Book picks similar to
The Evil Under the Water by David Gurney


horror
paperbacks-from-hell
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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.

Son of Rosemary/Rosemary's Baby


Ira Levin - 2013
    

Evil Whispers


Owl Goingback - 2001
    They found it in a backwoods Florida town. Far away from civilization. Quiet and peaceful. And terribly isolated.Robert and Janet should have listened to the local legends. They should have heeded the warnings about the black water lagoons. And they should have listened to their daughter when she told them about the whispers in the woods. Because now, it's too late. Krissy's disappeared, and whatever took their little girl is coming back for more....

The Strangers


Mort Castle - 1984
    He’s everybody’s buddy, has a great sense of humor, works hard at his typical boring job to provide for the wife and kids. And he is a Stranger. Michael seethes with furious impatience for the coming of the Time of the Strangers, when he and millions like him will be able at last to reveal their true selves to a horrified, helpless world.

Wireman


Billie Sue Mosiman - 1984
    He waited in the shadows, a dark and deadly presence. He was no novice at this terrible trade--he had struck before and he would strike again. And with each new killing he became less human...and more vicious. He stood patiently, a wire garrote in his strong hands, ready to claim yet another victim. Soon he would have one more to add to his growing list unless they could stop him. But how could they when they didn't know who he was? What he was? To a terrified city he was known only as the Wireman. Set in the 1970s, two brothers return from the Vietnam war with blood on their hands. Learning to kill the enemy wasn't something that would go away when they returned home to Houston, Texas. Could one of them be the serial killer, Wireman? Could the other stop him? Loosely based on true crimes which occurred in Houston, Texas in 1978-80. A suspense thriller by Edgar-Nominated author, Billie Sue Mosiman.

Bane County: A Short Story


J.R. Rice - 2019
    . . Mystery, Suspense, an edge-of-your-seat Thriller with characters you’ll fall in love with. An old-school, heart-pounding, coming-of-age Horror series with 100s of 5-Star Reviews. A Bane County Short Story. This 8,000-word Novelette entitled “When Bane Flowers Bloom” takes place within the Bane County Universe. The timeline of the story is set during the third book of the series (First Moon), and it answers many questions and reveals new mysteries spanning all the way back to Book 1 (Forgotten Moon). Prepare yourself, for a twisting turning descent into absolute terror.

Helltown: A Horror Novel


Stephen Bentley - 2015
    It's nothing like the suburb you might live in . . . Unless, that is, an insane, Listerine-guzzling Realtor sold you your house? Or perhaps your postman happens to have a disturbing relationship with his claw hammer? A grieving Dan LaBarbara knows something is different in Helltown as soon as he comes back home. Yeah, sure, the town always been a little off. You can feel that about the place, like if you stepped into a house whose only occupants were freshly murdered corpses in an upstairs bedroom. But this is something else entirely. Standing in his little brother Barbie's basement workshop, holding one of those dioramas Barbie's been building since the accident, the ones that seem to move when you hold them, Dan can feel Barbie's terror. Barbie must know something is coming, something big, something evil. He's trying to warn Dan in the only way he knows. Why else would Barbie build a diorama depicting a man-sized version of a cartoon rabbit with bloody teeth about to devour a trembling teenager? Why else would he spend so much time crafting an intricate model of Death standing over a pimply teenager in the school library? And let's not even talk about that little model of the mob of undead surrounding the massive tower of vicious black spines behind the high school. Hilltown has a story to tell, and the lonely brain-damaged man who builds magical dioramas in his basement workshop has been telling it all along. As the evil closes in around them, Dan and his new love interest Jessica must do the impossible: save everyone one in Hilltown before it's too late.

The Gore


Joseph A. Citro - 1990
    But there he discovers a terrifying secret that turns his life upside-down. Newton's adventure begins when Claude Lavigne, a power company employee, sees something monumentally strange in the forests of the gore -- a tiny swatch of unclaimed land created by a surveyor's mistake. The uncanny sight so upsets him, so rattles his sense of what's real, that it leads to his suicide. Lavigne's son, his best friend, and an ancient black man risk an expedition into the gore to discover what Mr. Lavigne saw. In his attempt to stop them, Newton upsets a centuries- old balance that threatens to loose a long-buried nightmare upon the people of Vermont.

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.

The Basement


Bari Wood - 1995
    She's content with pretty much everything in her life--except with her basement. Even after a renovation, Myra can't go down there without a sense of dread. Her fear deepens when she learns that a body was buried there--the body of Goody Redman, a woman hanged for witchcraft 300 years before.

The Eye Stones


Harriet Esmond - 1975
     She soon discovers that both her sister and her new husband have tragically perished in a fire which destroyed their home. Alone in the bleak Norfolk brecklands, Deborah is at first forced to accept hospitality from the handsome yet forbidding widower, Sir Randall Gaunt. Yet even when Deborah later stumbles upon the warm companionship of Lord Stannard, the charming young aristocrat wooing her with such passionate urgency, the strange events that follow cause her feelings of uneasiness to grow. And then, before long Deborah becomes inextricably involved in a nightmare of unimaginable evil…

Bonegrinder


John Lutz - 1977
    He's bleeding heavily and near death, but he still has strength to tell them of the monster that attacked him: a dark, massive creature that emerged from the bottom of the lake. The child dies before he can say more. Sheriff Billy Wintone has seen too much superstition, drunkenness, and rage in this small Ozarks town to believe the delirious boy's tale of a monster lurking under the lake's dark waters. Like it or not, however, Wintone must scour the woods for the man or beast who killed the child before the start of fishing season. When another body is found chewed to pieces, the Sheriff begins to wonder what evil lies at the bottom of Big Water Lake. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Lutz, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.

Seeing Red


David J. Schow - 1989
    Schow received the World Fantasy Award for "Red Light" and the Twilight Zone Magazine Dimension award for "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You", both of which are included in this volume.

Thunder Road


Chris Curry - 2004
    Join the audience at the El Dorado Ranch for a Wild West Show. Take a ride through the haunted mine at Madland Amusement Park. Scan the horizon for UFOs. Find religion with the Prophet’s Apostles—and be prepared for the coming apocalypse. Because the apocalypse has arrived in Madelyn. People are disappearing. Strange shapes and lights dart across the night sky. And a young man embraces a violent destiny—inspired by a serial killer whose reign of terror was buried years ago. But each of these events is merely setting the stage in preparation for the final confrontation. A horror of catastrophic proportions is slouching toward Madelyn in the form of four horsemen—and they’re picking up speed…

Shrike


Joe Donnelly - 1994
    A creature with a very nasty habit.So says the editor of the local newspaper. But neither he, nor anyone else knows what is behind the spate of brutal killings which sent a shockwave through the town.They don’t know that a séance was held one dark and stormy night. A séance that went disastrously wrong. Something evil had been summoned from a dark place. For those around the table, the clock is ticking..And for the whole town, the nightmare is just beginning.The only clue to its real identity, and its purpose, comes in the terrifying visions of a psychic girl….but who can believe she can see the killings before they actually happen.It is only when the victims bodies are found impaled in steep, high places that detective Jack Fallon realises the visions are real. And that something evil, and hungry, is stalking the night.Something that must be stopped and stopped fast.Because Lorna Breck’s latest vision makes it clear that the beast is coming for Jack Fallon, and the people he loves most.Together, they will have to face it…in the dark.