Excerpt from 'Creak'
Where the bullfrogs croak and the cattails sway from the flood, where the turtles bask and watch the wayward stranger with judgement in their eyes, and the cottonmouths rest beneath the bows of ancient willows, is the River Romantique. And some might say that if you go canoeing down this river alone, when the water is quiet and the crickets chirp, when the catfish come out to feast, you might be visited by a stranger. He’ll be sitting there, across the canoe from you, his face shrouded in darkness, his body coated in a thick shirt of moss and foliage, his face pristine with algae, and his back bubbling with layered lillipads and waterlillies that bloom and rot all the same. You might recognize him from the snake resting deep within his rib cage, or the frogs who made his eye socket home, or maybe the thick gatorskin boots that always seemed a little too waterlogged, and he sure as all that was unholy, recognized you. The Riverman knew everyone in his domain, after all, and he knew them...