The Summer of Blind Joe Death — Thomas Pluck

A creepy coming of age novelette from the writer of unflinching fiction with heart: Wade and his best friend Red Collins have only lived eleven summers, but the one they'll remember for the rest of their lives is when Blind Joe Death visited their holler, spinning tales of deadly haints and black dogs that steal souls in the night. Wade lost his father in the mines, and Red wishes his were dead. When the boys invite this strange hoodoo man into their lives they learn that the real monsters walk on two feet and sit beside us in church, and there is no darkness colder than what lurks within the human heart.