What Rough Beast

Frank Barton lives life on the run. Many lives. Ever since the Civil War, when instead of dying from his wounds he found himself transformed into a snake crawling across the battlefield, absorbing life from others. For years Frank struggles against the killer serpent inside him that won't let him die or grow old. Sometimes, for a while, he wins. Then the bad dreams return, people die ... and he flees yet another attempt to build a normal life. Now in 1912 he's finally found the precise middle of nowhere -- Bride's Creek, a former mining town deserted after a series of gruesome murders years before. Perfect. Or it would be, except for the two feuding revivalist groups come to await the End Days foretold in Revelations. Worse, Frank falls for the fiery preacher who leads one of them, even knowing the serpent is a jealous god. Then winter snows cut off the town, and the dreams and the killings begin again.