A personalized horror novel, written for you.

From chapter one

Near the south masonry wall, where the overhead hoist rail curved toward the emergency bay, sat the eight-hundred-pound cast-iron sluice gate. It hung suspended between two vertical steel channels, pinned in place above the water by a counterweight cable and a shear assembly. Beside the channel hung the four-foot dogging wrench, an iron bar with a squared jaw forged at the old rail yard thirty years ago.

Frank reached out and touched the brass retaining ring on the horizontal pin that held the winch drum locked.

The brass was bright.

He pulled his hand back, then leaned down until the yellow glow of an overhead cage lamp showed the bearing block. The heavy axle grease—the black, stringy compound he packed into the housings every September before the autumn rains—had been scraped away. Not washed out by spray; scraped clean with a chisel or an old knife down to the bare, scored metal. A bright yellow brass shear pin sat seated through the collar, dry to the touch.

He touched the cold collar. His fingertips came away clean.

Frank straightened up. His shoulder blades met behind him with an old stiffness. Down the narrow corridor leading to the tool lockers, the decommissioned storage bay stood shut under a heavy brass padlock. His hand went into his coat pocket by habit, fingers finding the cold, notched edge of the key that lived there among copper washers and cotter pins. He did not pull it out. He did not look at the locker. He turned his back to it, took three measured breaths, and counted the strokes of the main intake governor: twelve strokes, thirteen, fourteen.

The mechanical siren on the roof of the town hall two miles north cleared its throat with a wet, grinding click. The sixty-cycle hum of the pump house circuits seemed to drop an octave as the grid took the load. Then the siren began its long, rising shriek.