Book picks similar to
One for the Road by Wesley Southard
horror
novella
short-stories
signed
Hellucination
Stephen Biro - 2011
A drug-fueled trip through the gruesome levels of Hell may sound like a fictional horror story to some, and since the traveler in question was movie distributor Stephen Biro, it could just as easily have been one of his film projects. But Stephen's experiences were the real, life-changing sort. They're also proof that the Lord does work in mysterious ways -- extending all the way to squares of LSD and nitrous oxide cartridges.Armed with psychedelics, hallucinogenics and a brave desire to meet God no matter the personal cost, Stephen pushed beyond the boundaries of safe drug use. He took the most nightmarish of trips from a cramped one-bedroom apartment that he used for running his underground video business. With initial difficulty finding God in his altered state, Stephen instead encountered depravity and grotesquery enough to make his soul weep, but he pushed on. And if that wasn't bad enough, his Hellish experiences bled over into his waking days, and his friends and acquaintances began identifying themselves to him as Antichrists, deities and other assorted beings from "the other side." Reality was blurring and shifting, and Stephen was run utterly ragged. Could he fulfill his quest to learn universal truths before his extreme drug use took its toll?Hellucination: A Memoir spares no disturbing detail of the unusual route that one man took to find Christ and the God of the Bible. The memoir also follows younger Stephen through his 1970s childhood and his bizarre early encounters with religion that drove him to Atheism."An utterly surreal memoir. I'd say it was 'mindbending, ' but "HELLUCINATION" doesn't just bend your mind, it twists it, stretches it, stabs it, and tosses it on the grill!" - Jeff Strand, author of the upcoming book, "PRESSURE" and "WOLF HUNT" He's been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 2006, 2008, and 2010."HELLUCINATION takes the form of a page-turning memoir, combining personal trip reporting with science fiction, horror movie, and religious mythologies, philosophical speculation on the nature of the author's experiments with psychedelic drug combinations, strange encounters with other people who may not be what they seem, and the rationale behind his spiritual conversion from atheism to Christianity." --David Jay BrownAuthor of "Mavericks of the Mind" and "Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse" "HELLUCINATION is a powerful read. In fact, it might distinctly appeal to fantasy readers, film lovers and lovers of fiction. Biro writes passionately with a purpose... you may end of ripping your eyes out afterwards though." -- Review, Horrornews.netMind-boggling and enthralling. The visualization techniques used is astounding. - Paul White - Producer of Bride of Re-Animator and Brian Yuzna's SocietyI felt myself questioning my faith, or lack of faith, on religion, Jesus, God, the Devil, and what the purpose and point of my life and existence really was/is. I think that is the point of the book. The book raises awareness and makes readers think about the meaning of life and what their purpose is in it. That, in itself, is a pretty scary thing to think and ponder about. - Hellucination - Book review by www.shuizmz.comCinematic... it's going to scare the Hell out of some Christians. - Jim VanBebber - Director of The Manson Family and Deadbeat At Dawn
Rage
Richard Bachman - 1977
Over the course of one long, tense and unbearable hot afternoon, Charlie Decker explains what led him to this drastic sequence of events, while at the same time deconstructing the personalities of his classmates, forcing each one to justify his or her existence.
The Exorcism of Sara May
Joe Hart - 2015
The Great Depression is still strangling America. People are out of work. Out of options. And everyone is desperate. But in the small town of Rath, Minnesota, another kind of evil is holding sway.Something terrible has woken, and the little community will never be the same.
The Festering Ones
S.H. Cooper - 2019
Twenty years later, the events of that day continue to haunt her, and her need for answers has only grown stronger with time. After her estranged mother's death forces her to return home, old wounds are reopened and Faith finally decides to face her demons. What started as a search for closure soon pits her against a shadowy cult known as The Gathered and the eldritch beings they worship. With reality becoming more blurred by the day and the thousand eyes of an alien deity fixed on her, Faith must decide if the dark secrets of White Crow Mountain are really worth losing herself over.
The Abandoned
Amanda Stevens - 2011
Every grave, its secrets. Enter the world of Amanda Stevens's Graveyard Queen series--where forbidden passion and secrets from the past are as restless as the ghosts--in the series prequel novella, The Abandoned.There are rules for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as the Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to rest--before she is locked away forever....Look for the other books in The Graveyard Queen series: The Restorer, The Kingdom and The Prophet, available now.
The House On Gable Street: A Jack Nightingale Short Story
Stephen Leather - 2018
The House On Gable Street is a fast-paced supernatural story about 30,000 words long, almost a novella. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels.
Yellow
Aron Beauregard - 2021
After purchasing a convenience store in a once civil society, the streets around him have rapidly devolved into utter lawlessness. They're now festering with sinister gutter scum that only live to harass and intimidate him. His pathetic profits are gouged under the threat of violence and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it. Because in a city with no rules, where the sun never shines, the authorities are no help. In fact, they're an equal part of the problem.The relentless fear of confrontation is so obvious that even Oliver's wife Lydia has grown to resent his spineless existence. The absence of bravado opens the door to a horrific home invasion that leaves the miserable pair savagely maimed. From there, things only get worse until the criminal leeches have taken everything. Until there's nothing left inside but hate and the gnawing hunger for revenge. Until a switch finally flips and Oliver realizes that they all have to die.WARNING: This book contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.
Gods of the Dark Web
Lucas Mangum - 2018
The internet is a scary place. Beneath Facebook and Twitter is another world. One in which anything can be obtained—for a price. A community of black markets, depraved pornography, and death. This is the dark web. Leon was just curious, he heard the stories of the secrets and forbidden fetishes that the dark web offered. He was an activist, protesting against war and hate. But after a protest became violent, he felt he needed protection. Being a teenager with no way to buy a gun legally, he had no choice but to turn to the dark web. This rash decision sends Leon spiraling down into a dark side of humanity that most don’t know, or even want to know, exists. A world of murder, torture, and cannibalism. But behind all that there is something worse, something stalking him and intent on ruining every aspect of his life. Now Leon is fighting for his life and reputation as he is being hunted by vile and arcane forces. They are… Gods of the Dark Web
Upright Beasts
Lincoln Michel - 2015
In these short stories, we are the upright beasts, doing battle with our darker, weirder impulses as the world collapses around us.
Dreams in Black Static: Eight Stories
Ambrose Ibsen - 2020
After watching it, one of them vanishes...A heart transplant recipient gets much more than he bargained for when he digs into his donor's sinister past...Mourning the death of their son, a young couple is plunged into madness after encountering something otherworldly in the wilderness...DREAMS IN BLACK STATIC is a collection of eight terrifying stories by Ambrose Ibsen, author of The Haunting of Beacon Hill and Asylum. The tales included are:"Me and Mr. Ray" **"Decatur Road" **"Dreams in Black Static" **"Distortional Addict" **"Trim" **"Subterrane Dream" **"Orchard""The Uncanny" **** = Appearing in print for the first time
Failure
John Everson - 2008
Cindy just plain doesn't care; she'll get on her knees for anyone beneath the football field bleachers to score a nickel bag hit. And Sal is a frustrated goon with a hook nose and an attitude so sour he can't nail a girl even with the lure of free dope and a getaway car.When these three desperate teens meet Aaron, a failed practitioner of the dark arts who offers them the best high they've ever smoked in exchange for some kinky sex play inside his pentagram, things can only go from bad to worse. Aaron hopes to ensnare and re-birth the spirit of a late witch, to capture her power from beyond the grave for his own.Soon, they'll all learn the darkest, bloodiest, most terrifying definition of Failure.Originally released as a limited edition hardcover chapbook from Delirium Books in 2006, this updated 2013 Dark Arts Books e-book edition of John Everson's novelette Failure features new cover art and an Afterword by the author.
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
John Hornor Jacobs - 2019
P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.
Dream Woods
Patrick Lacey - 2016
The ad is for Dream Woods, New England’s answer to Disney World. It closed decades ago, but now that it’s back in business, Vince is eager to take his whole family, hoping the magic he remembers will save his failing marriage. His wife, Audra, isn’t so sure. She’s heard the rumors of why the place closed. Murder. Sacrifice. Torture. But those are just urban legends. Surely there’s nothing evil about a family tourist attraction. The Carters are about to discover that the park’s employees aren’t concerned with their guests’ enjoyment. They’re interested in something else. Something much more sinister. Welcome to Scream Woods!
Forest of Memory
Mary Robinette Kowal - 2016
Her clients are rich and they demand items and experiences with only the finest verifiable provenance. Other people’s lives have value, after all.But when her A.I. suddenly stops whispering in her ear she finds herself cut off from the grid and loses communication with the rest of the world.The man who stepped out of the trees while hunting deer cut her off from the cloud, took her A.I., and made her his unwilling guest.There are no Authenticities or Captures to prove Katya’s story of what happened in the forest. You’ll just have to believe her.
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls
Alissa Nutting - 2010
One is the main course of dinner, another the porn star contracted to copulate in space for a reality TV show. They become futuristic ant farms, get knocked up by the star high school quarterback and have secret abortions, use parakeets to reverse amputations, make love to garden gnomes, go into air conditioning ducts to confront their mother’s ghost, and do so in settings that range from Hell to the local white-supremacist bowling alley.