The Dunwick Curiosity House

For the first time in her life, Helen Milstead was excited about September seventeenth. It’s not that she had dreaded previous September seventeenths; she did not have a tragic history with either the ninth month of the year or the seventeenth whole number on the long road to infinity. It was only that before, September seventeenth had just been another day in the year. On average, most days failed to excite Helen Milstead.

The Dunwick Curiosity House is a horror novella about Helen Milstead, a drab woman with a drab life who finds her road trip derailed by a mysterious town off the highway and the tourist trap at its outskirts. Atmospheric, strange, surreal — but hey, that's the Midwest for you.