Book picks similar to
The Wilds by Richard Laymon


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richard-laymon
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The Shell Collector


Christopher Golden - 2005
    He's a part-time lobsterman and full-time painter who sells his art at galleries in Rockport and Newburyport. Between the two jobs he makes enough money to get by, living in an in-law apartment in the family home owned by his brother Jim. Jim runs Feehan & Sons Funeral Home, a business started by their grandfather in 1921.All in all, despite the tension with his brother, and despite the grumbling of his friends, whose business has suffered because of a lengthy red tide and a spectacularly bad overall fishing season, Richie enjoys his life very much. He's content, and believes that's pretty much all a man can ask from his life.That is, until a horrible mystery begins to unfold in Gloucester.Out lobstering, Richie sees something nightmarish in the surf one day, catches a bare glimpse of it beneath the surface. He doesn't dare speak of it for fear of what others might say-he doesn't want to become the town crazy. But he's having a hard time sleeping at night, and several days later, while out hauling in his traps for the winter, Richie finds one of them stuck on something. When he finally hauls it up, there's a corpse attached, a corpse that has been eaten at by sea creatures, including something large . . . the corpse of Greta Wagner, a woman who had been waked at Feehan & Sons two weeks earlier and buried a couple of days later.Someone stole her corpse from the ground.And her grave won't be the only one disturbed.

Triage


Jack Ketchum - 1990
    Each story begins with the setup of someone walking into a workplace with a gun. From there each author takes the tale wherever his twisted imagination leads him. Original.

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)

Wild Night Is Calling


J.A. Konrath - 2011
    Summer. Late at night.Two teenage girls are picked up by two boys, who invite them back to their place to party.But an innocent mistake turns the party into a nightmare, where nothing is what it seems...Wild Night Is Calling is a 6000 word short story by thriller writer J.A. Konrath (Shaken, Trapped) and romantic suspense writer Ann Voss Peterson (A Cop in Her Stocking, Seized By The Sheik).Peterson wrote the first half. Konrath wrote the second half.This ebook, specially formatted for Nook with an active table of contents, also contains an excerpt from Konrath and Peterson's collaborative spy thriller, FLEE, coming out this Spring.

What Good Girls Do


Jonathan Butcher - 2017
    She lives with no name.She has never left her room.All she has ever known is pain and abuse.Until now.Today, she will breathe fresh air for the first time, feel sunshine against her skin and even witness human kindness.But she has a point to make - a bleak, violent point - and when she meets her neighbour, Serenity, she finds the perfect pupil.Forced to endure a lesson distilled from a nightmarish existence, Serenity must face unflinching evil, witness the unspeakable, and question her most deeply-held views, until at last she has no choice but to fight for her family's survival.

Crawlspace


Dan Padavona - 2015
    After Jerry stumbles delirious from a bloody accident, a beautiful girl rescues the boy and brings him home to her decrepit apartment complex.Soon Jerry discovers a hidden entrance into the attic, a crawlspace through which he can secretly enter any apartment.But he isn't the only person aware of the secret entrance.Crawlspace is a terrifying journey into urban legend, darkness, and murder.

The Diabolical Conspiracy


Bryan Smith - 2012
    Orgies and ritual sacrifices. A fanatic cult dedicated to spreading evil however it can. Thanks to his infatuation with an alluring and mysterious co-worker, Mike Bradley finds himself drawn into this web of satanic madness. He is a man trapped in a nightmare with no apparent way out…Bryan Smith, author of the acclaimed horror novels Depraved, The Killing Kind, and The Dark Ones, presents The Diabolical Conspiracy, a new, never previously published 34,000 word novella. This Kindle edition also includes more than 2,500 words of bonus content. “Notes From A Diabolical Conspiracy” contains commentary on many aspects of the story and includes a link to the author’s Spotify playlist for the unofficial soundtrack to the novella.

Three Past Midnight: The Library Policeman


Stephen King - 1990
    Set in Junction City, Iowa, "The Library Policeman" is the story of Sam Peebles, a middle-aged businessman who happens to have some overdue books. It seems a minor offense—but not to Junction City's malevolent monster of a librarian. What follows is spine-tingling suspense as only Stephen King can deliver it.

The 5th Witch


Graham Masterton - 2008
    in a grip of fear. No one can stop them--except the 5th witch!

Odd Thomas: You Are Destined To Be Together Forever


Dean Koontz - 2014
    But before Odd’s destiny is revealed, this exclusive eBook short story looks back — way back — to where it all began for Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn, two souls who are destined to be together forever. Amid the dizzying rides, tantalizing games of chance, and fanciful attractions of a state fair, two teenage sweethearts on the cusp of life and love’s pleasures find their way to a shadowy carnival tent brimming with curiosities. There, from the bizarre and enthralling Gypsy Mummy, a mechanized merchant of dreams and prognosticator of tomorrows, the young couple learns what fate promises for them. But fate, for Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn, is something altogether different: full of dark corners, sharp edges, and things no seer or soothsayer could ever anticipate. And for Odd Thomas, a gallant fry cook from a sleepy California desert town, the future beckons—to listen to unquiet spirits, pursue unsettling mysteries, and learn shocking truths . . . for a purpose far greater than himself.

The Forgotten


Tamara Thorne - 2002
    But he has no explanation for the increasingly bizarre paranoia affecting the inhabitants of Caledonia, California, many of whom claim to see terrifying visions andhear ominous voices...voices that tell them to do unspeakable things...IT'S DEADLYAs madness and murderous impulses grip the coastal town, Will is compelled to confront his greatest fear and unlock the terrifying secret of his own past in a place where evil isn't just a memory...it's alive and waiting to strike...

Fog Warning


Edward Lorn - 2014
    Time’s slipping away, doc ... ”Emergency Room Physician Brent Cummings is harboring secrets he’d rather leave in the shadows of his past. But, when he finds a dead woman in a foggy park, all his skeletons come tumbling out of the closet.In a deadly race against time, Brent attempts to alter the future so that he might finally let go of the past.Will he heed the warning in the fog, or will fate prove more dependable than the good doctor?

Headhunter


Tim Curran - 2003
    A green hell where death waits behind every tree, in every pooling shadow, and in every mist-haunted hollow. Boobytraps and bullets, landmines and rockets. Mike McKinney went to write about the war, about the terror and frustrations, soldiers and people and a landscape forever altered by the conflict...but he ran across something even worse: a primeval horror straight out of the darkest Vietnamese folklore. A monstrosity that stalks human heads among the twisted, jungled hills of the Central Highlands. Now it is hunting him. And nothing can stop it.

The Breathing Method


John Escott - 1982
    The years pass but no one looks any older. One night a doctor tells the story of a young woman who gives birth to a baby in the most horrible way! Evil psychic powers, obsession and the supernatural in the most ordinary, everyday places. A spine-chiller from the master of horror.

Dead to Writes


Tim Miller - 2014
    From off the grid in Texas Hill Country, he publishes his first novel. Saddened to see the horrible and insulting reviews, he decides to take action. The unfortunate reviewers had no idea who they were dealing with. With the help of his deranged mom and homicidal brother, Marty sets out to create a whole new horror story at the expense of his critics. One by one the bizarre family takes out their anger on the group. In the process, one of their victims, April, learns something about herself no one thought possible. What ensues is a circus of bloody mayhem unlike anything seen before.