Book picks similar to
sickER B*stards by Matt Shaw


horror
matt-shaw
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extreme-horror

Among Wolves


R.A. Hakok - 2015
    It’s the last place you should be. Gabriel doesn't know how it began. Nobody does, not even Kane, and he was President. Gabriel was on a tour of the White House with Mags and the rest of Miss Kimble’s first-graders when it happened. They fled in helicopters to a long-abandoned mountain bunker, even as the first of the missiles found their targets.Ten years have passed, and Gabriel still lives deep inside the mountain, waiting for the world to thaw. But outside the ash-storms continue to rage, and supplies are running low. The President says it will be okay, but Gabriel isn’t so sure. He’s their scavenger; he’s seen what it’s like out there.Then one day Gabriel finds a bloodstained map. The blood’s not a problem, nor are the frozen remains of the person it once belonged to. Gabriel’s used to seeing dead bodies; there's far worse to be found in any Walmart or Piggly Wiggly you care to wander into. Except this one he recognizes, and it shouldn’t be here. Now all Gabriel can think is how he's going to make it back to the bunker to let the President know what he's found.But the map Gabriel has found is the key to a secret, one that has been buried for a decade. Gabriel's about to learn that inside the mountain things are not as they seem. And to get Mags and the others out he will need to face the thing that terrifies him most.

The Tainted Souls


Shaun Hutson - 2020
    A virus has seemingly come from no where, bringing with it a number of conspiracy theories as to its origin. Some of the theories are outlandish whilst some have an eerie ring of possible truth around them. But, as the world goes into lock down with people living in isolation only allowed out of their homes for essential journeys, people soon realise there are greater things to worry about than COVID-19. As the virus continues to get a grip of the world, mankind reveals the many monsters within.

Icebound


David Axton - 1976
    The fear is numbing. Screams freeze in the throat. Death arrives in shades of white. Cold-blooded murder seems right at home....the chill of the grave.

Off Season


Jack Ketchum - 1980
    A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River—off season—awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall...And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

The Curse of Allie Mae


Aiden James - 2010
    David Hobbs, vacationing with his wife Miriam, inadvertently stumbles upon a small cloth 'keepsake' bag and a broken tooth. A human tooth. Miriam begs David to hand the bag and tooth over to park officials, but he ignores his wife's pleas and secretly keeps the 'harmless' items. The action opens a doorway that had been closed for nearly a hundred years and unleashes hell on earth, or at least hell in the lives of David and Miriam.Following the brutal murder of his best friend in Denver, and an aborted attack on his oldest son, David desperately seeks to understand why a mysterious teenage girl has chosen to terrorize him and the males closest to him. To prevent further devastation to his family and end the wanton bloodshed, he returns to the enchanted hills of eastern Tennessee, where a terrible truth awaits discovery...one that forces him to face the consequences for the unpaid sins of his ancestors.

Riding the Bullet


Stephen King - 2000
     A college student's mother is dying in a Maine hospital. When he hitches a ride to see her, the driver is not who he appears to be. Soon the journey veers off into a dark landscape that could only be drawn by Stephen King.2 Cassettes / 2 Hours

Meat


Joseph D'Lacey - 2008
    Its people depend on meat for their survival, meat supplied by the processing plant on the edge of town.Meat is sanctified in Abyrne, a precious commodity eaten with devout solemnity by everyone except for a handful of people who won't, who suspect that the town is evil, rotten to its core.A feud smoulders between the town's religious and secular powers - whoever controls the meat supply controls everything,But the townsfolk are hungry, they must be fed...They must be fed.

The Hollow Tree


James Brogden - 2018
    Terrified that she is going mad, Rachel experiences phantom sensations of leaves, trees, and finally a hand that grasps hers and pulls a young woman into Rachel's world. She has no idea of who she is, but Rachel can't help but think of the local legend of Oak Mary, the corpse of a woman found hidden in a hollow tree, and who was never identified. Three myths have grown up around the body; was she a spy, a prostitute or a murdered gypsy? Rachel is desperate to learn the truth, but darker forces are at work. For a rule has been broken, and Mary is in a world where she doesn't belong...

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.

Autumn


David Moody - 2001
    After 99% of the population of the planet is killed in less than 24 hours, for the very few who have managed to stay alive, things are about to get much worse. Animated by phase two of some unknown contagion, the dead begin to rise. At first slow, blind, dumb and lumbering, quickly the bodies regain their most basic senses and abilities... sight, hearing, locomotion... As well as the instinct toward aggression and violence. Held back only by the restraints of their rapidly decomposing flesh, the dead seem to have only one single goal - to lumber forth and destroy the sole remaining attraction in the silent, lifeless world: those who have survived the plague, who now find themselves outnumbered 1,000,000 to 1...Without ever using the 'Z' word, Autumn offers a new perspective on the traditional zombie story. There's no flesh eating, no fast-moving corpses, no gore for gore's sake. Combining the atmosphere and tone of George Romero's classic living dead films with the attitude and awareness of 28 Days (and Weeks) later, this horrifying and suspenseful novel is filled with relentless cold, dark fear.

Neverland


Douglas Clegg - 1990
    One particular summer, young Beau follows his cousin Sumter into a hidden shack in the woods—and christens this new clubhouse "Neverland."Neverland has a secret history, unknown to the children...The rundown shack in the woods is the key to an age-old mystery, a place forbidden to all. But Sumter and his cousins gather in its dusty shadows to escape the tensions at their grandmother's house. Neverland becomes the place where children begin to worship a creature of shadows, which Sumter calls "Lucy."All gods demand sacrifice...It begins with small sacrifices, little games, strange imaginings. While Sumter's games spiral out of control, twisting from the mysterious to the macabre, a nightmarish presence rises among the straggly trees beyond the bluffs overlooking the sea.And when Neverland itself is threatened with destruction, the children's games take on a horrifying reality—and Gull Island becomes a place of unrelenting terror.

The Strain


Guillermo del Toro - 2009
    All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.

True Crime


Samantha Kolesnik - 2020
    Once the abuse becomes too much to handle, the two siblings embark on a sordid cross-country murder spree beginning with their mom. As the murder tally rises, Suzy’s mental state spirals into irredeemable madness.

Black Creek Crossing


John Saul - 2004
    Unholy forces are stirred from long slumber to monstrous new life. And two young misfits discover the chilling art of turning persecution into retribution. With these eerie ingredients, bestselling master John Saul once again works his unique brand of sinister magic to conjure an unforgettable tale of unspeakable terror.For most of her young life, fifteen-year-old Angel Sullivan has been on the outside looking in, enduring the taunts of cruel schoolmates and the angry abuse of a bitter father. Then Angel’s family moves to the quaint town of Roundtree, Massachusetts—where a charming home is available, a promising job awaits Angel’s unemployed father, and most of all, the chance to make a new start beckons to the shy, hopeful teenager. But when she is shunned by her new classmates, Angel falls deeper into despair. Until she meets Seth Baker, a fellow outcast—and a fateful kinship is forged. It’s Seth who tells Angel the unspoken truth about the legacy of murder that hangs over her family’s home—and the whispered rumors that something supernatural still dwells there. Uncertain whether the stories are true, and desperate to escape the torment of their daily lives, Angel and Seth devote themselves to contacting whatever restless soul haunts the dark recesses of Black Creek Crossing. But once they have begun, there is no turning back. Guided by an anguished and vengeful spirit, they uncover the shocking events and centuries-old horrors that lay buried beneath the placid veneer of Roundtree. And along with the ghastly revelations comes a terrifying power—one that feeds upon the rage of the victimized, turning the basest impulses and most dangerous desires into devastating weapons. Now, the closer Angel and Seth are pushed toward the edge by their tormentors, the deeper they descend into the maelstrom of dark forces they’ve unleashed . . . and the more unspeakable the hour of reckoning will be.

Come Closer


Sara Gran - 2003
    A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane? Described as “a new kind of psychological thriller” by George Pelecanos and “this year's scariest novel” by Time Out New York, Come Closer has become a modern classic “with a kick that will stay with the reader for days afterward” (The Dallas Morning News).