Soil Solutions by Nick Hertzberg - OCTOBER 17th

A strung-out drifter with a fractured past hitches a ride with a trucker hauling a new breed of fertilizer to a crumbling Adirondack hotel.

Along the way, a filthy rest stop yields a grim discovery: a human skull, its mystery too haunting to leave behind. She shoves it into her bag, an impulsive choice that may seal her fate.

What waits at the hotel is no sanctuary.

Her room is soon transformed into a manic scene of mangled bodies, splintered limbs, and smoldering flesh.

As survival and annihilation blur, the so-called “American Dream” reveals its face and disintegrates around her, dragging her closer to the ground where all things rot.

 
“Soil Solutions” is Nick Hertzberg’s debut short story, approximately 8,600 words, 30 pages.