Book picks similar to
Warped by Jeff Menapace
horror
anthologies
fiction
jeff-menapace
Grandfather's House
Jon Athan - 2018
Malcolm believes the stay will be easy—a vacation with milk and cookies and tales from the past. His hopes, however, are shattered when he bumps heads with his grandfather, Ronald O'Donnell—a stern, violent man with a sinister past. Ronald plans on disciplining his grandson in order to 'save' him from himself. He is not afraid of abusing him, either. He will physically, emotionally, and mentally break him. Jon Athan, the author of The Abuse of Ashley Collins, invites you to stay at grandfather's house to witness true human horror. WARNING: This book contains scenes of graphic violence, including violence towards children. This book is about abuse—emotional, physical, and mental. This book does not contain any explicit sex scenes, but it does discuss sexual abuse. This book is not intended for those easily offended or appalled.
Tastes of Horror
Matt Shaw - 2013
Please see below for the contents: Smile Alex's mum was tired and over-worked. Holding down a full-time job, keeping the house clean and looking after the children - the youngest of which was still a handful with his ADHD as they tried to get the medication right - she just wanted a break. Even if it were only for an afternoon - so she sent Alex to the shopping mall, with his younger brother who was throwing a tantrum because he wanted to go to the toy store to spend his pocket money. She never once thought Alex would lose his younger brother in the crowds. And no one would have guessed how the day would have ended or just how many more children were missing. Buried I've stopped panicking now. Not because I'm not scared. I just know panicking won't help the situation. It'll only serve to make it worse. Need to try and remain calm for as long as possible. Control my breathing. Save my oxygen. I breathed in and coughed. The air in here is stale. I hope I'm not in here for long. Please, dad. Don't let me be here for long. Please. I started to cry. Helpless. The 8TH Moving from school to school is never easy. You're constantly struggling to catch up to the level of the other students. You're forever meeting new friends just to have to leave them and establish new colleagues at the new schools. You always find yourself lost in the never-ending maze of corridors as you battle to get to grips with where everything is... But it's worse when the more unfriendly students decide to take an instant dislike to you. Tormenting you each day...Pushing you to see how long it is before you're going to snap. Wondering what you're going to do in retaliation to their harsh words and cruel pranks. Are you going to stand up to them or are you going to be yet another pupil who goes out of their way to avoid them whilst crying yourself to sleep until you feel as though you can't take the suffering anymore? You're going to stand up to them of course. You're going to turn the tables on them. You're going to be the teacher to a very special class. A class where the lessons will be heard through-out the world...Lessons which will never be forgotten. This is your classroom now and lessons will be learned. The Cabin “You’d never see the ghosts, not properly. You’d only catch a glimpse of their shapes out of the corner of your eye and you’d hear their stolen, vengeful scream; an ear-piercing shriek to steal the lives of anyone who heard it.” For Craig, the trip to the cabin was supposed to be a quiet retreat from his hectic city life where he could concentrate on writing his latest novel. For his wife, Susan, and his two kids, Jamie and Ava, it was supposed to be a weekend vacation. For all of them, it became a nightmare. Happy Ever After If it's just you and me, together, for the rest of our lives - no-one else to mess things up... could you ever love me? Peter loves Vanessa. He loves her a lot and is looking forward to starting a nice life with her, and only her. No one else to get in the way and mess up their beautiful relationship. He'll do anything for her. Absolutely anything to make her happy. Anything to see that beautiful smile of hers. Anything to live happily ever after with her. The only problem is - Vanessa doesn't know Peter and, more importantly, understand why she is cuffed to the dining room table. Told through the eyes of the two people living the story, follow Peter as he keeps Vanessa prisoner hoping that she will fall in love with him and follow Vanessa as she desperately looks for a way out of this hell. Bonus short story: The Ward
Fully Loaded Thrillers: The Complete and Collected Stories of Blake Crouch
Blake Crouch - 2011
Konrath: "Crouch is one of the best thriller short story writers I know. He uses words like an artist uses a paintbrush; to hurt, to stun, to shock, to provoke, to touch. This collection also features my very favorite short story of all time. Not just my favorite by Crouch, but the best one I've ever read by anyone. It's called "Unconditional." It is flat-out brilliant and unforgettable, and that one tale is worth the price of this entire collection." From the author of DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS comes this complete collection of short stories and novellas. *69 - Tim and Laura West receive a bizarre voicemail on their answering machine that seems to have unintentionally recorded a brutal murder. But what happens when the killer realizes their mistake? This story develops over one terrifying evening, and this young couple will never be the same. REMAKING - Tragic events unfold in a snowy, sleepy Colorado town. From the first scene, in which a man sits alone in the cold, watching a father and son in a diner, you know something is about to go horribly wrong. You may think you know what's happening, but in this thrilling, heartbreaking story, nothing is as it seems. ON THE GOOD, RED ROAD - A group of four hard men trying to reach a remote 19th Century mining town become stranded in an early blizzard and resort to drastic, terrifying measures, to stay alive. SHINING ROCK - An older couple encounter a strange and menacing visitor during a camping trip in the North Carolina mountains. Friendly at first, this stranger seems to know them, seems to know their secrets, and as things escalate, they become convinced that they may never leave these mountains alive. PERFECT LITTLE TOWN - Ron and Jessica Stahl are a power couple from California, on a Christmas holiday in Colorado. When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone, they're charmed by the quaint tourist town. But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. The Stahls couldn't have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret. SERIAL - The classic horror short I wrote with J.A. Konrath, in which we turn our attention to the twin golden rules of hitchhiking: # 1: Don't go hitchhiking, because the driver who picks you up could be certifiably crazy. # 2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be a raving nutcase. So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Nutcase #2? THE NEWTON BOYS' LAST PHOTOGRAPH - At 25 words, the shortest story I ever wrote. But it packs a wallop. THE METEOROLOGIST - Peter, a disgraced meteorologist and chronic wanderer, has traveled the country for years in his Winnebago, in search of the only thing that gives his life meaning. He's just arrived in the middle of nowhere-Hokie, Kansas-for the same purpose, but when he meets a waitress named Melanie, another sufferer, he's faced not only with his first real human contact in years, but perhaps someone who can save him. UNCONDITIONAL - A conversation between two people-devastating, tragic, and beautiful. THE PAIN OF OTHERS - Letty Dobesh, a gorgeous, degenerate thief, is fresh out of the clink and back to her old tricks-in this case, burglarizing suites at a luxury hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. But when she's surprised by returning guests on her last room of the day, she's forced to hide in the closet to avoid getting caught, and inadvertently overhears a hitman being contracted to murder the wife of a wealthy lawyer. This 60,000-word short story collection also contains a foreword by J.A. Konrath and introductions to each story by the author. BLAKE CROUCH is the author of four novels and numerous short stories, including "Serial" which he co-wrote with J.A. Konrath and has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. He lives in southwest Colorado, where he is at work on a new book. His website is www.blakecrouch.co
Rushed
Brian Harmon - 2013
With no idea how to cure himself of this odd new compulsion, he decides to let it take its course and go for a drive, hoping that once he proves to himself that there is nowhere to go, he can return to his normal life. Instead, he finds himself hurled headlong into a nightmare adventure across a fractured Wisconsin as the dream reveals itself one heart-pounding detail at a time. <br><br>Horror, science fiction, dark fantasy. From the author of The Temple of the Blind. 84,000 words.
Dead Clown Barbecue
Jeff Strand - 2012
The stories within this collection range from hilarious to downright disturbing, proving that Jeff Strand is still a master at what he's known for: a delicious blend of the humorous and the horrific. Strand fans will take delight in the seven new stories first printed in Dead Clown Barbecue, including "Pett Semmuteary" "Dummy" "True Hero" "Fangboy and the Troll" "Stop Stabbing Me" "Pregnancy Test" and "Push the Button."DescriptionA man who finds a severed nose on a plate on his dining room table. A bell that can summon Satan (maybe). Casual Fridays at work that get out of control. A cheery outlook on the post-apocalyptic landscape. The final thoughts of a doomed skydiver. A girl punished by having to share a bed with her grandmother’s corpse. Revenge via baking a tarantula into a cake. A shocking look at where those awful computer-generated book covers come from. And the lost tale of Fangboy.These are only a few of the demented stories in DEAD CLOWN BARBECUE, a collection of thirty gleefully macabre tales, seven of which were written just for this collection. There’s even a brand new one about a ventriloquist dummy. Those things creep you out, right? You’ll laugh. You’ll scream. Okay...you probably won’t actually scream, unless you already had issues before you started reading, but you might cringe and get a little spooked.“No author working today comes close to Jeff Strand’s perfect mixture of comedy and terror.” - Cemetery Dance
The Cage
Brian Keene - 2010
Now, with some of their co-workers dead, the hostages are being slaughtered one-by-one, and if they want to survive the night, they'll have to escape... The Cage.
Hunter/Prey
Sam Sisavath - 2015
She has been planning this for ten years. She’s thought of everything and trained for this one single night. Nothing could possibly go wrong. He’s a serial killer who has eluded the police for the last ten years. When his latest victim turns out to not be who she appears, the hunter will discover what it’s like to be the prey. When these two very determined foes clash, there will be blood. One way or another, only one of them is coming out of this alive…
Bone Meal Broth
Adam Cesare - 2012
Bone Meal Broth adds a few more.The nine stories in this collection vary in style and content, but all of them strive to unsettle.Inside Bone Meal Broth you'll meet a P.I. who works the dark streets of a post-biological-cataclysm New Orleans, a sleazy glamor photographer with a pest problem, and a misanthrope who's just made the most important (and deadly) purchase of his life. And those are the heroes.You'll visit the grotesque inhabitants of America's backwoods and shrink from the quiet terrors of suburbia. No matter your dark preference: a cup of Bone Meal Broth will hit the spot.
Alex
Adam J. Nicolai - 2011
A bereaved father. Alone with his loss, Ian Colmes has driven away everyone he loves. But when he begins to see his dead son again, is it because the boy is reaching out from beyond? Or has Ian's anguish finally given way to dementia?With a masterful hand, suspense newcomer Adam J Nicolai paints a picture of grief, madness, and the furious strength of a father's love for his son.
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
Laird Barron - 2013
Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron’s stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.Barron returns with his third collection, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. Collecting interlinking tales of sublime cosmic horror, including “Blackwood’s Baby”, “The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven”, and “The Men from Porlock”, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All delivers enough spine-chilling horror to satisfy even the most jaded reader.
Vengeance Blind
Anna Willett - 2018
Recovering from a road accident that has left her half-blind and in a wheelchair, Belle Hammer is alone in her secluded house set in a sprawling ten-acre plot, deep in the forests beyond Perth, Australia. Her husband having left on a work trip, and living miles away from urban centres, Belle has only a few neighbours. And one of them, the creepy retired lecturer Arthur Howell, she doesn’t trust one bit . Was it Howell who was seen in the grounds of her house? Did he make the noise she hears in the inaccessible first floor of her home? Unable to travel, Belle is cut off from the world. Her only hope is the home care assistant her husband arranged for her. But all is not as it seems. Left to the mercy of a woman she increasingly fears, Belle’s world starts to close in on her. It will take all of her wits and courage to understand why she is being victimised and survive the ensuing ordeal. If she does. Vengeance Blind is the latest thriller by Australian author Anna Willet. Her other books, in order of publication, are: 1. BACKWOODS RIPPER 2. RETRIBUTION RIDGE 3. UNWELCOME GUESTS 4. FORGOTTEN CRIMES 5. CRUELTY’S DAUGHTER 6. SMALL TOWN NIGHTMARE
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
Stephen King - 2015
Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.Since his first collection, Nightshift, published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. “Afterlife” is about a man who died of colon cancer and keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Other stories address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, the names of people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King’s finest gifts to his constant reader—“I made them especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”
Dreamsongs, Volume I
George R.R. Martin - 2003
Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)
Miramont's Ghost
Elizabeth Hall - 2015
Only one person knows the truth: Adrienne Beauvier, granddaughter of the Comte de Challembelles and cousin to the man who built the castle.Clairvoyant from the time she could talk, Adrienne’s visions show her the secrets of those around her. When her visions begin to reveal dark mysteries of her own aristocratic French family, Adrienne is confronted by her formidable Aunt Marie, who is determined to keep the young woman silent at any cost. Marie wrenches Adrienne from her home in France and takes her to America, to Miramont Castle, where she keeps the girl isolated and imprisoned. Surrounded by eerie premonitions, Adrienne is locked in a life-or-death struggle to learn the truth and escape her torment.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this hauntingly atmospheric tale is inspired by historical research into the real-life Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
The Complete Fiction
H.P. Lovecraft - 1937
P. Lovecraft.The Stories included are:The Nameless CityThe FestivalThe Colour Out of SpaceThe Call of CthulhuThe Dunwich HorrorThe Whisperer in DarknessThe Dreams in the Witch HouseThe Haunter of the DarkThe Shadow Over InnsmouthDiscarded Draft of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"The Shadow Out of TimeAt the Mountains of MadnessThe Case of Charles Dexter WardAzathothBeyond the Wall of SleepCelephaïsCool AirDagonEx OblivioneFacts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His FamilyFrom BeyondHeHerbert West-ReanimatorHypnosIn the VaultMemoryNyarlathotepPickman’s ModelThe BookThe Cats of UltharThe DescendantThe Doom That Came to SarnathThe Dream-Quest of Unknown KadathThe Evil ClergymanThe Horror at Red HookThe HoundThe Lurking FearThe Moon-BogThe Music of Erich ZannThe Other GodsThe OutsiderThe Picture in the HouseThe Quest of IranonThe Rats in the WallsThe Shunned HouseThe Silver KeyThe Statement of Randolph CarterThe Strange High House in the MistThe StreetThe TempleThe Terrible Old ManThe Thing on the DoorstepThe TombThe Transition of Juan RomeroThe TreeThe UnnamableThe White ShipWhat the Moon BringsPolarisThe Very Old FolkIbidOld BugsSweet Ermengarde, or, The Heart of a Country GirlA Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel JohnsonThe History of the Necronomicon