It is dangerous to lend a horror story to someone who lives alone in a quiet village up a hill, a village without cars, surrounded by jungle, beyond the reach of phone reception. After all, they might have a sense of humor.
Turning the pages, they might laugh at every snapping tree branch, at every rattling window pane, at every flapping grasshopper wing they hear around them. They might have every reason to laugh because they will look around and see the similarities. Those that were always there.
They are ensconced. Artificial fear, nerves fictionalized, implanted by some unknown author, replaces something else, replaces a heavy thing without plot twists and adrenaline.
A woman has seen something. A woman says something. Her sanity is questioned. She is ostracized. But she is right and she is fundamentally good.
The reader is invigorated and perhaps a little bit frightened, but not of the book. They step out into the black night like a rock dropped into tar, determined to do something.