Book picks similar to
The Festering Ones by S.H. Cooper


horror
fiction
ladies-of-horror-fiction
e-books

The Toll


Cherie Priest - 2019
    Drive that route from east to west, and you’ll cross six bridges. Take it from west to east, and you might find seven.But you’d better hope not.Titus and Melanie Bell leave their hotel in Fargo for a second honeymoon canoeing the Okefenokee Swamp. But shortly before they reach their destination, they draw up to a halt at the edge of a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car . . .When, much later, a tow-truck arrives, the driver finds Titus lying in the middle of the road, but Melanie is nowhere to be found.

The Grownup


Gillian Flynn - 2014
    On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan's terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan's teenage stepson, doesn't help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.“The Grownup,” originally appeared as “What Do You Do?” in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.

Dead Inside


Chandler Morrison - 2015
    Along the way, lines will be crossed, taboos will be violated, and common decency will take an extended leave of absence. This is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Or anyone who enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey. A young hospital security guard with a disturbingly unique taste in women. A maternity doctor with a horrifically unusual appetite. When the two of them meet, they embark on a journey of self-discovery as they shatter societal norms while engaging in destructive and abhorrent behavior. As they unwittingly help each other understand a world in which neither of them seems to belong, they begin to realize what it truly means to be alive...and that it might not always be a good thing.

Suicide Forest


Jeremy Bates - 2014
    Legend has it that the spirits of those many suicides are still roaming, haunting deep in the ancient woods.When bad weather prevents a group of friends from climbing neighboring Mt. Fuji, they decide to spend the night camping in Aokigahara. But they get more than they bargained for when one of them is found hanged in the morning--and they realize there might be some truth to the legends after all.

The Gulp


Alan Baxter - 2021
    The residents have grown used to it. The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there. Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry. A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand. A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake. Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life.Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.

The Howling Trilogy


Gary Brandner - 2012
    On the surface Drago appeared to be like most small rural towns.But it was not.The village had a most unsavory history. Unexplained disappearances, sudden deaths.People just vanished, never to be found.THE HOWLING II:For Karyn it was the howling.The howling that had heralded the nightmare in Drago… the nightmare that had joined her husband Roy to the she-wolf Marcia and should have ended forever with the fire.But it hadn’t.Roy and Marcia were still alive, and deadly…And thirsty for the most horrifying vengeance imaginable…THE HOWLING III:They are man. And they are beast.Once again they stalk the night, eyes aflame, teeth flashing in vengeance.Malcolm is the young one. He must choose between the familiar way of the human and the seductive howling of the wolf. Those who share his blood want to make him one of them.Those who fear him want him dead.Only one woman and one man want to help him.Even though they can't believe their ears. Or their eyes.* * *Includes:Preview: James Roy Daley’s - Terror TownPreview: Matt Hults’ - HuskPreview: James Roy Daley’s - Into HellPreview: Paul Kane’s - Pain Cages

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.

Man, Fuck This House


Brian Asman - 2021
    Sabrina's a bored and disillusioned home-maker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren't what they seem.Sabrina's hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbors are odd or absent. And Sabrina's already-fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they're far from its only residents...

One Star


The Behrg - 2019
    But when Li posts a one-star review of a novel on her book blog, the results are far more frightening than she could ever have imagined. Not every story was meant to have a happy ending.ONE STAR is a previously unpublished horror short story, being released in The Behrg's upcoming short story collection--"The Passengers You Cannot See." It is the author's love letter to book bloggers and reviewers, and thus is being offered as a free download to any book reviewer in part to thank all those who have been a part of the author's journey. And if you haven't yet been a part, there's no better time than now to jump in that car and ride along. Oh, the vistas you will see.

Forsaken: A Novel of Art, Evil and Insanity


Andrew Van Wey - 2011
    Two kids, a dog, and a tenure track professorship teaching art at the local university. Your name is Daniel Rineheart. You’ve got it all....BUT ALL DREAMS MUST END.For this autumn heralds the arrival of a mysterious painting. No name. No date. No signature or frame. A disturbing work of grotesque perfection: two children with cruel eyes, a window onto an endless field, and a dying tree on top of a hill.A work of art... that changes with each viewing.SO BEGINS THE NIGHTMARE......Where wretched children crawl from a canvas prison to stalk the quiet halls of this happy home....Where painted clocks tick-tock away in the dark hours before dawn, and a missing dog whimpers from between the walls....Where all answers lead to a dark artist and an impossible creation, a cursed canvas with a twisted past......AND A HORROR THAT WILL DEVOUR ALL.Curl up, if you dare, with a dark novel readers are calling: “Beautifully written” — “A Must Read!” — “Stunning” — “The Scariest book EVER!” FORSKEN is an intelligent blend of ghost story, suburban supernatural thriller, haunted house, and mystery. Perfectly written for fans of early Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub, it’s a terrifying tale of secrets and lies, of nightmares made flesh; where the scariest stories are the ones that coldly whisper into your ear until madness and death are a welcome rest.Lock your door.
Turn on the lights.
Do NOT read FORSAKEN late at night.

The Resurrectionists


Michael Patrick Hicks - 2019
    Only a handful of years after the end of British rule, Hawley finds himself drawn into a new war unlike anything he has ever seen.New York City is on the cusp of a new revolution as the science of medicine advances, but procuring bodies for study is still illegal. Bands of resurrectionists are stealing corpses from New York cemeteries, and women of the night are disappearing from the streets, only to meet grisly ends elsewhere.After a friend’s family is robbed from their graves, Hawley is compelled to fight back against the wave of exhumations plaguing the Black cemetery. Little does he know, the theft of bodies is key to far darker arts being performed by the resurrectionists. If successful, the work of these occultists could spell the end of the fledgling American Experiment… and the world itself.The Resurrectionists, the first book in the Salem Hawley series, is a novella of historical cosmic horror from the author of Broken Shells and Mass Hysteria.

Third Watch


Robert Dugoni - 2015
     In this prequel short story to Robert Dugoni’s #1 Kindle-bestselling novel, My Sister’s Grave, Tracy Crosswhite is a young patrol officer, paying her dues, keeping her head down, and hoping a solid record will get her promoted to detective. While years have passed since the disappearance of Tracy’s sister, the experience has made her one of the city’s most dedicated cops. Reporter Tevia Kushman is shadowing Tracy on a ride-along seeking to follow-up on a recent (and nasty) exposé about the Seattle PD’s treatment of female cops. Young and ambitious, Tevia is hoping for a juicy scoop on the gender politics of the PD, but may get a much bigger story than she bargained for… Neither woman expects a routine-sounding call to turn into something dangerous, until Tracy walks into a domestic dispute and finds herself looking down the barrel of a shot-gun. No stranger to high-pressure situations, Tracy must draw on more than just her academy training and lightning-fast shooting skills to find a way to talk down—or take out—the volatile man holding the gun.

Undead Winter


T.M. Williams - 2013
    That's all it takes for the darkness to penetrate. To infect. To destroy.A plague has incapacitated humanity, spreading across the globe faster than it could ever possibly be contained. Almost overnight the world is awakened to a new reality and the realization that no one is safe, not a single living soul.As the virus takes control, humanity is brought crashing to its knees. The few left untouched fight frantically for their survival, even as they know their future no longer exists, doing the uninmaginable at the brink of death.A dark tale that shows exactly how desperate, how dark, humanity can get once the undead winter arrives.This short story will haunt readers long after the last page has been read. A story you will want to read over and over.

The Nothing That Is


Kyle Winkler - 2021
    Cade McCall is an assistant manager for a catering business. Driving to work one morning, part of the local graveyard explodes. Later the same day, Cade gets an odd message from a client who needs catering for an Extreme Food Club. He calls himself Mr. Dinosaur. And he’s paying $11,000. Despite Cade’s reservations, he takes the gig. Although, who’s feeding whom is another question entirely...Involving female biker gangs, cults, possessed furniture, and a full dose of cosmic horror, THE NOTHING THAT IS serves up the weird.

Wylding Hall


Elizabeth Hand - 2015
    There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again.Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?