Meet Gary Brown, the homicidal, suicidal, lonely, sexually-frustrated proprietor of Sunnyside.Come join Gary as he waits for his first ever guests to arrive. You know what they say; women are like buses - you wait around forever and then four come along at once...Meet Kimberly Henry, a well-to-do socialite who stumbles across Sunnyside after a steaming row with her husband and a two-hour drive from Kensington... Bad luck for her, one could say. It's going to be one HELL of a night.

    It is not meaning that the individual searches for in their life, but at the ground level, what the person is seeking is hope, life-lessons, the truth and a dash of motivation every now and then. All this search makes one feel a sense of fulfilment in their life. Learning is a part of life and man’s quest for life-lessons will never cease until death. Presenting you a collection of short stories, which is an attempt to make you see life and its subtle messages through a different lens.

    He insists in sending Mark off in style...in the company of a hooker. It's supposed to be the last hoorah of a single man before being condemned to a life of marriage, but that all changes when the hooker scams them. Mark's world unravels and a dark side he never knew he possessed spills out.The REPREHENSIBLE ACTS series feature stories without heroes or happy endings in some cases. These stories feature characters that lose their way and may never find their way back. You can't condone their actions, but perhaps you can have sympathy for their damaged souls. You might find these stories unpalatable, but then again, you're meant to. Don't judge. No one is immune to committing a reprehensible act.

    Bram Stoker wrote Dracula over the course of a decade, researching historical figures and compiling notes from scattered diary entries. What was supposed to be a work of fiction holds far more truth than he realized. Dr. Jane Langford is investigating a murder-suicide unlike anything she's ever encountered before. Sleepy Boise, Idaho, is a haven to an evil that has passed unnoticed down through the centuries.

    With nary a clue to the solution of this ruthless ambush, Bowdrie is led to the K-bar  ranch, and the beautiful girlfriend of the last living member of Zaparo's gang only to find his prime suspect is a "friend" of the Texas Rangers!

    As recently as 1918, a pandemic of influenza claimed over 50 million lives worldwide. The advent of drugs and vaccines led to an era of hope when we thought our battles with infectious disease were won, but our optimism has been eroded by the recognition that many pathogens have the capacity to transform themselves and escape our efforts to eradicate them. Are we now facing an inevitable repeat of a calamity such as the 1918 influenza pandemic or the Black Death? Can we anticipate and thwart such an event, or are we wilfully creating the conditions that would promote the emergence of new and highly virulent human infectious disease?Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford specialising in infectious diseases. She holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She has been awarded the Scientific Medal by the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific research. She is also a novelist whose books have been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Crossword Award, and longlisted for the DSC and Orange Prizes.

    ask your mother to stop pointing the gun at your head. Steven is a writer, by all accounts of self-proclamation. But no artist can be expected to work under serious pressure, especially not when the pressure consists of his own mother indenting his tender skull with the muzzle of the pistol held in her hand. Suddenly, it's write or die for Steven. He better tap away on that typewriter or expect to be extracted from the land of the living before he's had the opportunity to finish anything he's ever written. Not to mention that his recently departed Father lying on the floor beside him should supply enough motivation. When Steven manages to frustrate his murderous mother to no end, his wish made under duress actually comes true. Mother's vanished... along with all evidence of the foregoing incident ever having taken place. Is his beloved father really dead? Is his own mother now a criminal on the run? Can he truly never cure his lifetime disease of writer's block? Only one person can uncover the truth and set the world to rights again. That would be Tim, Steven's much more successful, though younger, brother. If only Tim would actually believe Steven's retelling of the frightful situation he's just managed to survive. Someone's got to fix the latest family faux pas. And everyone in the family knows it can't be Steven. In the dead of night, two brothers battle sibling rivalry, serious mother issues, one heinous surprise after another, and a lifetime of family strife to get to the bottom of it all and uncover what's been lying beneath all along. Start Reading Now... What are you waiting for? chuckle-worthy dark comedy, murder mystery, delicious sibling rivalry and family issues, the cure for writer's block, and so much more await you. About the Author Justine Avery Is a Genre-Breaker, a Writer of Delicious Story Above All Else Justine Avery is an avid reader of all genres, weaves her own stories among them all, and sets out to surprise her readers at every opportunity. She's an acutely observant introvert with an insatiable yearning to explorer, a risk-taker who's based in reality, a wanderer with a mission, and a grownup blessed with childlike wonder at the world. Her stories reflect the same, and readers can't get enough of them. Avery writes genre-breaking fiction with universal appeal, emphasizing enticing story above all else. She writes powerful, affecting stories accessible to all readers, regardless of what your own favorite genres happen to be. She writes the tales all readers are drawn to, the stories capable of changing your view of the world around you, the narratives that will become a part of you. Go ahead—take a peek. Use the Look Inside feature above, and start reading Point Blank now.

    

    Wake his kid brother Andy up, get tormented on the school bus by the cool kids, try to avoid them while in school. Except it's Field Trip Day to the Science Museum, and now he's stuck with the meanest kids in seventh grade all day! But then the bus breaks down, so he doesn't even get to do anything cool at the science museum. It's okay, because an industrial accident brings science to Todd and his friends in the form of a zombie apocalypse. When the bus driver abandons them in the middle of a zombie outbreak, Todd, his brother Andy, his best friend Tarik, and their tomboy friend Mikayla take shelter in the first place they can find - an adult novelty store. What can you find in an adult toy store to fight zombies? Well…let's just say that the field trip was pretty educational, even if the kids never made it to the museum! Shingles is the comedy horror series from the gang that brings you the Authors & Dragons podcast. Like the podcast, these books are rated Not Safe For Anything.

    Carly, an unassuming receptionist at Guru Fashion Agency, is shocked when sexy new guy Jake texts her to say he needs her help—fighting off zombie models! Soon she discovers New York is under siege and she’s the chosen one who can save them all. With the help of her sassy, donut-loving deskmate Joyce and the intriguing Jake, Carly embarks on a death-defying adventure that leads to a Fashion Week showdown with the Queen of the Zombies, one of the industry’s biggest icons. It just might be the strangest first date she’s ever had.

    Generation after generation, survivors fight on enduring the world caused by their ancestors.In 2153, fledgling nations clash over land and resources. London is a veteran of the wasteland, struggling to protect his adopted daughter Rose as the world decays around them. Little does he know that both he and Rose will soon find themselves drawn into a warJust how far is London willing to go to protect Rose from a world full of violence, hate, and apathy?Fans of The Gunslinger and Mad Max will love E.T. Gunnarsson’s multi-award-winning book Forgive Us, a story readers call “thrilling, brutal, awesome, and completely unique.”

    But nothing prepared him for Milkwood: a fat, ugly bastard who could take a beating like a government mule, but never, ever won. So when Malcolm risks his life to discover Milkwood's secret, he convinces the fighter to stop being a punching bag and to go for broke in the local tournament. Only problem? A beautiful woman called Lash who needs Milkwood for her own purposes, and a fouler creature on her heels known only as Dizzy Colt. But for Malcolm and Milkwood? Hell, it’s just another day of Blood and SawdustPRAISE FOR BLOOD AND SAWDUST!"With wicked, playful prose that blends the best of pulp with the supernatural, Jason Ridler’s Blood and Sawdust creates an unholy, hell-raising hybrid, the kind of tale Christopher Moore and Jim Thompson might swap after a long night of drinking, trying to one-up one another with acerbic absurdity." Joe Clifford, Author of CHOICE CUTS and JUNKIE LOVEPRAISE FOR THE WORK OF JASON RIDLER!"An exciting new writer." Lucius Shepard, multiple-award-winning author of HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN PRAYER. “Jason Ridler is kind of like a bull rider who’s tossed a saddle on a Tiger tank, and he’s riding that bucking sucker for all he’s worth, because, hey, no one told him that he couldn’t do it, did they? So here he is, the Man in the Barbed-Wire Straitjacket." Norman Partridge, Award Winning Author of DARK HARVEST. "Jason Ridler’s work is intense and taut, with incredible characters and plots that keep your mind buzzing long after you’ve reached the final page." Trent Zelazny, author of TOO LATE TO CALL TEXAS, and FRACTAL DESPONDENCY. ABOUT THE AUTHORJason S. Ridler is the author of BLOOD AND SAWDUST, the Spar Battersea thrillers (DEATH MATCH, CON JOB and DICE ROLL), the short story collection KNOCKOUTS, and has published over fifty stories in such magazines and anthologies as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Brain Harvest, Chilling Tales, and more. His popular non-fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Dark Scribe, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. Visit him at twitter at http://twitter.com/JayRidler, Facebook ,http://www.facebook.com/Ridlerville, or his writing blog, Ridlerville, atwww.jsridler.com

    

    Coming to, he realizes he’s hypothermic—shivering cold—trapped inside a stasis tube, shrouded in darkness. Escaping his capsule, he lights a lantern, only to discover the locker containing his heating supplies is empty. Freezing to death now, he reflects on the last memory of his pregnant wife, beside him still, suspended in a tube. Just as Connor slips out of consciousness, two strangers arrive...Another gripping, wholly absorbing chapter of the bestselling Wayward Pines series, Jordan Crouch’s Exit Vertigo explores the dangerous netherworld existence of caretakers who emerge from stasis every two decades to ensure the facility that houses all that remains of mankind continues to function. While others hibernate, Connor and a select team of maintenance workers stumble through the Ark’s darkened hallways, racing against time in search for a clue to an apocalypse no one can remember.

    This classic short story is Poe's dark vision in the study of guilt and what it can eventually do to one's mind.Experience one of Poe's most chilling tales through the eyes of a truly master artist.