A collection of 23 stories from Kurt Newton, including:

The Pit, Puppies For Sale, Bruises, Under the Bridge, Thumbin ', Something Profound, The Whittling, creak!, Angels of Mercy, Angels of Grief, Skins, The Banana Man, Dead Dogs, Trunk Story, Nature Walk, The Dog Park, B - Side, Lost Dog, Periphery, Post Mortem, The Stagnant Ponds, Thirty-Two Scenes from A Dead Hooker's Mouth, Lump and The Golden Door.

"For dark and cerebral writing, read Kurt Newton, a purveyor of tragedies of both the human condition and of the supernatural; to wit, his latest-a collection that is not just 23 short stories, but 23 sharp and shocking BRUISES to the psyche!"-Eric J. Guignard, multiple award-winning author and editor, including That Which Grows Wild and Doorways to the Deadeye

The blood was streaming from her eyes, her ears, thick runnels ran from her nostrils like flu snot. So much blood. "How could you?" she screamed, her voice shrill. He felt the weight of his suitcases in his grip and put them down. He tried to console her, but he couldn't touch her. Bruises had mottled her exposed skin, blossoming one upon the other until every inch of her had blackened. And still it continued, past the point of discoloration as her arms and legs began to erupt in minute fissures at first pink and then a deep crimson. "You promised me," she mumbled through lips split like boiled meat as she sank to the floor, her eyes no longer capable of sight. "In sickness and in health... For better or for worse... You be the passenger, I'll drive the hearse," she said in sing-song fashion. She was laughing now, a maniacal grin spread across her ruined features. He stood by in horror and watched as her finger stretched out and, in the blood that now pooled around her, she scrawled out the word "COWARD" in tall, child-like letters... -from the story "Bruises"