A soliloquy from a ghost annoyed by a haunted-house tour coming through her home; a demonic viewfinder that’s indebted to M.R. James; and a bloodthirsty Ayn Rand wielding a chainsaw.

The Gospels of Extinction is a mix of horror, humor, and speculative fiction – all leavened with literary yeast. It’s a short-story collection debut indebted to the great American tradition of the incredible and sometimes terrifying prospects of a New World.

The other stories include a backyard portal to a past of utter American genocide; the disappearing world closing in around the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient; graverobbing Ernest Hemingway; the undiscovered gene linking all serial killers throughout human history; a Thanksgiving gone cannibalistic; a “slasher” story with a social-justice twist; a phone call from the longest distance of all… beyond the grave; and the intergenerational afterlife inheritance from a Mesoamerican death cult. Some of these are brief flash pieces; others are a bit longer. All are little worlds brought to life through the words of Seth Augenstein. They’re sequenced to keep the reader going long past bedtime - and into the realm of that twilight strangeness before the darkness shuts everything out.