer itself.
In the wake of Michael's disappearance, his friends Doug and Floyd, joined by Floyd's crush, Toni, and the reluctant bully, Jay, dig into the history of Harrow and uncover something impossible: a creature the old man across the street calls The Malice—and the horrifying truth that this summer, it isn't just boys being hunted.
The Malice is a small-town, Southern, gothic horror novel about the illusion of safety and the fierce love that binds children together when the world looks away.
Contains mature themes.
