From Dusk Till Dawn meets The Thing in this unnerving debut horror novel, where a group of friends must confront questions of identity, aging, and desire during a vampire infestation in an isolated Californian desert.
"Tapeworm is an eldritch orgy . . . directed under the loving Lovecraftian eye of John Carpenter. No amount of hand sanitizer will disinfect this book from your consciousness." -Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
It needs to feed.
After the recent separation from his wife Trish, Victor hopes his friends' annual weekend retreat to the Californian desert town of Superstition will loosen him up and reforge the group's fraying bonds. But something is waiting underneath Superstition, crawling its way into their group, and feeding into their desires.
Victor knows too well what it means to repress his desires. He's always attempted to be the perfect partner, yet often found himself lacking. With Trish skipping the trip, he begins falling into the wild underbelly of Superstition in new ways. When the leader of the town's Welcoming Committee approaches him with a romantic, sexually charged offer, Victor wonders if it's too good to be true.
But the Welcoming Committee expects a price to be paid for its services. One that cannot be fulfilled by willing bodies alone. By the end of the weekend, group bonding will have developed a whole new meaning.
Because something is hungry for Victor and his friends.
For fans of Stephen Graham Jones, V. Castro, and Rachel Harrison, Tapeworm is an unforgettable, body-horror vampire novel that answers how far one will go to stop repressing their desires and finally set themselves free. A. P. Thayer is a queer, Mexican American author based out of Los Angeles who writes cross-genre speculative fiction. His work has been featured in Dark Matter Magazine, Space Fantasy Magazine, Uncharted Magazine, and several anthologies. He is also a full member of SFWA and HWA.
