October #Horror Frenzy – Day Thirty One
It’s the story “They” don’t want you to read. Though, to be fair, “They” are probably right about this one. To quote the Bible, “Learning the truth can be like loosening a necktie, only to realize it was the only thing keeping your head attached.” No, don’t put the book back on the shelf — it is now your duty to purchase it to prevent others from reading it. Yes, it works with e-books, too, I don’t have time to explain how.
While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth they — like you — would be better off not knowing.
Your first impulse will be to think that a story this gruesome — and, to be frank, stupid — cannot possibly be true. That is precisely the reaction “They” are hoping for.
John Dies at the End‘s “smart take on fear manages to tap into readers’ existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next” (Publishers Weekly) and This Book is Full of Spiders was “unlike any other book of the genre” (Washington Post). Now, New York Times bestselling author David Wong is back with What the Hell Did I Just Read, the third installment of this black-humored thriller series.
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Cash carries a disease; one that’s already killed a large majority of the population and something needs to be done. To stop the crisis from escalating, The Solution (a worldwide organization) is formed and rises to great power. They monitor people’s dreams and shape reality to fit their own wants and needs. In an effort to control existence itself, The Solution is searching for what they believe to be the ultimate tool; a person with the ability to master a deep connection with the mysterious, pervasive energy known only as The Ultimate Reality.
Watching her neighborhood decay, her friends and family perish, Elizabeth Reznik needs to find meaning in her life. She discovers her existence is more meaningful than she could ever have imagined. Operatives of The Solution seek her out, take her from her home and perform brutal experiments on her. Their conclusion? Elizabeth is the one they have been searching for; she is the key to gaining complete power.
The stratagem of The Solution is single minded – own the resources and you own the people. And the last resource available is free will. They will own your thoughts, they will orchestrate your dreams; they will dine on your fears. But there is always a cog in the machine… or in this case, a scream.
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Who better to investigate the literary spirit world than that supreme connoisseur of the unexpected, Roald Dahl? Of the many permutations of the macabre or bizarre, Dahl was always especially fascinated by the classic ghost story. As he realtes in the erudite introduction to this volume, he read some 749 supernatural tales at the British Museum Library before selecting the 14 that comprise this anthology. “Spookiness is, after all, the real purpose of the ghost story,” Dahl writes. “It should give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts.” For this superbly disquieting collection, Dahl offers favorite tales by such masterful storytellers as E. F. Benson, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Rosemary Timperley, and Edith Wharton.
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We’ve all come across them. The warnings told by a friend of a friend – don’t go in there, I wouldn’t if I were you, did you hear about…? Or perhaps your mind leaps to the cryptozoological realm – creatures barely glimpsed, and yet to be identified. Other spheres of existence – they can’t be real… certainly not until you’ve experienced one!
Maybe the real horror lies in the minds and hearts of others just like you. People with a slightly bent perspective that feed on the fear in others. Twisted souls that would take advantage of the weak, or vulnerable. Those who believe they are doing good for a higher power, or to gain power simply for themselves. Petty vengeance that breathes a life of its own once unleashed.
Whatever your poison, the ten stories in Legends of Urban Horror: A Friend of a Friend Told Me are sure to intrigue, and perhaps bring back fears long forgotten.
Run, don’t look back… or should you?
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What would it take to make you intervene?
It’s time to let the monsters loose!
Welcome to the third installment of the Demonic Visions series. This new collection of macabre tales includes short fiction by members of the Demonic Visions team. Every new book that we publish will take you deeper into the minds of these talented writers, and acquaint you with their various styles of prose. So enjoy, and I hope that you will join us for the entire Demonic Visions saga which is intended to last many, many years and span many, many volumes… 
Not afraid of the water? Perhaps you should be…
The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.
WHAT IS YOUR STATE OF HORROR?
The United States is being torn apart by the Civil War. Brother fights brother and the country’s rivers run red with the blood of the dead. But the Confederates have lost their most important general, Jonathan ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and the South’s hopes of winning the war have dimmed…
Twenty years ago, the ghost of a dead little girl drove Sheriff Michael Blaine to his death.
Sometimes wicked people do wicked things simply because they can…
Jake & Darius are seasoned homicide detectives that have seen their share of murders. But even they can’t get used to children as victims. During one investigation they meet, and become intertwined with Jessica, the mother of one of the killer’s victims. She reveals a rare gift that may help them catch the killer. Jake is skeptical but Darius puts his faith in her. But when the latest child victim is close to one of their own they go into overdrive to find the killer. Will Jessica’s gift be what helps them learn the identity of the killer? And for Jessica – is it really a gift or is it a curse?
In the deepest vale of Crepuscule’s Cradle, in the cul-de-sac at the end of Direful Hollow Road, is a once grand Folk-Victorian home known as The Habersham House. It’s a place haunted by far more than rot and neglect – evil dwells here, an evil that craves children.
THE PAST NOT ONLY HAUNTS. IT HUNTS.
With Group Hex Vol. 2, the Great Lakes Horror Company continues the tradition of terror established with Group Hex Vol. 1. This diverse horror anthology features chilling tales of terror from bestselling authors, cult favourites, bent minds and blood soaked newcomers. Prepare yourself for vengeful spirits, hungry haunted houses, monstrous carnies, diners serving up a side of death, corporate crimes and murderous demons hidden in plain sight. With illustrations by popular and award-winning genre artists and a few possessed souls with a poisoned inkwell, Group Hex Vol. 2 is ready to satisfy those with even the most peculiar tastes.
When forever becomes real, it’s seriously intimidating.
Welcome to the sixth installment of the Demonic Visions series. We have added some talented new writers to the Demonic Visions team. Each new book that we publish will take you deeper into the minds of the writers, and acquaint you with their various styles of prose. So enjoy, and I hope that you will join us for the entire Demonic Visions saga which is intended to last many, many years and span many, many volumes…
When Olivia Taylor-Jones found out she was not actually the adopted child of a privileged Chicago family but of a notorious pair of convicted serial killers, her life exploded. Running from the fall-out, she found a refuge in the secluded but oddly welcoming town of Cainsville, Illinois, but she couldn’t resist trying to dig out the truth about her birth parents’ crimes. She began working with Gabriel Walsh, a fiendishly successful criminal lawyer who also had links to the town; their investigation soon revealed Celtic mysteries at work in Cainsville, and also entangled Olivia in a tense love triangle with the calculating Gabriel and her charming biker boyfriend, Ricky. Worse, troubling visions revealed to Olivia that the three of them were reenacting an ancient drama pitting the elders of Cainsville against the mysterious Huntsmen with Olivia as the prize.
Welcome to volume one of the Demonic Visions 50 Horror Tales series. This book features short horror tales by some of the best horror writers from around the world. Each book within the series will feature new work by each of these writers, both the established, and new up and coming talent. Volume one features tales of cannibalism, murderous underworlds, zombie carnage, portals to alternate dimensions, and many, many more demented masterpieces. So enjoy, and I hope that you will join us for the entire Demonic Visions saga which is intended to last many, many years and span many, many volumes… 
Like many young men at the end of the 1800s, Bill signed on to work in a logging camp. The work is brutal, but it promised a fast paycheck with which he can start his life. Unfortunately, his role model is Big John. Not only is he the camp’s hero, but he’s known for spending his pay as fast as he makes it. On a cold Saturday night they enter Red’s Saloon to forget the work that takes the sweat and lives of so many men their age. Red may have plans for their whiskey money, but something else lurks in the shadows. It watches and badly wants a drink that has nothing to do with alcohol. Can Bill make it back out the shabby door, or does someone else have their own plans for his future?
Love is an obsession; possession it’s one true desire. If you found your lover to be unfaithful, what would you do? Would you seek revenge? Perhaps confront them reasonably to discuss the truth behind such infidelity? Or would you take matters into your own hands… or in Nina’s case, your own mind?
Two secret societies vie for control of the ultimate medical miracle—Panacea—in the latest novel by New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson, author of the Repairman Jack series.
Hell has invaded Earth and happy endings are a thing long since forgotten.
Have you ever kept a secret from even yourself? On one rainless electric night, Frieda Noff will learn the truth about her past, her relationship with her sister, and her hometown’s darkest secrets. It is All Hallows again, twenty years after she went down that fateful gauntlet of haunted houses as a Trick-Or-Treater. She’s finally back, perhaps to stay this time.
The majority of us know the common connotation of a serial killer. But how many of us know that by definition, a serial killer is an individual who has only killed a minimum of three people on separate occasions? Interesting fact, wouldn’t you say.
What crawls through a child’s terrified mind in the darkest moments of the night? We asked twelve different authors to reach deep into their own imaginations and spin for us twelve tales so disturbing that any child would cringe at the thought of having to turn off the light before going to bed…
A million times we’ve been told the tales of the haunted. We easily forget the original victims. Revenge. Truth. Love. Confusion. Resistance. Lurk inside the pages and discover seven soul-filled stories of why our haunters LINGER
Viscera is a collection of short stories full of all the things that make you squirm, cringe, and laugh when you know you shouldn’t. You’ll remember why you’re afraid of the dark and experience an abundance of weird creatures: witches, ancient gods, and all-too-human monsters – the scariest of all.
ABERRANT is defined as unusual, abnormal or different. The stories in this book not only differ from most of what you read, but also wildly from each other. A retired school teacher takes on an elder god and his minion; a werewolf picks fights with sea creatures; a neighbor’s lawn may be eating people. Twenty-two stories: scary, funny, weird and different.
In the days before the Flood, Azaziel had been a Watcher, sent down to help God’s creatures on Earth. He fell in love with one of Cain’s granddaughters and they passed her mortal life in bliss. Now he’s imprisoned in the Los Angeles basin. His angelic brethren, Heaven’s misfits, don’t understand the longing Aza feels: once he had been loved entirely for himself. The succubus Lorelei doesn’t know any of this when she sets her sights on Azaziel. All she knows is that the angel’s fall will bring glory to Hell and acclaim to any succubus who accomplishes it. Of course, it never occurs to Lorelei that Azaziel might try to tame her by possessing her with a mortal girl’s soul. Can the succubus find an exorcist before the fury of Hell is unleashed?
While planning the celebration of her twenty-third birthday, Keisa Williams is kidnapped by The Presenter, a sensationalized serial killer who leaves his victims wrapped perfectly like gifts outside their homes.
Fired at almost the same time as her son Clark’s Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, former film critic turned teacher Lois Cairns is caught in a depressive downward spiral, convinced she’s a failure who’s spent half her adult life writing about other people’s dreams without ever seeing any of her own come true. One night Lois attends a program of experimental film and emerges convinced she’s seen something no one else has—a sampled piece of silver nitrate silent film footage whose existence might prove that an eccentric early 20th-century socialite who disappeared under mysterious circumstances was also one of Canada’s first female movie-makers. Though it raises her spirits and revitalizes her creatively, Lois’s headlong quest to discover the truth about Mrs. A. Macalla Whitcomb almost immediately begins to send her much further than she ever wanted to go, revealing increasingly troubling links between her subject’s life and her own. Slowly but surely, the malign influence of Mrs Whitcomb’s muse begins to creep into every aspect of Lois’s life, even placing her son in danger. But how can one increasingly ill and unstable woman possibly hope to defeat a threat that’s half long-lost folklore, half cinematically framed hallucination—an existential nightmare made physical, projected off the screen and into real life?
When a thunderous explosion rocks an idyllic cabin resort in the Great Smoky Mountains, animals and humans alike begin to act strange. Jim, along with his wife Laura and son, Sam, are cut off from the outside world, but they soon realize the true nightmare is just beginning…
Over the course of two months, sixteen people have gone missing in a seemingly idyllic town near Mill’s Woods. There’s been no sign of foul play leaving Sheriff Trevor Rost at a loss for an explanation, they’ve simply disappeared…
Twenty stories by twenty premier women writers. From dark to darker they will take the reader on a roller coaster ride. Open the door. Step inside. Don’t look back.
The FlipSide of Julianne 