 Hershel Merkley is a realtor. All he really wants to do is save enough for the long-overdue vacation he feels his wife deserves. She still loves and puts up with him even when he can't rise to the occasion. If he can seal the deal on the Whitecomb mansion, he'd make just enough to take her away for a while. The Whitecomb mansion was the setting of a horrible murder and has been empty for nearly a decade, but Hershel has been working on his game and is fairly confident he'll be able to sway the clients even after he has to disclose the history of the place. The rich Russian couple who are interested don't seem the type to be bothered by that sort of thing. The showing starts off on the right foot but quickly stumbles from the path of normalcy, as the Sokolov's begin to show a glimpse into just how offbeat they are and while Hershel is determined to stick the landing and get the sale, he is troubled by the lascivious boldness of the couple...but then things occur that make that all barely notable. Things that scream and cry and bleed and things that reek of Hell. With this novella, Southard delivers a concise and taut thriller that flows quickly and smoothly from every day normality to blood-soaked insanity. It plays out like a remake of Indecent Proposal as directed by the team of Clive Barker and Wrath James White. Fans of extreme and splattery horror will lick this platter clean, I'm sure. While that is not exactly my sub-genre of favor, I did enjoy this quite a bit. Wesley Southard is a new voice and one that I think we'll be hearing from more frequently and I'll always be there to listen... Closing Costs is available from Amazon.  
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