Attention, Tenebrous Cult:

The invasion is already underway. If you're on solid ground, you're not safe. Heed the warning, get to the water, the dirt devils are here.

...hey, wait a second! You're probably gonna want something to read during the downtime, yeah? Even a terrifying alien invasion has downtime:

Get KAYAK

About KAYAK:

For eighteen-year-old Keith—floating alone on a series of lakes and rivers, lost and without supplies—his kayak is his means of survival. Solid ground means certain death at the scissor-claws of vicious invading creatures.  

What he needs is to find more people; but terrible guilt anchors him in solitude. A year earlier, when the creatures first appeared, it was Keith's choices that brought disaster to the island community that took him in.

Now, it's time to take responsibility for his actions, heal his scars, and survive.

Told in two alternating timelines, Kayak is a story of family, the strength we draw from others, and the strength we learn to draw from ourselves.

"Impressive and gripping."

• Sonora Taylor, Without Condition

“An original and surprising apocalyptic tale.”

• David Moody, Autumn, Hater

Cover art by Kerisson Wemerson. Interior art by Blacky Shepherd.

KAYAK is a supremely nerve-jangling sci-horror survival epic whose DNA can be traced to The Walking Dead, A Quiet Place, even the plane-crash-in-the-Canadian-wilderness YA classic, Hatchet.

But as author Kristal Stittle tells us, its roots are deeper and simpler. Take it away, Kristal:

KAYAK is a story that has been secretly brewing in my brain for more than half my life. When I was a teenager, and bobbing around in a lake on a pool noodle, I one day thought: what would happen if I could never return to shore? I decided that my skin would get really pruney and gross, and inevitably be nibbled away by fish (which is its own horror story). Still, that same question kept periodically popping up.

Then one year, Home Depot had a sale on kayaks. Now I could think about the quandary of the no-go shoreline while staying perfectly dry! No more waterlogged flesh! This freed up my thoughts to consider why I couldn’t return to shore. 

Monsters proved to be the answer.

When I actually started writing the book, I had no plan to follow. Recently I’ve started to make myself little roadmaps to keep my ideas in check, but KAYAK was pure seat-of-the-pants writing. When I reached chapter two, the first Then chapter, I had thought it was only going to be a little flashback to add some context about the monsters and Keith. Instead, I got deeply invested in the details of what happened back then. Having read Josh Malerman’s Bird Box, in which he uses a back and forth timeline, I knew what I had to do.

From there, I was off to the races. Considering the ease with which I found myself writing KAYAK (which was written in the order it appears in, by the way) I think it had been waiting all that time for me, just lurking in my subconscious. There’s always more in the depths.

--Kristal

interior art by Blacky Shepherd

Get KAYAK

This is not a drill, Tenebrous Cult.

You either sink.

Or you swim.

Or you're food for the dirt devils.

Hail Indie Publishing.

Hail New Weird Horror.

Hail KAYAK!

Matt + Alex + Kristal