Book picks similar to
Crucifax by Ray Garton


horror
splatterpunk
terror
fiction

Ghouls


Edward Lee - 1988
    No one knew what went on in the sullen, dark house on the hill, but town cop Kurt Morris intended to find out. The sleepy town of Tylersville, Maryland was being stalked by an unimaginable evil, it had become the haunting-ground for horrors too grisly to be described. Young girls had vanished without a trace. Graves had been opened, corpses unearthed and carried away. Quiet moonlit nights gave way to a mindless slaughter, and to the sounds of hysterical screams… DARK HORIZONS Time was running out. How many more would be dragged off into an endless night, and for what hideous purpose? Fear led to wild speculations about psychopaths, crazed animals, vampires, and werewolves. But Kurt knew better. Deep in the fog-shrouded woods, he had seen the nightmare figures. And the truth was much, much worse… GHOULS! A novel of unrelenting horror in the tradition of Dean Koontz.

Erebus


Shaun Hutson - 1984
    The townspeople's fingernails are abnormally long, and their faces are pale and gaunt. Some have noticed the growth of their canine teeth. At first they were terrified, but their terror turns to glee as they transform into beasts with a craving for human flesh.

Wetbones


John Shirley - 1991
    Then his roommate’s missing brother turns up in a local hospital having sliced open his own chest and legs for some sick, inexplicable reason. In Oakland, the Reverend Garner, a recovering addict, leaves his ministry in search of his teenage daughter, who was last seen in the company of her ghoulish kidnapper. And the Los Angeles police are meanwhile baffled in their hunt for the elusive “Wetbones” serial killer who leaves nothing of his victims behind except a damp, grisly pile of bones. Though Tom, the reverend, and the LAPD are on separate quests for answers, they are all being led into the darkest shadows of Hollywood, where the debauchery never ceases and pleasure is a drug that devours human flesh, blood, and sanity. But the true source of the all-consuming addiction is the most horrifying revelation of all, for it is not of this rational Earth. From International Horror Guild Award–winning author John Shirley, the acclaimed “splatterpunk” classic Wetbones combines the monstrous inventiveness of H. P. Lovecraft with the exquisite excess of Clive Barker. A true masterwork of modern terror, it’s decidedly not for the faint of heart.

The Sleepless


Graham Masterton - 1994
    An insurance investigator searches for the truth, and becomes involved in a nightmare maelstrom of horror.

The Cage


Brian Keene - 2010
    Now, with some of their co-workers dead, the hostages are being slaughtered one-by-one, and if they want to survive the night, they'll have to escape... The Cage.

Satan's Snowdrop


Guy N. Smith - 1980
    Human skeletons lay deep in the grounds, and evil plagued the air in every room.Then a wealthy antiques dealer moved his family in, to bloodcurdling shrieks in the night, and visions of terror and madness.For nothing could make the tortured victims rest. And no one was safe in the devil's house, where is foul mark -- a single blood-soaked snowdrop -- ruled supreme.

Death Day


Robert Neville - 1986
    The author also wrote "Assassin", "Spawn" and "Slugs".

The Light at the End


John Skipp - 1986
    The newspapers scream out headlines that spark terror across the city. Ten murders on the New York City subway. Ten grisly crimes that defy all reason -- no pattern, no m.o., no leads for police to pursue. The press dubs the fiend the "Subway Psycho"; the NYPD desperately seeks their quarry before the city erupts in mass hysteria. But they won't find what they're looking for.Because they all think that the killer is human.Only a few know the true story -- a story the papers will never print. It is a tale of abject terror and death written in grit and steel... and blood. The tale of a man who vanished into the bowels of the urban earth one night, taken by a creature of unholy evil, then left as a babe abandoned on the doorstep of Hell. Now he is back, driven by twin demons of rage and retribution.He is unstoppable. And we are all his prey... unless a ragtag band of misfit souls will dare to descend into a world of manmade darkness, where the real and unreal alike dwell in endless shadow. A place where humanity has been left behind, and the horrifying truth will dawn as a madman's chilling vendetta comes to light...Filled with gripping drama and harrowing doomsday dread, The Light at the End is the book that ushered in a bold new view of humankind's most ancient and ruthless evil; a mesmerizing novel from two acknowledged masters of spellbinding suspense.

Blood Kin


Ronald Kelly - 1996
    But tonight, his ancestors have awakened their Great-Grandpa Craven. They're planning a party in the backwoods of Tennessee. And the folks of Green Hollow are in for the night of their lives. The last night of their lives...A teenage girl is found with her throat torn open and her body completely drained of blood... A young bride sprouts fangs and turns on her husband ...A little girl's pet rat develops a murderous mind of its own ...A preacher goes insane and slaughters his entire congregation before feasting on their blood...

In This Skin


Simon Clark - 2004
    From Vaudeville, through the big bands and up to the hottest rock acts, the Luxor had them all. It's closed now, a boarded-up relic, standing alone in a run down industrial part of town. But the old dance hall isn't empty. A hideous presence lives there, a monstrous evil that has the ability to invade people's fantasies and nightmares . . . and bring them to life. Three strangers will soon learn the extent of the dance hall's power. As their lives become more and more entangled in its inescapable web, they will come to see that what haunts the Luxor is far worse than any ghost.

Failure


John Everson - 2008
    Cindy just plain doesn't care; she'll get on her knees for anyone beneath the football field bleachers to score a nickel bag hit. And Sal is a frustrated goon with a hook nose and an attitude so sour he can't nail a girl even with the lure of free dope and a getaway car.When these three desperate teens meet Aaron, a failed practitioner of the dark arts who offers them the best high they've ever smoked in exchange for some kinky sex play inside his pentagram, things can only go from bad to worse. Aaron hopes to ensnare and re-birth the spirit of a late witch, to capture her power from beyond the grave for his own.Soon, they'll all learn the darkest, bloodiest, most terrifying definition of Failure.Originally released as a limited edition hardcover chapbook from Delirium Books in 2006, this updated 2013 Dark Arts Books e-book edition of John Everson's novelette Failure features new cover art and an Afterword by the author.

Soultaker


Bryan Smith - 2009
    . . Sexy . . . Inhuman. — Jake McAllister knows that his brother Trey’s new girlfriend is a bad influence, but he doesn’t know what Myra’s really after — Trey’s soul. Trey is just one of her new playthings, a pawn in her centuries-long game. One by one, Myra has seduced and enslaved the young men of the town. The women have joined her cult as eager priestesses, lured by promises of sex and power. But Myra’s unholy plan is almost complete. Can one man hope to battle such seductive evil? Will he be able to resist the . . .SOULTAKER

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.

13 Bullets


David Wellington - 2007
    But the evidence proves otherwise.When a state trooper named Caxton calls the FBI looking for help in the middle of the night, it is Arkeley who gets the assignment - who else? He's been expecting such a call to come eventually. Sure, it has been years since any signs of an attack, but Arkeley knows what most people don't: there is one left. In an abandoned asylum she is rotting, plotting, and biding her time in a way that only the undead can.Caxton is out of her league on this case and more than a little afraid, but the fed made it plain that there is only one way out. But the worst thing is the feeling that the vampires want more than just her blood. They want her for a reason, one she can't guess; a reason her sphinxlike partner knows but won't say; a reason she has to find out - or die trying.Now there are only 13 bullets between Caxton and Arkeley and the vampires. There are only 13 bullets between us, the living, and them, the damned.

Catmagic


Whitley Strieber - 1986
    — Set in the world of modern American witches, Catmagic is full of action, terror, and wonder, enormously entertaining and profoundly human. — Takes place in Maywell, New Jersey, a sleepy little town, the forces around it quite, until in a laboratory George Walker completes his first experiment in reanimation: He kills an animinal and brings it back to life.Human subjects are next.