Kill Creek

This had a lot of potential. The prologue is of course an imitation of Shirley Jackson, but it's a decent imitation! I'm down with it - show me the creepy house that stands, not sane, on the Kansas prairie!

The first chapter is pretty good too. I was on board with the author/professor-character giving me a rundown of his take on Gothic literature, clearly setting out the boxes he was about to check in the narrative. He name-dropped some good classic horror. It was a little on the nose, but what the hell? I felt comfortable that this guy could take me on a scary journey.

Unfortunately, from there, the story undermined itself in multiple ways.
Plot: aimless
Voice: muddled
Characterization: shallow and shaded with thoughtless prejudice (see below regarding Moore, plus fatphobia, and basically one person of color who isn't made into a real character so much as a motivation point for a white guy.)
Length: indulgent to the point of tedium

Amid the intriguing plot developing, there were annoying fanfic-style writing tics. There are way too many strained similes and excess description. A tree branch can't merely claw at the sky, it must claw at the sky like a hand tortured by arthritis. Sam can't have a bad moment where he thinks he smells smoke - no, we have to try to parse whatever this is:

That thin wisp of smoke slithered down his throat and between his lungs, constricting, pushing breath through his teeth. The smoke serpent twisted beneath Sam's ribs and squeezed tighter, its gray head slipping around the ribbed stalk of his trachea. It pressed its upturned snout against the upper lobe of his lungs, probing for a way in.

Barefoot, she was barely five-six, but the power she radiated added half a foot. She was thirty-eight years old and cut like marble. Defined, but not obscenely muscular. Sexy, but not grotesque. Every line, every curve, was deliberate and necessary.

she toweled herself dry. She did not bother getting dressed. Padding naked up the spiral staircase to the first floor, . . . She opened the laptop that rested on a shelf of corrugated steel. For the next two hours, she wrote, her naked body kissed by the early-morning sunlight. . . .