The Dead Head

Arthur "Arty" Ganz is a practical man who trusts what he can touch: American steel, Detroit diesel, and thirty years of muscle memory. As a recovery specialist, he's used to finding trucks that don't want to be found. But when he's dispatched to retrieve a "dead-head"-an empty trailer-sitting in the heart of a signal dead zone in the Mojave Desert, the math doesn't add up. The truck isn't empty; its suspension is compressed to the limit by an impossible, shifting weight. Inside, Arty discovers thousands of antique cedar mannequins that seem to move in the shadows and a mechanical ledger that begins auditing his very soul. When the desert begins to liquefy and swallow the rig whole, Arty is pulled into an ancient, underground system of "corrections" and "accountings." Alongside Ranger Elena Mora, Arty must navigate a reality where the desert keeps receipts for every human life and a wooden titan known as the SaltEater rises to claim the discrepancies. In a world of cold logic and mechanical judgment, Arty and Elena must decide if they are mere inventory or if they have the power to write their own ending.