On the Lips of Children

Meet Macon. Tattoo artist. Athlete. Family man.He's planning to run a marathon, but the event becomes something terrible.During a warm-up run, Macon falls prey to a bizarre man and his wife who dwell in an underground drug-smuggling tunnel. They raise their twin children in a way Macon couldn't imagine: skinning unexpecting victims for food and money.And Macon, and his family, are next."An ordinary running trail becomes the most terrifying place on the planet for Mark Matthews' troubled, likeable, marathon-running, tattooed, hipster protagonists and their young daughter. But, for the horror-show clan living under that trail — who subsist on flesh and bath salts in a nightmare orgy of blood and crazy — the hipsters are a rare treat indeed. As the family v. family showdown transpires underground and off the beaten path, the vulnerability of running on a trail — alone but for the watchers in the woods — makes the setting unique and well-crafted. Written with verve, surprising...