When They Turn: The Miller Massacre

By D.S. Ritter

Debbie didn't exactly have a life other women would die for, and now it might kill her.

When a group of housewives find themselves stranded in the suburbs and surrounded by inhuman monsters, there's only one thing to do: fight their way out.

Armed with only what they can find, the women must face down threats from all sides, including their own friends and husbands. Their quiet, picturesque neighborhood is never going to be the same.

Set against the backdrop of the red scare and the atomic 50's, When They Turn is a grisly story of brutality, murder and survival that'll keep you on the edge of your seat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.S. Ritter
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393784883

D.S. Ritter

Writes fantasy novels

Book preview

When They Turn

by

D.S. Ritter

www.dsritter.com

When They Turn Copyright © 2018 D.S. Ritter

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover designed by Mariah Sinclair

Two ice cubes clinked in a tumbler glass. Everything else was gray silence in Debbie’s empty house. The shades were down, but sometimes she would catch herself peeking between them at the cars parking out front. They were all Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Fords; shiny, new, with smart paint and real leather interiors. A display of pride by the men who worked up at the Miller chemical plant.

The glass sweat in her hand. A bead of perspiration rolled down her wrist as she took another sip of her Gin Fizz. Minnie and Herb White were having another of their abysmal parties. The window dressing of a successful marriage.

Someone had dropped the d word at the Stevenson’s card party and the rumor spread through the neighborhood like wildfire. Debbie had done some window dressing of her own on occasion, but at least she’d been subtle about it. This was the second party the Whites had held in a month, and anything but subtle. She wouldn’t have been caught dead making such an obvious display.

A familiar, sky-blue Roadster pulled up and Debbie swallowed a pang of loneliness along with her gin. Barbara and Carl Stevenson climbed out, Barb adjusting her skirt and cradling a bottle of wine. She spotted Debbie and waved. Quickly returning the gesture, Debbie made sure her cocktail was out of view. Barb was her only friend these days, the only one brave enough to tell her about Rhonda.

Rhonda would not be attending the party, since she was out of town. Just like Debbie’s husband, Robert, was out of town. At a business meeting,he’d said. Both out of town. Sharing a hotel room. Sharing a bed. Crisp, freshly laundered sheets draped over their naked, sweating bodies…

The ice clattered as she put her glass down on the counter.

She lit a cigarette with a match and looked around her dream kitchen; the state of the art double oven, the matching kitchen appliances in creamy, pale avocado, the shining floor and counter tops. Were they worth it? What about the beautiful mint Skylark in the driveway? Or the bedrooms upstairs, longing for children?

The memory, the ghost of her mother summoned itself. She would have thought so, but Debbie wasn’t so sure anymore. Robert had grown more and more distant over the last year or so, to the point that now she felt like they were just strangers who shared a bedroom, whenever he actually made it home that is. Their marriage was a bit beyond needing mere window dressing now, and the neighborhood knew it. She was sure, in their eyes, a failure as a wife.

She made herself another