Book picks similar to
At the Mercy of Beasts by Ed Kurtz
horror
short-stories
short-story-collection
strange-stories-and-weird-fiction
Hello Darkness
Sam Best - 2012
Along with his four-year-old daughter, he hopes to make a new life for his family, free from the painful memories that still haunt them both.But old memories never fade. Visions of Ben’s deceased wife follow him to Colorado — and that’s just the beginning. An ancient evil is hunting his daughter from the shadows, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.As the good people of Falling Rock disappear one by one, Ben must join with the few who remain in a last stand to destroy a malevolent force that will consume every last human soul.Hello Darkness tells an epic invasion from hell story of good vs evil on a small town vs monster scale.Note: This creepy horror story contains some disturbing scenes and will make you want to sleep with the lights on.
Ocean Grave
Matt Serafini - 2019
Their search grabs the attention of a bloodthirsty pirate who intends to seize the riches for himself. The seedy government agents on his trail have their own reasons for wanting it too. And they're all in the path of a creature long thought extinct. A creature that has turned the world's third largest ocean into a hunting ground. A creature that is about to turn their dreams of fortune and glory into a nightmare from which there's no escaping.
Space Eldritch
D.J. ButlerLarry Correia - 2012
Featuring work by Brad R. Torgersen (Hugo/Nebula/Campbell nominee), Howard Tayler (multiple Hugo nominee), and Michael R. Collings ( author of over 100 books), plus a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Larry Correia, SPACE ELDRITCH inhabits the intersection between the eternal adventure of the final frontier and the inhuman darkness between the stars.
The Doom That Came to Dunwich: Weird Mysteries of the Cthulhu Mythos
Richard A. Lupoff - 2017
Think of what you’ve just read.” Lovecraftian stories are the bread and butter of the true horror fan. During his lifetime, Lovecraft himself encouraged other writers to develop stories in the vein we now call Lovecraftian: horror, based around the idea that Earth had been colonized by malign aliens in the remote past, long before mankind arose and became civilized, who eventually became worshipped and feared as evil Gods by their human servitors. Eventually these aliens had been “banished” to another dimensional limbo by a benign Elder Race, but might one day return to reclaim the Earth “when the stars are right.” That deep seated unease threads through this collection of Richard. A Lupoff's short stories that seem to share a common universe. Praise for Richard A. Lupoff: "Lupoff writes with intelligence, humour, wisdom, and a zest for life." - Joe Gorges, author of Hammett. Richard A. Lupoff began his writing career as a print and broadcast journalist while attending university. After earning his degree he served twice in the United States Army, first as an enlisted man, then as an officer. Following military service he worked for twelve years in the computer industry, while also serving as a guest lecturer at universities including the University of California (Berkeley) and Stanford University. As author and editor he has written more than fifty volumes, ranging from science fiction, mystery, fantasy, horror, and mainstream fiction to the evolution of cartooning and comics. He is a past winner of the Hugo Award, and a finalist for the Nebula and Oscar Awards. He has achieved the rare distinction of being represented in “Best of the Year” anthologies in three fields: science fiction, mystery, and horror.
Titanoboa
Victor Methos - 2014
On the small island of Kalou, Fiji, a rash of disappearances has the local police stumped. Men, women and children seem to disappear without a trace. Mark Whittaker is the island's sole private investigator. A former LAPD detective who moved to the island to get away from the violence of the city, he's now thrust into the middle of the disappearances when he's hired to find the brother of a mysterious client. As Mark digs into the disappearances, he discovers that something sinister and ancient has been awakened on the island. Something that kills without pity or remorse. And he fears his once island dream is about to be turned into a nightmare.
Below
Ryan Lockwood - 2013
Now, off the coast of California, something is rising from the deep--and multiplying. Voracious, unstoppable, and migrating north, an ungodly life form trailed by a gruesome wake of corpses. With the help of the brilliant and beautiful oceanographer Valerie Martell, Will finds himself in a race against time to stop the slaughter--by a predator capable of devastating the world's oceans. Pray it kills you quickly.
The Ragthorn
Robert Holdstock - 1991
Time is very short for me now, the final part of the ritual draws near... I cannot pretend that I am not frightened.” There were these two British writers, one lived in the country, the other in the city. The country writer loved to visit the city and partake of brandy and Greek kebabs in the local hostelry. The city writer liked to visit the country and guzzle ale and barbecued steak under the apple trees. The two writers needed an excuse for these indulgences, and so they invented one, and this excuse was called “collaborating on a story” ... It soon emerged that the story was to be about a legendary tree, which they both vaguely recalled from the tales their grandfathers used to tell them of mystery and myth. Soon they were delving with suppressed excitement into old documents at the British Museum and began to come up with some frightening discoveries. The first of these finds was in studying the original text, in Anglo-Saxon, of the Old English poem “The Dream of the Rood”. The marrying of the “tree” (crucifixion cross) and the “thorn” (a runic character) was too elaborately regular to be an accident of metre or alliterative language. Other discoveries followed, and the story gradually surfaced, like a dark secret from its burial mound. The Ragthorn: a dark and unsettling World Fantasy Award-winning novella by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth. Also included in this volume, two bonus stories: “The Fabulous Beast” by Garry Kilworth, and “The Charisma Trees” by Robert Holdstock. Robert Holdstock: ‘Britain’s best fantasist … these are the visions of a real artist.’ – The Times ‘Our finest living mythmaker. His narratives – intense, exuberant, earthy, passionate, dense with metaphor – are new trails through the ancient forest of our imaginations. An essential writer.’ – Stephen Baxter ‘No other author has so successfully captured the magic of the wildwood.’ – Michael Moorcock ‘A new expression of the British genius for true fantasy.’ – Alan Garner, on Mythago Wood Garry Kilworth: ‘Garry Kilworth is arguably the finest writer of short fiction today, in any genre.’ – New Scientist ‘Kilworth is one of the most significant writers in the English language.’ – Fear Magazine ‘Probably one of the finest writers of short stories Britain has ever produced.’ – Bookstove Online ‘Kilworth is a master of his trade.’ – Punch Magazine
Night Terrors III
Theresa DillonPaul Tremblay - 2014
A wave of sinkholes appears on the anniversary of a rural tragedy, and local residents begin to hear the voices of the dead. A woman encounters a predator from her youth—and a chance to turn the tables. A child’s inner beast takes on a sinister life of its own. An undetectable serial killer raises tensions on a college campus. Experimental physics reveals another world, and it might mean the end of ours. Shrouded in darkness, lurking in the shadows, NIGHT TERRORS III awaits you. The third installment of the chilling Night Terrors anthology series includes stories from Jack Ketchum, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J. Guignard, Aric Sundquist, Jennifer Brozek, John McNee, Simon McCaffery, Patty Templeton, and many more!
The Demon
Douglas Nicholas - 2014
But all is not as it seems…
The Shelter
James Everington - 2011
Only half believing that it even exists beyond schoolboy gossip, the four boys nevertheless feel an odd tension and unease. And when they do find the shelter, and go down inside it, the strange and horrifying events that follow will test their adolescent friendships to breaking point, and affect the rest of their lives...A horror novella of 15.5k words, plus an author’s afterword.
Ghost Mine
Hunter Shea - 2019
Former cattle driver, Rough Rider and current New York City cop Nat Blackburn is given an offer he can't refuse by President Teddy Roosevelt. Tales of gold in the abandoned mining town of Hecla, in the Deep Rock Hills, abound. The only problem-those who go seeking their fortune never return. Roosevelt's own troops are among the missing, and the President wants to know their fate - and find the gold. Along with his constant companion, Teta, a hired gun with a thirst for adventure, Nat travels to a barren land where even animals dare not tread. Along the way, they are joined by a Selma, a fiery and beautiful woman in search of her brother who was swallowed up by Hecla years earlier. Hecla is an eerie ghost town, its cemetery filled with crooked tombstones, the dusty streets scored by tumbleweed, the windows of the abandoned houses like eyes, following their every move. Terrifying wraiths flit throughout the town at night. Settling into a vacant home, Nat, Teta and Selma are approached by strange, black eyed children who then disappear like twin vapors. A trip to the mine ends with them galloping for their lives, chased by immense, hairy wild men. No, Hecla is far from abandoned - it's teeming with the supernatural, strange beasts and phantoms both luring them deeper into the mystery and driving them away from the mine. Only when a strange preacher and his hulking mute assistant arrive (on a Godly mission after hearing the blaring horns of Revelation) do they realize they cannot leave the town's borders, an invisible wall refusing to let them go. There's only one thing to do - plumb the chilling depths of the ghost mine and find the source of Hecla's bizarre power. What they stumble upon is a hellish battle of underworld forces while being tortured by the ghosts of their checkered pasts. There's a mystery in Hecla thousands of years old. Solving it could spell the end of the world. F
Almost Midnight
Rainbow Rowell - 2017
. .Kindred Spirits is about Elena, who decides to queue to see the new Star Wars movie and meets Gabe, a fellow fan.Midnights was previously published as part of the My True Love Gave to Me anthology, edited by Stephanie Perkins and Kindred Spirits was previously published as a World Book Day title.
The Novellas
Kealan Patrick Burke - 2013
The inn will soon be renovated in preparation for a new lease on life. So tonight, from midnight till six, Peter Haskins will watch over the machinery.And he will soon discover that there is something else in the hotel with him, something that needs no new lease on life, for it has never died.And never will.SELDOM SEEN IN AUGUSTWade Crawford is not a good guy. He’s a bank robber and a ruthless killer, and now three people are dead and Wade is on the run. With the cops hot on his heels, he breaks into a seemingly ordinary house in a seemingly ordinary neighborhood to hide and wait on word from his partner.But this neighborhood is far from ordinary. Indeed it has a very specific purpose, and soon Wade will discover that life in prison would be preferable to the hellish torment Seldom Seen has in store for him.MIDLISTERSMeet Jason Tennant, a writer of violent horror novels whose career is mired firmly in a maddening swamp of frustration somewhere north of nowhere and south of success. He is a midlister, those thankless souls who labor in the shadows of sometimes better, sometimes luckier writers, and it's starting to take its toll.Meet Kent Gray, wildly popular author of a string of so-called "sex-fi" novels. He's wealthy, handsome, and the object of Jason Tennant's professional jealousy.Welcome to Baltimore, Maryland, and the Aurora Science Fiction Horror Convention, where these two men, midlister and bestseller, will meet for the first time, and the midlister motto "Better Read Than Dead" will be put to the ultimate test.
The Folks
Ray Garton - 2001
Crag. . . a place of natural beauty and solitude . . . a place where village life has remained unchanged for decades. . .but also a place where dead bodies have a strange way of showing up every couple of years. . .ravaged, mutilated bodies.The Folks is a good old-fashioned horror novel from the master-mind of Ray Garton. The book opens on Halloween morning, at a rain-soaked cemetery, and the action doesn't stop until the final page is turned. Scary, suspenseful and a whole lotta fun, The Folks is available only from Cemetery Dance Publications!
Shotguns v. Cthulhu
Robin D. LawsRob Heinsoo - 2012
Steel your nerves, reach into your weapons locker, and tie tight your running shoes as humanity takes up arms against the monsters and gods of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Grab your pistols, your knives, your gearpunk grenades. Confront deep ones, mi-go, and flying polyps. Fight in the past, present and future, from the birth of the shotgun to the end of the world. Escape by car, carriage, and hot air balloon. Above all, remember to count your bullets...you may need the last one for yourself.