We fear discovery when we should fear what there is to discover.

Lovecraft and his successors show a world where human civilisation is only a thin veneer over black seas of ignorance. A world where men exalted for their reason uncover logic-defying truths. A world where the marginalised discover uncaring horror on the fringes of a society that rejects them. A world where the bonds between us unravel.

But what of those who wear their own averageness like a veneer? Neither drawn toward the horror by academic curiosity nor driven their by society, but unmoored by a mundane secret.

A Spanish priest struggling with base desires plots to save a native child from brutal sacrifice.

A veteran hiding the extent of his mental wounds discovers the true war on terror is very different.

A delinquent’s secret passion for stamp collecting draws him into a dark bargain.

And nine more tales of overtly normal people coming adrift in an incomprehensible universe.