It usually happens by chance. You are alone in a deserted parking lot or at an interstate rest stop, when a man approaches you out of nowhere. An average-looking fellow with a good-natured smile; a man who, in your opinion, certainly couldn't harm a fly.

Then, in a flash, it happens. The pepper spray, the duct tape, the forceful imprisonment in the oily darkness of a car trunk. You lay there and listen as the car tires hum on the smoothness of asphalt, then the crackle of gravel, then the rutted instability of a lonesome dirt road. Above the noise you can hear your abductor humming a familiar tune cheerfully to himself - The Doors' "Riders on the Storm." It is at that moment that you realize that his grin was anything but good-natured and that his brain - and dark intentions - are as twisted and slimy as a nest of squirming nightcrawlers.

In Unhinged: Tales of Darkness and Depravity, southern horror author, Ronald Kelly, explores the blackest recesses of the human psyche in eleven chilling tales of dark suspense and terror. Serial killers, mass murderers, and other no-account folks stalk these pages, donning the mask of mediocrity and normality, until the masquerade comes abruptly to an end and the abominations lurking beneath are laid bare and unbridled. And, by then, it is too late. There can be no escape, for the one who has possession of your body and soul is hopelessly unhinged.