Dead Load

The trash isn't just piled up. It's holding the ceiling up. Harlan Jakes is a specialist in the unseen and the unclean. As a forensic cleaner, he has spent a lifetime wading through the wreckage of human lives, but nothing has prepared him for Blackwood Manor. Hired by the cold, enigmatic Elara Muntz, Harlan is given a strict 48-hour deadline to clear the sprawling, rotting estate in rural Pennsylvania before a court order seals it forever. But as Harlan and his crew—the muscle-bound Rory and the brilliant biochemist Katia—cut their way through the "goat paths" of the hoard, they realize this is no ordinary accumulation of debris. The stacks of wet newspapers and antique furniture are fused together by a strange, amber resin. The air is thick with a cloyingly sweet, chemical scent. And deep within the walls, something is clicking. The hoard is not just a mess; it is a living, engineered ecosystem. A mutated colony of flesh-eating dermestid beetles has evolved into a hive mind, using the trash to build a structural support system for their nest. Trapped inside a house where the walls are alive and the floor is a digestive fluid, Harlan must fight his way out before the "dead load" of the mansion collapses—or before the colony decides it needs fresh meat to reinforce the foundation. A nauseating, claustrophobic masterpiece of biological horror that will make your skin crawl.