Somber Stroll

Horror does not always wait in abandoned castles or distant wilderness. Sometimes it lives across the street, reports for work, turns on the radio, or sits beside the people we love. Across five stories, Mark Tullius follows an overworked father trying to protect his son, an injured construction worker losing his grip on reality, a sensitive teenage girl watching an MMA battle turn deadly, an aging DJ attempting to grant a sick child’s final wish, and an author confronting revelations hidden inside his own mind. Somber Stroll uses recognizable settings and emotional stakes to make every turn more unsettling. The collection is concise enough for a single evening, varied enough to introduce several sides of Tullius’s fiction, and strategically valuable as a reader magnet leading into Twisted Reunion, Untold Mayhem, and his combat-sports and brain-injury nonfiction.