From cartoonist Meredith McClaren (co-creator of the acclaimed series Black Cloak) comes a punishing and poignant original graphic novel about the monsters that lurk both in the darkness beyond—and within—us all .

Let it be said that dying is hard. Nineteen-year-old Ashley Moore found this out firsthand.

All Ashley wanted was to keep her head down and work hard until she could escape the small town where she felt she was stagnating. But after waking up one night covered in blood—and irrevocably dead—Ashley finds her foolproof plan for getting out has gone up in smoke, and that something within her has changed.

Without a heartbeat and with a disturbing craving for fresh meat, Ashley finds herself in a world that exists just beneath our own: a world of ghouls and monsters and things that go bump in the night. Drawn into the realm of the unusual, getting advice from ancient vampires, dodging angry pack leaders, and becoming the reluctant big sister to some wayward werewolves, Ashley finds it increasingly difficult to put away the parts of her past—and herself—that she wants to ignore.

The truth, it turns out, can’t stay buried forever.

In this visceral story about the effects of trauma and anxiety, dying is indeed hard. But getting on with it? That can be worse.