It Waits In The Dark
by Vanessa Lanang

For decades, the small town of Pleasant Point, CA, has been home to unexplained mysteries and disappearances. After her father’s death, Tala moves there to live with her aunt and attend her junior year of high school. When she meets Liam outside a diner restroom, they discover a popular teen who had been missing for days locked inside. Eager to solve the mysterious disappearances and deaths surrounding an abandoned road on the edge of town, the duo finds themselves thrown into a battle of their own fears. Their lives become nightmares as a half-horse, half-man Filipino monster—the Tikbalang—hunts them while they sleep. A modern take on Filipino-inspired mythology, Tala and Liam must find a way to send this deadly creature back to its realm before the terrors of their dreams become reality and their names become part of the town’s fatal legend.