The Dreadful Round Up
by Rylee Lascelle

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“Death’s on its way to this town and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.” It’s October 1st in Cowboy Cauldron, a dying Prairie town where it seems like you can’t turn over a rock without something sinister popping out, and there’s a month-long marathon about to begin. It’s not a marathon of found-footage movies; it’s a run of deaths and near-misses that will crowd the town’s oversized graveyard and leave kitchen tables and school buses feeling awfully roomy. Things aren’t looking good for Cowboy Cauldron: only one person knows what’s coming, and he’s just spent all night digging graves. A dog tries in vain to guard an elderly widow. Teenagers plan a brutal coming-of-age tradition. An old man gloats over the elderly gossips whose seats in their usual cafe are unexpectedly empty. Old coins are put to sinister uses. A man vows to do anything to protect his children. And watching over it all is the mysterious Secret Keeper, but where his most recent memento came from and where he’ll be getting the next one is for him to know and you to find out. A genre-bending fright-fest that is visceral and playful in equal measure, The Dreadful Roundup is a trick-or-treat bag to delight the most determined horror fan.

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Rylee Lascelle is a short story author with a passion for the macabre. A graduate of the University of Regina’s Media, Art, and Performance program, Rylee impressed his professors and inspired his friends with his work. He wrote his first short story after a literary encounter with Edgar Allen Poe, and Poe’s Raven has cast its long shadow over his work ever since. Adding to that a love of myth, ghost stories, fantasy, sci-fi, and The Twilight Zone, Rylee has created a fun and frightening concoction all his own. Keep an eye out for more stories from Cowboy Cauldron in the future, folks—because the toil and trouble aren’t over yet. Rylee Lascelle lives in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.

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Rylee Lascelle