Book picks similar to
The Rejects by Philip Fracassi
horror
short-stories
sci-fi
short-story
Desolation
Ken Brosky - 2012
The climate is changing. But hidden away deep inside a forest in the heart of Canada sits a home with everything you need. You can survive here. You can start a new life. But you must make a terrible sacrifice ..."Ashes to Ashes" (previously unpublished)Justin Breneview's job search led him to what seems like an easy job: take bodies out of the morgue, throw them in the furnace. Nothing to it. But when complications arise, he quickly learns that there is no such thing as an "easy job.""High Stakes" (first published in Diabolic Tales)The gambler arrived in Kansas City for a game with high stakes and a high payout. Everyone else was there for blood."Enjoy Your Job!" (first published in Dark Moon Rising)All little Timmy wants is to be an astronaut. But in the future, those types of decisions no longer rest in the hands of the individual. That would be irresponsible. No, economies must thrive in order for society to progress, and that means planning ahead."Ten-Four" (first published on Homepage of the Dead)"This is Jack Hutchingston, ace trucker at your service. Boy oh boy, do I have a story for you. It all started when I was passing through the largest graveyard on the planet. You like zombies? Good. This story's got plenty of 'em."Fans of Stephen King, John Shirley, Harlan Ellison and Suzanne Collins will feel right at home in this collection.
Hammers on Bone
Cassandra Khaw - 2016
He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable. He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Princess of Valencia
Susan Straight - 2018
Little by little, Jacinta’s mother lost her—first to college, then to a boy she said she loved, and then, finally, to the rage of a school shooter. Snap. In an instant it was all gone. All she has now is her daughter’s phone. Like an album, gripped in the palm of her hand—texts, photos, messages, and videos of her daughter’s first three years at college. With it, Jacinta’s mother is reconstructing her daughter’s last three weeks.In this uniquely moving exploration of mourning, fury, and reminiscence, Susan Straight evokes—through a grieving mother’s devastating internal monologue—both a modern-day nightmare and exquisite proof of love’s extraordinary power to overcome it.
Short Shockers: Collection One
Peter James - 2013
Funny, sad, but always shocking, each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page . . .This 25,000 word collection, available exclusively in this ebook edition, includes:12 Bolingbroke Avenue (First published in 1998)Number Thirteen (First published in 2010)Just Two Clicks (First published in 2004)Dead on the Hour (First published in 2006)Virtually Alive (First published in 1997)Meet Me at the Crematorium (First published in 2009)Venice Aphrodisiac (First published in 2011)Time Rich (First published in 2013)Christmas is for the Kids (First published in 1993)
Black Gate Tales
Paul Draper - 2020
A disused London Underground lift goes way beyond the bottom floor.A psychic boy discovers what terrors are buried in the fallow field.A handshake seals a midnight fate in an old farming dispute.A corpse must be buried by dawn.BLACK GATE TALES: Fourteen short stories of dread, hope, death and wonder.
Terror in the Shadows: Volume 3
Ron Ripley - 2019
A dark ritual turns a woman obsessed with supernatural powers against the people who love her most. A possessed TV proves that old B-Movie monsters can still terrify an unsuspecting audience…Scare Street’s roster of authors brings you eleven new tales of supernatural horror, in one blood-chilling volume. This macabre collection of short stories is guaranteed to get your pulse racing, and send shivers down your spine.Each deliciously dark tale will haunt your dreams, and keep you reading long past the witching hour. But wait…What was that noise? Did something move in the shadows?Just keep telling yourself… it’s only a story.
Sleep Donation
Karen Russell - 2014
Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep. Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac. Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps' reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia, has spent the past seven years recruiting for the Corps. But Trish’s faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter when she is confronted by “Baby A,” the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y."Sleep Donation explores a world facing the end of sleep as we know it, where “Night Worlds” offer black market remedies to the desperate and sleep deprived, and where even the act of making a gift is not as simple as it appears.
The Visitor
Mark Lawrence - 2018
The only thing you need to know is that Wild Cards is set in our world, and an alien virus has been infecting people in rare outbreaks. It kills 90% of victims, makes ugly monsters of 9% (Jokers) and gives 1% random superpowers (Aces).A very personal short story that I'm proud of and want to find a wider audience for.There is a sequel story free on the Tor website, The Visitor: Kill or Cure.
The Caretaker
Jason Gurley - 2014
She wakes to the sun breaking over Africa. She keeps watch over the experiments. She makes sure the station doesn't explode.And she's the only occupant of the space station when the world far below her comes apart in flame.
Empty Bodies
Zach Bohannon - 2015
Moments later, the fallen rise, and the survivors become the hunted.***WARNING*** Empty Bodies is meant for mature audiences only. It features foul language and graphic descriptions of violence and death. Please purchase at your own discretion.
Who Killed the Kaneez?
Vijay Kakwani - 2019
Farzana is one of the prostitutes at Begum's kotha and Ramakant Bannerjee, the writer, loves her deeply. He's promised to marry her once he has enough money. He's currently writing his most ambitious novel, the story of Kaneez. As the story of Kaneez unfolds, so does the intriguing life of Farzana. What fate does she meet? Read on to find out.
The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space
Pippa Goldschmidt - 2015
In turns witty, accessible, fascinating and deeply moving, Goldschmidt demonstrates her mastery of the short form as well as her ability to draw out scientific themes with humane and compelling insight. Goldschmidt allows us to spy on Bertolt Brecht, as he rewrites his play Life of Galileo with Charles Laughton after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She introduces us to Albert Einstein as he deals with the loss of his first child, Liesel. We meet Robert Oppenheimer scheming against his tutor, Professor Patrick Blackett, at Cambridge University, having fallen in love with Blackett's wife. She tells the story of a female university student starting a love affair with her lecturer paralleled alongside the 'relationship' between Alice and Bob, two imaginary figures that symbolise the theory of relativity. Goldschmidt's scope can be epic, at other times intimate, providing a forensic examination of relationships and the forces that influence them.
Blue World
Robert R. McCammon - 1989
From the battlefields of a Vietnam veteran's memory to an old-time movie hero's search for a serial killer, from Halloween in a special town--where the rules of trick-or-treat are written in blood--to a Texas road where a wrong turn leads to a nest of evil, horror master McCammon is at his terrifying best in this collection of stories.
Time Pebbles
Jerry Merritt - 2014
Only Tekla cares enough to search for her over the years. As Ka Li survives fierce predators and scarce resources she leaves behind a series of signal cairns to help Tekla find her.Skipping forward 60,000 years, Helen Ryland, a mid-twentieth century archaeologist, unearths one of Ka Li's surviving signal cairns and realizes she has found trace of people who populated the Americas even before the Clovis culture. Helen's detective work tracking Ka Li's timeless signals across the Alaskan wilderness now intertwines with Ka Li's story. As Helen solves the puzzle of the signal cairns she finds universal fame and suffers devastating misfortune. In the end Helen discovers that science in isolation cannot answer all of her questions, for Tekla's devotion to Ka Li had not died even though six hundred centuries had passed.
