The Plot Calls

*Revised and Republished October 27, 2026*

The Plot Calls: Sloth Book 2 of 7

Pride was the fall. The call has grown louder since.

The One Beneath does not ask. He calls. This time he isn't hunting the people who want too much.
He's hunting the ones who stopped wanting anything at all. But why? What exactly is the One Beneath after?

Six months after the events of the Plot Calls Pride, Dr. Calvin Murnane continues grieving the disappearance of his longtime wife and partner, Professor Barbara Alder.

The Heartlands County Sheriffs Department Chief wants the plot cases buried. Social media wants answers. Sam Erriden tries to provide them. And, Pallid, the One Beneath, keeps feeding.

This entry follows:

1. Dr. Calvin Murnane, a tenured physicist and Barbara Alder's first love, who never stopped waiting for her to come back
2. Anders Croy, a 27-year server-room lifer at Nexus Corp, who finds out what the company's AI is really doing and decides silence is easier
3. Evelyn Bainbridge, a widow who has spent fifteen years clinging to the memory of "her Gerald"
4. Reverend Elmer Goss of Carver's Hollow's Chapel of the Clear Cross, who preaches hate from the pulpit and would rather be hollowed than confess

Each of them is visited by the Idle Man, a pale, hollow-eyed figure in black robes who offers the easiest bargain there is: You never have to change.

Detectives Brian Gunn and Cory Alvarez join paranormal blogger Sam Erriden and Marcus Serling to dig deeper into the soil.

They look into the Bone Lantern tapes left by Rob Serling, into the Bell family, who once heard the call and walked away, and into Eugene Thaddeus's Nexus Corp.

The deeper they dig, the deeper the plot. If that wasn't enough, someone in Harwaven is being paid to keep the plot buried.

Enjoy this exciting continuation of The Plot Calls!

When the plot calls, will you answer?

The Plot Calls: Sloth is book 2 of 7.

The Plot Calls septology is the first arc in Mark A. Figueroa's The Sideways trilogy.
Read and enjoy the book to learn more, and/or check out Mark's website and social media through his linktree.
Use this link: https://www.linktr.ee/mark_a_figueroa