The Amulet — Michael McDowell

First published in 1979

When a rifle range accident leaves Dean Howell disfigured and in a vegetative state, his wife Sarah finds her dreary life in Pine Cone, Alabama made even worse. After long and tedious days on the assembly line, she returns home to care for her corpselike husband while enduring her loathsome and hateful mother-in-law, Jo. Jo blames the entire town for her son's mishap, and when she gives a strange piece of jewelry to the man she believes most responsible, a series of gruesome deaths is set in motion. Sarah believes the amulet has something to do with the rising body count, but no one will believe her. As the inexplicable murders continue, Sarah and her friend Becca Blair have no choice but to track down the amulet themselves, before it's too late . . .

1979 edition

THEY ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD MAKE SUCH A PRETTY GIFT…

A simple pendant on a glittering golden charm. To the residents of Pine Cone, Alabama, it was the prettiest thing they ever saw. A gift of beauty.

A GIFT OF EVIL

Rachel Coppage was the first to clasp it round her neck. To feel the power grow within her. Moments later, her husband and children were consumed in a raging housefire…

A POLICEMAN FOUND IT IN THE ASHES…

He didn't live long enough to fear it. And there were others: Ruby, of Ruby's House of Beauty, whose jealousy of a client was magnified until she did a complete makeover… Audrey, the babysitter, who suddenly lost their patience and put the washing machine on death-cycle…

IT PASSED FROM THE DEAD TO THE LIVING…

From neighbor to unsuspecting neighbor, lover to lover. Townsfolk began dying in horrible, unspeakable ways. Nobody knew how. Nobody knew why. Then Sarah Howell began to suspect, in mounting terror, the vital link in the frightening chain of events…

THE AMULET
FIRST YOU POSSESS IT, THEN IT POSSESSES YOU!