In Bad Man, horror writer Dathan Auerbach (Penpal) vividly turns an innocent small-town Florida grocery store into the place where nightmares go to replenish themselves. With his father and stepmother on the brink of financial disaster, 20-year-old Ben is forced to take a job at the last place he wants to be--the store where his three-year-old brother, Eric, disappeared. A "missing" flyer still hangs on the bulletin board outside.
Permanently injured in a car accident, Ben has always been something of an outsider. His family's tailspin and underlying blame of Ben, who was with Eric when he vanished, have further isolated him, and surprisingly he finds a measure of peace and camaraderie with fellow stockers Marty and Frank on the overnight shift. After confiding in Marty about his connection to the boy on the flyer, Ben's tranquility fractures and his five-year search for Eric intensifies to new and twisted levels.
As Ben interrogates neighbors and accuses the police of not following leads, it becomes apparent something sinister is afoot. The store becomes the nucleus of Ben's obsession when one of Eric's flyers is defaced with a mysterious symbol and left in Ben's locker. Auerbach deftly turns ordinary upstairs office space, store machinery, locked cabinets, ringing phones and surveillance tapes into taunts and signs that force Ben to question everything, including his own involvement in Eric's vanishing. With plenty of suspicion unearthed, Auerbach still twists Bad Man into a marvelously dark and horrifically satisfying conclusion." --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review