The Dread

If you turn out the lights at night, the ghosts of a haunted slaughterhouse and Mr. Rat can visit you in the dark... Unpopular Maryland Democratic governor, Derrick Coulton, is forced to do a Democratic primary for reelection against a telegenic, trust fund multimillionaire. During his campaign, traumas from a concealed childhood, centered around a slaughterhouse, emerge in vivid nightmares. Soon, he begins to actually glimpse and hear his hostile, deceased step-father, and his psychopathic step-brother, a warped maniacal killer of animals as if they were still alive. He destabilizes. At the same time, his lieutenant governor, Brittany Brenner's son, begins to receive nighttime visits from something that calls itself Mr. Rat. Terrified of rats, they suddenly appear around her. She traces these occurrences back to two sparsely populated mountain counties of her childhood, where a terrifying form of Appalachian witchcraft, known as the Dread, is practiced. As the terrors intensify, the governor is forced from office following a suicide attempt, and Brittany ascends to the governorship, where she discovers that Maryland's Democratic Party establishment is against her, and supports her now primary gubernatorial opponent. After her husband leaves her, she becomes alone, isolated except for one trusted aide and Baltimore City's mayor, a former Catholic priest who has a knowledge of witchcraft and the exorcism ritual. Brittany must go to those counties of her past to confront whatever lives there to save both her son and herself.

• | Author: Edward W. Class
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Apr 05, 2025
• | Number of Pages: 00254 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: NA
• | ISBN-13: 9798316882694