When a woman is found dead, hanging by her bra strap in the supply closet of the Catholic monastery, Detective Giorgio Salvatori is called in to handle the case. As a veteran New York police detective, he's been faced with some of the worst humanity has to offer. In fact, he moved to this small town in Southern California to get away from the dirt and crime of New York after a shooting nearly killed him. But he has a bad feeling about this case. Soon, his suspicions are borne out when a second body is found buried on the property, and days later, one of the monks is found floating face down in the duck pond. To complicate matters, the specter of a young boy who committed murder and then suicide back in the 1940s, appears to be communicating a message of some sort. But what is it? And does this decades-old murder have anything to do with Salvatori's current investigation?
She sits bound to the chair with duct tape encircling her body. Her pleas for freedom are ignored with the perp diligently working in the kitchen preparing a dinner entrée. Detectives Jose Hanson and Billie Joe Hoekstra are called to a murder scene not knowing what to expect. They arrive to find an immaculately clean house with the victim constrained in the dining room with a pasta dish in front of her. This is a first for Jose and Billie as they are fed murder after murder using food as the star witness...telling a plate full of nothing. The problem facing Jose and Billie is "How do they stop the killing without any clues to follow?" Tasteful Deaths is a chef's delight gone wild with the killer teaching the victims the "How to" of cooking and baking leaving behind a taste treat "to die for."
In an apocalyptic world where the dead roam the earth, Carl Teegarden lays dying. Fatally wounded by the undead, he watches his lifeblood drain from his ravaged body and struggles to come to terms with his inevitable fate. Knowing that this fate will not necessarily end with his final breath, he fights through the pain and looks back upon his life, remembering the events which have led to his lonely demise. Only he isn't alone. The spirit of a woman with whom he'd found love in a ruined world stands by his side, her loyalty transcending the barriers of life and death. Smoldering across the room is the ghost of a small child whose hatred of this man burns with such intensity that no amount of suffering can sate his thirst for revenge. All the while, legions of the walking dead scour the countryside for the slightest sign of life. As their destinies intertwine, stories of love and devotion intertwine with failing and regret across a timeline marked by the grim struggle for survival. And in this nightmare world, each will come to understand, in their own way, exactly what it means to be numbered among the dead and dying....
50 Shades of Gray Matter is parody, using the elemental themes of the (rightfully) popular erotica series and combining them with the impending zombie Apocalypse.
As the narrator has, in point of fact, been infected by the ZBF (zombie bird flu) and is gradually turning to join the undead race, this is a short work-- novelette length-- around 10000 words.
Meta is an angel: a.k.a. “one of the good guys,” but her ebony hair and calling to haul souls to Hell has made her an outcast among the other Shirley-Temple-blond seraphs. Assigned to work with Sol, who thinks sneezing during prayer is a sin, Meta gags at his prudish, butt-kissing perfection. To her surprise, though, after they get into a territory war over a dead mortal in a hospital room, her vomit reflex turns into an urge to kiss Sol’s pearl-pink lips.
The mismatched angels plow halo-first into a quirky, often dysfunctional relationship.
Meta is weakened by her new feelings for Sol when Satan tries to seduce her with promises of power and acceptance if she will join him. In a world where forbidden desires are paid for with your soul, young Meta must decide if she will be Satan’s right hand or turn her back on the alluring darkness to follow her heart and the love of an angelic man who was never meant to be hers.
From acclaimed horror and mystery writer Bruce Elliot Jones:
It was to be a long-earned vacation for David Petrie and his pretty wife Donna.
A cross country tour, really, from the St. Louis Arch to the bright lights of Las Vegas--and a final chance, perhaps, for their cancer stricken young daughter Pepsi to see the world. No airplanes, no trains…just a leisurely drive together where scenic beauty and unhurried back roads might bring them closer together, hold back time just a little.
But unhurried roads sometimes lead to open deserts, merciless sun, a whole new concept of time…and a growing conviction in David’s mind that he has gotten his precious family lost in the middle of nowhere. Except “nowhere” is always “somewhere”…and the smallest of desert towns can still be a port in the rolling ocean of sand.
Until the rattling old windmill at the edge of town, the empty wind-blown streets, dark storefronts, and strange town-folk of Clear Water with their hooded glances and uneasy smiles appear not quite what they seemed. Everything—every one—is…different.
Why do you keep running away, David Petrie—only to circle back again and again--this little desert town saved your family’s lives!
…for now…
A ridiculous undead romp on the beach. Three couples arrive at a Caribbean resort when a plague turns its residents into human flesh eaters. The story is told from multiple points of view. It's the perfect companion to an adult beverage while working on a tan.
Club Dead : Zombie Isle is 6,700 words long, and is based on a true event. The true event did include zombies, just not the flesh eating kind.
Excerpts from the novel Resurrection X: Zombie Evolution published by Post Mortem Press are included.
In this short story in the horror genre, the fate of the world may depend on the prisoners inside the Rockwell Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections when a new load of prisoners bring something else inside the barbed wire with them.
There is nothing more frightening in the world of horror, than a ghost story that is actually true. When Peter takes his new wife Stacy, up to the mountains for a weekend of fishing, hiking and hopefully some intense cuddling, their day starts off great, when they think they find the perfect spot. The seclusion of the little lake seems at first to be a plus, but they soon realize, that there is a reason the area around the black waters and the looming hills is empty. "Don't let the night catch me here!" These are the words that run through their minds as the day folds in on itself with terrifying speed, releasing something blacker than the night.
This book contains three stories, all of which are paranormal in nature. The first two are works of non-fiction, true to life ghost stories, if you can believe it, but the third is completely fictional.
The veil that divides the worlds of the living and the dead-- a fixture which has largely shielded mankind from the supernatural throughout history-- has been known occasionally to diminish. Due to such fluctuations, human beings are sometimes accosted by phantoms and other curious sorts from the shadows...
He is near.
A letter from a prospective client brings paranormal investigator Edgar Sullivan face to face with a terror the likes of which he's never known.
The client, Henry Whitaker, seeks to cast out a troublesome resident spirit he has termed the "Pale Watcher." Each night, this frightening apparition manifests in his bedroom and watches him sleep till morning. Sullivan agrees to take on the case and travels to the Whitaker estate in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The details of this haunting are not so simple as they seem however.
Upon his arrival in the midst of a January snowstorm, Sullivan is informed by the head servant, Louis, that Henry Whitaker has fallen mysteriously ill. With his client hospitalized and a blizzard raging outside, he begins his investigation.
The winters of the Upper Peninsula are infamously brutal. Trapped by the snow, Sullivan is forced to confront the horrors that dwell in the Whitaker estate. Throughout the course of his investigation he comes upon strange clues; Mr. Whitaker's journal, a demonic sigil, a room full of antique mirrors. Can Sullivan piece together these clues and come up with a way to stop the haunting, or will he and Louis be devoured by the malevolence of the Pale Watcher?
When Natalie Scott decides to rent a seaside colonial cottage for six months after the death of her mother, she just wants peace and quiet.
Instead she gets a barrel-load of trouble; first from Karl Messer, who won't let her rent the cottage unless she goes out with him; then from her brother, Trevor, who won’t let her take his guard dog. But worst of all is the resident ghost, Sean O’Shea, who falls in love with her. And finally from her ex-boyfriend, Rick Dalton, who marches back into her life wanting to take up where they left off.
What’s a girl to do? Should Natalie run for cover, or stay to sort these four men out once and for all?
Word Length; Approximately 59,000 words.
The sequel, Sean O'Shea's story, GIVING UP THE GHOST is also avaialable on Kindle.
The mining town of Milsbourne, Michigan was once a successful settlement, boasting great natural wealth and an active populace.
Sometime in the 1870's, everything changed.
A researcher stumbles upon a mention of this long-forgotten settlement and becomes obsessed with trying to find the reason for its sudden abandonment. His investigation leads him to the Michigan woods, where he learns, first-hand, why it was that Milsbourne fell off of the map so suddenly.
Milsbourne, Michigan is a short tale of terror by OJ Connell, author of the Edgar Sullivan series of paranormal mysteries. It first appeared in the successful anthology The Big Book of New Short Horror (Pill Hill Press, 2011). This Kindle edition is the definitive version.
Chastity Bream doesn't dance anymore. She also can't walk, speak or think. She's fed through a tube, turned twice a day and left alone in her bed. That is except for him - the one in her closet, who comes out to tend to her needs. And his.
Like most towns, Ridgeware has a dark history. Its inhabitants know of the history, apart from newcomer Gary Strand. Strand has recently moved from London to experience the "quiet life" and finds there is more to the town than meets the eye.
David Dawson is a family man, and like other residents, knows of the dark history surrounding Ridgeware and the woods, and the infamous story of Killer Kelly.
To the adults, Killer Kelly was a character from years back that massacred his family. To the children, Killer Kelly is a ghost that is still present and lives in the same shack where he killed his family, which is situated on the common hill, between Ridgeware and the woods.
This thriller is written as seen through the eyes of an adult, and also that of the three children, Alan, Neil and Steven Dawson, David Dawson's son.
Packed with developing eerie stories, innocent friendship, and scenes of terror, "The Woods of Red Hill" dissects each character and tells the reader how they have been affected.
This story comes to a dramatic and bloody conclusion, and is not for persons under the age of 18.
'The Mark Inside' tells the stories of Dave Morgan whose life is falling apart when his computer starts to write back to him, of Mary, his ex-girl friend, who is haunted by the same evil that controls Dave's writting, of Michael Doyle who witnesses something miraculous when his brother falls from a tree and of the evil that unites them all- Manny Collins who truly carries The Mark Inside.
Synopsis: Ron’s estranged father has just passed away. With his older siblings living out of state it falls upon his shoulders to take care of his father’s estate. Within the childhood home he has not been to for years lies The Red Room. He finds that the séances and occult nonsense his father was involved in was more than a bizarre part time hobby. It was a full blown obsession. His father led a double life, was a dedicated student of the occult. Something trapped within The Red Room slumbers and waits for Ron’s arrival.
Novella
Word count: 23,212
On a dare from her best friends, Heather goes inside the town's haunted house, where Frank Blackwell killed his wife and then hung himself in the basement. But while in the house, Heather is confronted by a ghost from her past, her mother who died accidentally one year ago. Now, Heather must not only escape from the evil lurking inside the house, but from the demons of her own past.
Short story approximately 2,800 words.
King and Other Chilling Tales is a collection of six adrenaline pumping horror short stories from author, Jason Thacker. In this collection you’ll walk alongside the legions of the walking dead, and the fierce monsters of myth that roam the mysterious forests of Appalachia. Monsters such as the vicious Mothman who's out for blood, and a frightening Wampus Cat on a deadly prowl in one man‘s own backyard. Also in the all new western tale of blazing guns and grave robbing, “The Heist” Thacker unleashes an original creature of his own creation called, “The Deadin“ upon his readers. This little book will keep you on the edge of your seat until the bitter end.
CONTENTS:
King
The Remedy
Blackout
The Hungriest Zombie
The Mothman Isn't Real
The Heist
"Jason Thacker is a horror writer to watch. His prose is smooth, intense, and chilling. If you like HORROR, you owe it to yourself to check this book out." —Eric S. Brown, author of BIGFOOT WAR, and A PACK OF WOLVES
Approximately 27,000 words.
When a series of freak storms sweep across the world, they leave behind something more than devastation. First come the swift-growing flowers, smelling like heaven and dying as quickly as they bloom. Next comes the infestation as the flowers breed and multiply inside their hosts. After that, chaos, mayhem and death.
And after that…resurrection.
**Part One of a monthly short-story serial
