It started as a game. Six college kids at a party. Then someone suggested they try the Ouija board. The board that Corie had hidden in the back of her closet and swore never to touch again. Not after what happened last time. Not after Jake’s death… They were only playing around, but the Ouija board worked, all right. Maybe too well. A spirit who called himself Butler began to send them messages―and make demands. Butler promised them a hidden treasure if only they would follow his directions and head off to a secluded spot in the mountains…A wild, isolated spot where anything could be waiting for them. Treasure or death. Or Butler himself. A former President of the Horror Writers Association, Laymon has written over thirty novels, more than sixty-five literary short stories (which were published in Ellery Queen , Alfred Hitchcock , and Cavalier ), poetry, crime fiction, two suspense novels, a Western, and two romance novels. Until recently, his books were unavailable in the US for more than twenty years. His novel Flesh was named Best Horror Novel of 1988 by Science Fiction Chronicle , and both Flesh and Funland were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He won this award posthumously in 2001 for The Traveling Vampire Show . Richard Laymon died in 2001 of a heart attack.