Book picks similar to
Near Dead by Stephen R. George


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...Walkers


Gary Brandner - 1980
    But she was brought back to life!That's when people began trying to kill her...nice people...the last people in the world anyone would suspect of being capable of murder--people who were already dead......Walkers: The most terrifying novel you've ever read!

The Scream


John Skipp - 1987
    Hell. Two great tastes that taste great together. Long before Elvis gyrated on the Sullivan Show or the Beatles toiled the smoky red-light bars of Hamburg, music has been sowing the seeds of liberation. Or damnation. With each new generation the edge of rebellion pushed farther. Rhythms quickened. Volume increased. Lyrics coarsened. The rules continued to be broken, until it seemed that there were no rules at all. And as waves of teens cranked it up and poured it on, parents built walls of accusation to explain their offspring's seeming corruption. Sex and drugs, demon worship and violence are the effects. Music is the cause. Or so the self-styled guardians of morality would have us believe. Meet The Scream. Just your average everyday mega-cult band. Their music is otherworldly. Their words are disturbing. Their message is unholy. Their fans are legion. And they're not kidding. They're killing. Themselves. Each other. Everyone. Their gospel screams from the lips of babes. Their backbeat has a body count. And their encore is just the warm-up act to madness beyond belief. It emerged from a war-torn jungle, where insanity was just another word for survival. It arrived in America with an insatiable lust for power and the means to fulfill it. In the amplified roar of arena applause there beats the heart of absolute darkness.

Saint Peter's Wolf


Michael Cadnum - 1991
    Obsessed with the latest addition to his collection--a set of fangs embedded in silver--art collector Benjamin Byrd soon finds himself transforming into a nocturnal, bloodthirsty being.

Plague Pit


Mark Ronson - 1981
    Part of it collapses, releasing a gust of air so foul that all the men nearby begin to choke and retch. Finally the nauseous stench disperses and they discover a burial crypt dating back to the Great Plague of London in 1665. But these pit should never be disturbed.But when the intruders begin to show horrifying symptoms – fever, nausea, revolting swellings – the true horror of the pit is revealed.All die hideously within five days.By opening a burial crypt that should never have been touched, they have unleashed an infection on the nation that the authorities must prevail to control. Ignoring the threat, the government warn the spreading of a Super-flu to attempt to contain the panic. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the infection.Charity, a local radio station presenter, and Paul, a scientist, are determined to unveil the truth, and save lives. But the powers from above are too strong. Can the pair find some way to combine the power of science with the power of media? The infection is fast spreading, but Paul and Charity must endeavour to spread the word and find a cure.All the while, one of the men from the building site has mysteriously disappeared and cannot be traced...Plague Pit is a chilling horror-thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It was previously published under the pseudonym Mark Ronson.

Bring Me Children


David Lozell Martin - 1992
    John Lyon, a veteran but emotionally unstable newscaster, is drawn into a sinister web of evil in the heart of Appalachia when he investigates a woman's bizarre story about a West Virginia doctor who has been killing babies.

Headhunter Reimagined


Michael Slade - 1984
    The Headhunter is loose on the streets of Vancouver. The psycho’s victims are everywhere - floating in the Fraser River, buried in a shallow grave, nailed to a totem pole on the university campus. All are women. All are headless.Then the taunting photographs arrive. Carefully posed shots of the women’s heads stuck on poles. The Mounties of Special X are up against a unique brand of killer. A killer whose sexual psychosis stretches back through Ecuador’s steaming jungle and a scream-filled New Orleans dungeon to a dead-of-winter manhunt in the Rocky Mountains a century ago.

The Beast Within


Edward Levy - 1981
    The Beast Within is a classic horror tale guaranteed to haunt your dreams.Prepare to meet the beast within. A lonely wife cheats. A brutal husband gets revenge. A not-so-innocent stranger hears a cellar door scrape shut—and begins 20 years of indescribable horror, chained in total darkness, feeding on live rats and human flesh, becoming himself the nightmare creature that lurks within us all...

The Demonologist


Michael Laimo - 2005
    And it keeps getting worse and worse. No, unfortunately for Bev, he's completely sane. What's taking control of him is far more terrifying than insanity. And it has an unimaginable purpose. Bev has become an innocent pawn in an infernal game, a victim of hellish forces beyond understanding. His visions of blood and debauchery are growing more ghastly every day. Some of them the most shocking are real. Bev can feel his mind, his body, his very soul slipping away. Will his only hope or his eternal damnation come from the demonologist?

Nightblood


T. Chris Martindale - 1989
    . . and more.

Muse


Michael Cecilione - 1998
    A handsome author strikes up a conversation with an actress in a bookshop in Manhattan, and she knows this is the start of something that will change her life forever.

Breed


Owl Goingback - 2002
    Augustine, Florida. An ancient evil is awakened in the Tolomato Cemetery, and is intent on stalking and destroying the citizens of the town. The evil creature, a Shiru, was believed to be a mythical beast from ancient Indian legend. The legend says the Shiru once roamed the earth attempting to mate with the women of the local Indian tribes in an effort to breed, but the Indians recognized the danger and hunted them down, destroying their hideous deformed offspring. But this legend is so old, that almost no one in modern day St. Augustine knows of it, and if they did they wouldn't believe it...that is until one, summoned by three women dabbling in black magic, crosses over from the dead. Now the Shiru is determined to get revenge on the human race, and to breed with a strong woman with an ancient blood line. Unbeknownst to her, local tour-guide, half Cherokee Ssabra Onih, is the Shiru's target. Fortunately for her, and the rest of the town, the spirit of Chief Tolomato comes to guide her, and enlist her help to hunt down the evil Shiru and send it back to the underworld. At the same time city police officer, Jack Colvin is working hard to track down the perpetrator of a series of grisly murders. Soon Colvin's and Onih's paths cross, and they join forces with the help of Chief Tolomato and other friendly spirits, in a desperate attempt to stop the seemingly invincible Shiru.

Moonfall


Tamara Thorne - 1996
    Gertrude’s Home for girls. As autumn fills the air, the townspeople prepare for the festive Halloween Haunt, Moonfall’s most popular tourist attraction. Even a series of unsolved deaths over the years hasn’t dimmed Moonfall’s renown. Maybe because anyone who knew anything about them has disappeared.Now, Sara Hawthorne returns to her hometown…and enters the hallowed halls of St. Gertrude’s where, twelve years before, another woman died a horrible death. In Sara’s old room, distant voices echo in the dark and the tormented cries of children shatter the moon—kissed night.But that’s just the beginning. For Sara Hawthorne is about to uncover St. Gertrude’s hellish secret…a secret she’ll carry with her to the grave…

Hell Hound


Ken Greenhall - 1977
    What if some morning as the old woman stood at the head of the staircase she were suddenly to feel a weight thrusting against the back of her legs? What if she were to lunge forward, grasping at the air, striking her thin skull against the edge of a stair? What would become of me if she were found unmoving at the bottom of the stairway?’Such are the thoughts of Baxter, a sociopathic bull terrier on the hunt for the perfect master, as he contemplates the demise of his first victim. The basis for the acclaimed 1989 film Baxter, Ken Greenhall’s utterly chilling and long-unobtainable Hell Hound (1977) has earned a reputation as a lost classic of horror fiction. This first-ever reissue includes a new introduction by Grady Hendrix.

Rawr


Eddie Generous - 2019
     Hunters come in droves but the beast proves itself too big and too cunning, using its fearsome teeth and claws to destroy the intruders. Many die and blood is spilled by the gallon, but has the beast met its match when a park ranger, an average joe, and a trail expert come together to predict where the beast will attack next?

Seeing Red


David J. Schow - 1989
    Schow received the World Fantasy Award for "Red Light" and the Twilight Zone Magazine Dimension award for "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You", both of which are included in this volume.