Book picks similar to
The Dark Ones by Bryan Smith


horror
bryan-smith
fiction
splatterpunk

Tribesmen


Adam Cesare - 2012
    But the angry, undead spirits of the island have a different, more original script in mind. And as horror after staggering horror unfolds, the camera keeps rolling. To the blood-spattered end...

Violet


Scott Thomas - 2019
    For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother. Three decades later, loss returns—her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain—to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief. But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown—and inside that home where Kris Barlow last saw her mother, an old friend awaits her return.

Worm


Tim Curran - 2013
    The earth begins to move. The streets crack open and yards split asunder...and rising from subterranean depths far below, a viscid black muck bubbles up and floods the neighborhood.In it are a ravenous army of gigantic worms seeking human flesh. They wash into houses, they come up through the sewers, through plumbing, filling toilets and tubs, seeking human prey. Cut off from the rest of the town, the people of Pine Street must wage a war of survival or they'll never see morning. As bad as the worms are, there's something worse—and far larger—waiting to emerge.

The New Neighbor


Ray Garton - 1991
    until Lorelle Dupree moves in across the street. The new neighbor is astonishingly beautiful... friendly... and seductive. Each member of the Pritchard family surrenders to her advances and Lorelle's influence changes them in shocking ways. Soon everyone on Deerfield is changing. And then the killings start.The new neighbor is not interested in borrowing a cup of sugar or using your weed-whacker. She's more interested in your soul.In Ray Garton's legendary erotic horror novel The New Neighbor, sex isn't just for pleasure any more.The New Neighbor was originally published in 1991 as a limited 500-copy run (with extreme artwork by J.K. Potter) by Charnel House, and was re-released by Cemetery Dance in 2003 in a limited 1000-copy reissue.

Dweller


Jeff Strand - 2010
    His parents convinced the terrified child it was only his imagination. The next time Toby saw the creature he was a lonely, unhappy teenager without friends.But the creature would be his friend. It would be there when Toby needed someone to talk to. And it would take care of the bullies who wouldn’t leave Toby alone. After all, the creature needed to eat.And during their macabre, decades-long friendship, there will be other meals...

Dark Screams: Volume Eight


Richard Chizmar - 2017
    WALPUSKI’S TYPEWRITER by Frank Darabont They say that genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. For Howard Walpuski, it’s an IBM Selectric II typewriter, a nefarious secret, and a whole lot of blood. THE BOY by Bentley Little Christine has found the perfect neighborhood to raise her family: a quaint, quiet, friendly place where everyone gets along. Everyone, that is, except for the boy. TUMOR by Benjamin Percy He dodged death in the nick of time when the golf ball-sized tumor was surgically removed from his head. But the tumor isn’t done with him. TWISTED AND GNARLED by Billie Sue Mosiman He’s smart. Smarter than anyone knows. No one has linked him to the string of bodies he’s left up and down the California coast. Only one woman has ever come close—and she’s no match for his intellect. THE PALAVER by Kealan Patrick Burke It’s time for Oscar Dennihy to close his failing barber shop and retire—until a mysterious customer tells him a truly hair-raising tale . . . and gives Oscar a wonderful and terrible new purpose. INDIA BLUE by Glen Hirshberg Like most Americans, Enrico never gave much thought to the sport of cricket. Not until America’s Rockin’ Professional Cricket game—a spectacle that will live forever in his most horrible nightmares. Praise for the Dark Screams series “A wicked treat [featuring] . . . some of the genre’s best.”—Hellnotes, on Volume One “Five fun-to-read stories by top-notch horror scribes. How can you lose? The answer: you can’t.”—Atomic Fangirl, on Volume Two “If you have not tried the series yet, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of any (or all) of the books for yourself.”—Examiner.com, on Volume Three “Fans of horror of every variety will find something to love in these pages.”—LitReactor, on Volume Four “[Volume Five] runs the gamut from throwback horror to lyrical and heartbreaking tales.”—Publishers Weekly

The Mother


Brett McBean - 2006
    As the search becomes an obsession, the lonely highway begins to transform her.Each driver she meets could be the killer; each lift she takes could be her last

Dark Mountain


Richard Kelly - 1987
    What they will find instead is terror in the form of a violent psychopath and his mother, a powerful witch.(Previously published as Tread Softly, by Richard Kelly)

We Are Always Watching


Hunter Shea - 2017
    His father’s crippling vertigo only seems to get worse, and even with his mother working herself to the bone, they’re out of money and options.Grandpa Abraham is a drunk bastard and the living embodiment of the long neglected farmhouse. He claims the place is haunted. Ghosts roam the hall at night and their muffled cries fill the silence of warm, summer nights.On the ceiling above West’s bed are the words WE SEE YOU. In a house plagued by death and mysterious visitations, West realizes something beyond the fiction of his favorite horror books has to be faced.Dark secrets are buried deep, and there are Guardians who want to keep it that way. No matter where they go or what they do, West and his family know one thing… they are always watching.

The Wolfen


Whitley Strieber - 1978
    The savage killing of two New York City policemen leads two detectives, a man and a woman bound together by a strange, tough passion, to hunt down the wolfen, called werewolves in former days.

Charnel House


Graham Masterton - 1978
    . . . But Seymour Willis insisted his house was breathing and that he heard someone's - or something's - heartbeat pounding within the walls. So the disbelievers investigated, doubting the existence of ghosts or demons - until their reason was shattered by the shrieking unseen creature who threatened to claim their lives. By then it was too late to stop the fiendish force from wreaking vengeance upon those denying its very existence. One by one, they must die - in exchange for its eternally evil soul.

Dead Sea


Brian Keene - 2007
    They are filled with zombies - the living dead, rotting predators driven only by a need to kill and eat. For Lamar Reed and a handful of others, their safe haven is an old ship out at sea. But it will soon become a deathtrap, and they'll learn that isolation can also mean no escape.

Assassin


Shaun Hutson - 1988
    Into this world of corruption, violence, madness and death came the Assassin. The author also wrote "Death Day", "Spawn" and "Slugs".

The Devil's Woods


Brian Moreland - 2013
    There is a place the locals call "the Devil's Woods," but to speak of it will only bring the devil to your door. It is a place so evil that even animals avoid it.When their father's expedition team goes missing, Kyle Elkheart and his brother and sister return to the abandoned Cree Indian reservation where they were born. Kyle can see ghosts that haunt the woods surrounding the village--and they seem to be trying to warn him. The search for their father will lead Kyle and his siblings to the dark heart of the legendary forest, where their mission will quickly become a fight for survival.

The Shore


Robert Dunbar - 2007
    and a tormented girl struggles to escape captivity. As a winter storm tightens its grip on the town of Edgeharbor -- epicenter for a series of horrible murders -- the scattered inhabitants cower from more than pounding waves. Mangled victims bear the marks of savage claws and strange, bloody footprints mar the snow-covered beach. Now a young policewoman and a myserious stranger are all that stand between this isolated community and an ancient evil.