The Scum at the End of the Road

Melanie Elwood was a favorable girl. Bright and inquisitive, she and her father lived harmoniously in their rural fishing town in central Kansas—as harmonious as possible with him being a semi-recluse and her mother deceased—until she stumbled into an unthinkable friendship with Herrick Birch, the abrasive son of the town’s drug dealer. Their bond, kept private from everyone else and strengthened during their long nights of sleeplessness, became unbreakable when Herrick appears one night with blood on his clothes and a gruesome request. Now, eight years later, Melanie’s forced to relive that night, and the ones leading up to it, as her path crosses with Herrick’s once more.