The Indie Eclective: What is it, who are they, and why can they spell neither “eclectic” nor “collective” correctly? The Indie Eclective is an ensemble of authors operating under the assumption that Readers like Good Books. The Halloween Collection showcases spooky reads from nine very different authors. Whether you enjoy light or dark paranormal, YA or adult-themed genres, there’s bound to be a story to suit your tastes. Thanks for reading!
Ten fine ghost stories:
Abby Hawkins was never normal. Born with a birth cowl--a rare birth defect thought to predict psychic abilities--she is haunted by horrible visions. Shortly after her 13th birthday, Abby's parents call in the mysterious Crowley to help their daughter. His interventions rid her of the visions...and her eyes.
Now a beautiful young lady, Abby Hawkins works as a blind fortune teller in a traveling Carnival. When she receives a powerful vision--one depicting the abduction of a little girl--she becomes the sole witness to the crime. Only a young police officer believes her bizarre story, and with his help she embarks upon an investigation that will ultimately reunite her with the madman from her past and bring her to the hellish threshold of Crowley's Window.
From the mind that gave you Edgar nominated NIGHT CRUISING and BANISHED, comes a tale of terror where an alternate reality keeps intruding.
Have you ever walked into a room and felt you had left something in one place, but now it is in another? Have you driven down a street or road you know well where houses and buildings and stores seem a little different from your memory of them? Have you ever felt reality slipping...just a little bit?
In DARK REALITY Lane believes his brother died in Iraq as a Marine, but one day he's back again and several things about the world are different. Buildings in town are changed. The woman his brother was married to is now Lane's girlfriend. And there's a gun in a cabinet that before never existed--neither the cabinet nor the gun. Lane needs to stop his world from shifting reality around him. And he needs, desperately, to keep his brother alive now that reality has given him a second chance...
Hank Mondale, a rough-around-the-edges P.I. with a small drinking problem and a large gambling problem, needs a break. With his landlord threatening eviction and his bookie threatening worse, things look bleak. Until real estate mogul Thomas Blake calls with an incredible story: a monster is trying to kill his daughter. Hank figures she's probably some whacked-out spoiled brat, but desperate, Hank takes the case to track down the supposed monster. It seems that people around Mackenzie Blake are disappearing. It's obviously no coincidence. Was Hank hired to unwittingly aid a wealthy murderess? Or is there really someone...or some thing, trying to kill Mackenzie Blake?
A symphony plays that only It can hear. But there will be a special performance, just for her.
A hotel explodes in Mexico City, killing thousands.
All evidence points to one American citizen, Alex Valdez.
The FBI wants him, or at the least, to understand what happened in Mexico before the government down there can.
Agent James Allison travels to Mexico to find Valdez, or find out about him.
What he can't know, what the FBI doesn't understand, is Valdez's past.
Alex Valdez's parents gave him a blood-rite to unleash an ancient Aztec 'God'--this rite led a small boy to a haunted man. One that doesn't know whether this 'God' exists, and if It does, is It a demon? A man that cannot tell reality from dreams with a wife who has seen her husband commit atrocities to his own body.
Dead Religion follows both Alex Valdez in the last days before the hotel's collapse and James Allison as he searches for the truth behind the fall. Valdez believes he knows how to stop the Demon, and James only understands he wants to make it home alive to see his brother.
In a world where miracles and Gods have been pushed to a past age, Dead Religion walks the fine line between insanity and reality, in which Agent Allison must uncover the facts of the terrific loss of life in Mexico City before the same torments find their way into his own life.
An ordinary summer's day.
The grass is green, the flowers are blooming. All is right with the world. Then the dead start rising. From cemetery and mortuary, funeral home and morgue, they flood into the streets until every town and city is infested with walking corpses, blank-eyed eating machines that exist to take down the living.
The world is a graveyard.
And when you have a family to protect, it's more than survival.
It's war.
When the Powers of Darkness infest a small New England town... A tortured young man, a powerful psychic, a mysterious teacher, and a desperate mother with a hidden past fight for their lives and their souls against the evil that binds them together and threatens to destroy them all.
As his eighteenth birthday approaches, Rick Williams experiences violent, unexplainable headaches. His mother dismisses them as a simple allergic reaction. Her odd behavior, and the severity of the headaches, leave Rick and Nicole, his potential girlfriend, dissatisfied with that explanation and searching for a better one.
Enter Terrence, a mysterious substitute teacher at the local high school in scenic Maplecrest, Vermont. With Terrence's encouragement and influence, a group of seemingly normal students turns a routine science lab experiment into a frenzy of sadistic mutilation.
Against Rick's better judgment, Nicole eagerly seeks the help of a retired psychic to find out what Terrence wants from them. The psychic warns that they are all in grave and immediate danger. An unseen force attacks them during the session causing Rick to question whose side some of these "helpers" are really on.
As they get closer to the terrifying truth, some of them will die, making the rest of them more frightened, and yet more determined than ever to see good triumph over evil in the final supernatural showdown.
Those who live to see the unholy ritual would be wise to remember that the Devil always collects his due.
(Genre: Horror YA Young Adult)
(Length: 38,000 Words)
Real vampires. Tasteful dismemberments. And delightful shivers, from ten old-fashioned horror stories:
a. The Moonlight in Genevieve's Eyes: unrequited love. Tragic. Just tragic.
b. Choice: second chances are rare. Especially when you work for a vampire.
c. The Flowers in Mr. Williams' Garden: neighborhood watch, ghost style.
d. Cistern: zombies are horrible, until they hire you.
e. The Elvish Woman: lovers who steal your soul. Literally.
f. The Trumpet Inside the Warehouse: no one can hear you scream.
g. King of the Bears: be victorious, or be dinner.
h. Angel Eyes: man's best friend, when you forget your cross and garlic.
i. The Absence of Land: sell the farm, pay the consequences.
j. Face to Face: Mother's day.
In this collection of seven short stories you’ll find:
Dead Girls - a man dealing with very unexpected guests at an isolated farmhouse.
A Certain Doorway - an old manor house where the empty rooms may not be so empty after all.
From The Sky -a pair of high school students fighting off a strange invasion.
Monsters - a little girl who thinks she’s too old to believe in monsters.
Sticks Like Bones - an old woman terrified by the skitterings in her walls.
Jingle, Jingle - a family visited by a nasty ghost of Christmas past.
Wetwork -a hitman who finds the road to redemption can take a sharp turn.
A world of Darkness is back.
A boy finds out what really lurks behind the closed doors at a theme park. A woman finds out why she should stop shopping at flea markets. A boy learns why he should be nicer to his friends. And see why online action sites should be avoided at all cost. All of this and more awaits you in Melissa L. Webb's latest short story collection.
See what horrors lurk within everyday life with these 28 short stories. Beware the Unnatural Things that hide where you least expect them.
Pre-Halloween Special: My short story "Youthanasia" will be free only on Amazon.com Monday, October 22 through Friday, October 26. Subtle horror, as in no slicing, dicing, or bloody gore, but reminiscent of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Plus an excerpt from another short story, "Frankie's Prayers."
Lidia and Simon Drago are living their last hoorah, a European vacation financed by insurance money they received when their house burned down. On the night train from Paris to Florence they encounter a stranger who directs them to a lovely pensione in Florence. There, a clever artist agrees to depict the Dragos not as they look now but how they appeared in their prime.
If only Lidia and Simon hadn't talked to the stranger, or taken his advice about the pensione. If only they hadn't been so vain, wanting to recapture their youth so their unborn grandchild would know how glamorous they'd been in their youth--a younger version of JFK and Jackie. If only Lidia could convince the artist Peppe to give her and Simon another chance. If only ...
What do you when a life threatening virus breaks out? Where will you go? What if that virus is not even from this earth?
We follow the story of Mark Ranger, a man that loves his family dearly. But soon discovers that time’s cruel fate gets a grip on everyone. Slowly but surely a virus spreads in communities whilst government officials deny everything, until people themselves…. find out… first hand.
“A book that is sure to entertain, don’t take my word for it. Read it”
Part 2 incoming (Can romance blossom in the midst of decay?)
25 year old Ash Nickeas can be described as an average Joe, with an average job, living an average life in Winnipeg, Canada who has one peculiar habit; he likes to fantasize about a zombie outbreak to escape his boring reality.
Would his co-workers survive a zombie apocalypse? What about his sister's boyfriend? For Ash, there's only one way to find out.
Grabbing her arm I dragged her over to the edge of Lover's Leap.
So you think you met the love of your life? Hopefully he's not the death of you! A short story about a relationship that ends up for better (or for worse).
Former jailbird Jim Clayton never was much good at controlling his anger, nor minding his own business. So when he winds up in the tiny mountain town of Billings, Georgia, and witnesses a man attacking a teenage girl named Darlene, he can't help but step in. Unfortunately for Jim, the man is the local Police Chief. And in Billings, the police don't bother with jail for people who assault officers - no, outsiders such as Jim are taken up into the mountains and hunted like wild animals. Only this time, the hunters aren't prepared for a tough ex-con whose will to survive is equal to their bloodlust. Nor a stranger with a most unusual possession - a human soul. A soul he's desperate to sell; a curse he's desperate to be free from. When Darlene buys the soul, unwittingly transferring the curse onto herself, Jim once again steps in to save her, discovering he must face the demons of his past to do so, while fighting to stay alive against the band of savage hunters.
THE HELL SEASON
Thomas Wright awakens to discover that his family has vanished. None of their possessions are missing. The clothes that they slept in are still in their beds. All too soon it becomes apparent that nearly everyone in town has disappeared, that only he and a few select others remain
Then the sky starts to rain blood.
"I'll see you in Hell" - to most, it's just a spiteful throwaway line spit from the lips of condemned men into the faces of their executioners before they meet their end. But for these two men, professional killers with a bitter personal rivalry, it's more than just a promise. It's a covenant born in blood that will take their feud well beyond the grave, into the deepest, darkest pits of the infernal afterlife. And even an assassin who thinks he's seen it all is not ready for what awaits him below.
Have you ever wondered in the back of your mind, what if you could make a wish and it came true. That's exactly what happened to Dr. Murray when he went on an expedition with a group of archeologists to the Aztec ruins. Dr. Murray was a big dreamer with an over active imagination. So even if Dr. Murray were to tell someone that he made a wish and it came true, no one would believe him. Dr. Murray is what you would call the little boy who cried wolf. Dr. Murray was one of seven young archeologists eager to make a name for himself. The expedition was planned around May. Not too hot and not too cold. The archeologists that were going on the Aztec expedition were Dr. Murray, Dr. Morley, Dr. Webber, Dr. Sanchez, Dr. Seymour, Dr. Roberts and Dr. Bell.
My dear wife and I are partners in O’Brien Paranormal Investigations. Now don’t misunderstand. We’re not private eyes. We don’t do divorce cases or murders or missing persons, unless of course they were abducted by a UFO or fairies or something like that. No, we specialize in weird problems like: slaying vampires, dispelling ghosts, dealing with voodoo cults, demon possessions, booglies and other things that go bump in the night. These maybe aren’t as common as the more run of the mill investigations handled by common private investigators but then we really don’t have any competition either. Who ya gonna call? The most likely place to find Ghostbusters is a video store and most Catholic priests these days are more concerned about the plight of illegal farm workers than spiritual warfare. Maitre'd to the Damned is the story of how we got into this business.
I started out as the overworked and underpaid night manager of a restaurant that catered to gangers, gays and Goths. Back then I thought I had it rough. But I had no idea there were worse things than being “Maitre d’ to the Damned,” things that Man really was not meant to know, things I learned when I took advantage of what I foolishly thought was a quick and easy way out of my financial difficulties that instead plunged me right into a nightmare, as if Phillip Marlowe became trapped in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Fortunately, my dear wife and our friends stood by me; well, some of them anyway. This is our story.
A typical evening working at the theater turns into a nightmare beyond imagination.
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