Brian Hodge

We each inhabit many worlds, often at the same time. From worlds on the inside, to the world on a cosmic scale. Worlds imposed on us, and worlds of our own making. In time, though, all worlds will end. Bear witness: After the death of their grandmother, two cousins return to their family's rural homestead to find a community rotting from the soul outward, and a secret nobody dreamed their matriarch had been keeping. The survivors of the 1929 raid on H.P. Lovecraft's town of Innsmouth hold the key to an anomalous new event in the ocean, if only someone could communicate with them. The ultimate snow day turns into the ultimate nightmare when it just doesn't stop. An extreme metal musician compels his harshest critic to live up to the hyperbole of his trolling. With the last of a generation of grotesquely selfish city fathers on his deathbed, the residents of the town they doomed exercise their right to self-determination one last time. As history repeats itself and the world shivers through a volcanic winter, a group gathers around the shore of a mountain lake to once again invoke the magic that created the world's most famous monster. With Skidding Into Oblivion, his fifth collection, award-winning author Brian Hodge brings together his most concentrated assortment yet of year's best picks and awards finalists, with one thing in common: It's the end of the world as we know it . . . and we don't feel fine at all.

Skidding Into Oblivion

Twenty years after she survived a serial murderer of children, Daphne goes missing once again. When her brother Tanner sets out to find her, his search lands him in the middle of a sacrificial hunt for the rarest people on earth, and reveals the ultimate truth: There are things in the cosmos that terrify even the gods.

The Immaculate Void

"The Weight of the Dead" by Brian Hodge is a dystopian science fiction novelette taking place years after all electronics have been fried by the sun. Two siblings live in an enclave with their father, who’s about to be punished for a crime, sparking fierce but secret rebellion by the daughter. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.Com Original

The Weight of the Dead

Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Night Life

Hellboy, a top-secret field agent for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, and his partner, Abe Sapien, head into action when a group of angels attacks the Vatican, destroying an entire floor in its library and all of the documents contained within, except for one priceless scroll allegedly written by Jesus the Nazarene decades after his crucifixion. Original.

On Earth As It Is In Hell

Orphaned when their mother set fire to their home, the Cesaretti children are raised by an aunt in a Florentine palazzo, unaware that the sister they believed killed in the fire is alive--and terribly scarred

Deathgrip

Scott Smith

Randy Chandler

Tim Curran

Matt Shaw

Ryan Harding

Bracken MacLeod

Nathan Ballingrud 

Annie Neugebauer

Comet Press is extremely proud to present its third annual anthology featuring this year's hardcore corps of authors with the best extreme horror fiction of 2017 that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos. It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind. Authors, editors and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity. The stories here represent the best of them, disturbing tales that dig deep and take you into the dark heart of horror itself, unrelenting and unapologetic. “So Sings The Siren” by Annie Neugebauer takes us onto a Dark Fantasy stage for a one-night-only performance of mythological torture. Then Ryan Harding’s “Junk” gets right to the hardcore stuff with the ultimate dick-pic horror tale. Robert Levy’s “The Cenacle” is a literary cemetery feast you may have a hard time stomaching (Tums won’t save you). Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Maw” treads surefootedly on Sci-Fi ground, right up to the edge of the Maw itself in a tale of stunning originality. Luciano Marano made his first pro sell when he sold “Burnt” to DOA III, certainly one of the year’s best anthologies, and the tale has it own fiery fetishistic twist. “The Better Part of Drowning” by Octavia Cade treads waters of both science fiction and fantasy but it’s pure horror at its biting depths. Tim Waggoner’s “Til Death” is Lovecraftian Post-Apocalypse horror at its absolute best. “Letter From Hell” comes with that special delivery you only get from Matt Shaw. Dani Brown gets down and very dirty in her “Theatrum Mortuum,” which may be the most extreme thing you read all year. Glenn Gray’s “Break” is a hard-to-take anatomy lesson given to a man weary of doing hard time. In “Bernadette” Ramiro Perez de Pereda gets medieval in his tale of a djinn summoned by a desperate priest. Brian Hodge takes you on a trip to Mexico you will never forget in “West of Matamoros, North of Hell.” This story is a masterpiece of suspense, a grueling experience that may well leave you exhausted by the end. You might even feel like a vacation afterward, but we’re betting it won’t be to Matamoros. Bracken MacLeod’s “Reprising Her Role” takes us behind the scenes of a porno snuff film for a gut-wrenching reprisal and unexpected bonus footage. A real-life death threat inspired Doug Ford’s “The Watcher” and we think it shows. “Scratching From The Outer Darkness” showcases Tim Curran’s descriptive prowess and gives you a tale of hardcore Cthulhu Mythos. Brace yourself when Adam Howe’s “Foreign Bodies” takes you deep into the bowels of a nasty abyss—which might make a good echo chamber for the laughter Adam’s patented black humor is likely to elicit. Sean Patrick Hazlett introduces us to “Adramelech,” an ancient demon with a taste for broiled children. Daniel Marc Chant’s “ULTRA” jacks into a popular VR game called Slut Slayer. But what if it’s more than a game? Nathan Robinson takes us into the trees with a group of militant environmentalists who will discover a tree hugger of the deadly sort, entirely alien to their experience. Scott Smith (A Simple Plan and The Ruins) wraps up this year’s fat package of the hard stuff in a big bloody bow with “The Dogs.” The canines in this tale are not Man’s Best Friend variety, nor are they Woman’s Besties, as you will see. Thanks for coming along into this year’s heart of hardcore darkness. We hope to see you on the other side.

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3

From the primeval rain forest comes an uncontrolled substance never intended for consumption by the civilized mind… To the warrior-shamans of the Venezuelan forest people, the drug is a sacred substance: part pain, part pleasure, all power. Skullflush is pure psychic whiplash … an exhilarating gateway to an advanced consciousness beyond time and species. Deep in the Amazon, the primitive tribe has kept its secret safe from civilization. Until a rising drug lord ends up with a stolen six-kilo stash, and begins to peddle his prize in the nightclubs of Florida. Tampa’s thrill-seekers are eager to sample the pale green powder. But generations of urbanized decadence have left them jaded, shallow, and weak … too weak to handle the drug’s mystic high. The ancient rain forest chemistry warps bone, muscle, and sinew in their city-soft bodies, setting free the ferocious power of man’s basic nature. On the rebound from a life in ruins, Justin Gray is the sole witness who can connect the fearsome power of skullflush with the carnage left in its wake. A marked man, with a new love and an unlikely ally from the heart of the rain forest, he's forced to learn the ways of the urban jungle, where everyone is both hunter and hunted.

Nightlife

Robert McCammon

Bill Schweigart

Robert McCammon, James Renner, Kaaron Warren, Brian Hodge, Bill Schweigart, and Mick Garris reveal sinister secrets and unsavory pasts in a haunting anthology of short stories collected by acclaimed horror editors Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar. LIZARDMAN by Robert McCammon The lizardman thinks he knows about all the mysterious dangers of the Florida swamps, but there are things lurking in the bayou that are older and deadlier than his wildest dreams. A MONSTER COMES TO ASHDOWN FOREST (IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN SAYS GOODBYE) by James Renner Although every child dreams of visiting Hundred Acre Wood, only one has ever actually frolicked in that fabled forest—and survived. FURTHEREST by Kaaron Warren She’s been going to the beach since she was a child, daring the other kids to go out past the dunes where those boys died all those years ago. Now she realizes that the farther out you go, the harder it is to come back. WEST OF MATAMOROS, NORTH OF HELL by Brian Hodge After the success of their latest album, Sebastián, Sofia, and Enrique head to Mexico for a shoot under the statue of Santa Muerte. But they have fans south of the border who’d kill to know where they get their inspiration. THE EXPEDITION by Bill Schweigart On a quest to bring glory to the Führer, Lieutenant Dietrich Drexler leads his team into the ruins of the Carpathian Mountains. But the wolf that’s stalking them is no ordinary predator. SNOW SHADOWS by Mick Garris A schoolteacher’s impulsive tryst with a colleague becomes a haunting lesson in tragedy and terror when he’s targeted for revenge by an unlikely, unhinged rival. Praise for the Dark Screams series “A wicked treat [featuring] . . . some of the genre’s best.”—Hellnotes, on Volume One “Five fun-to-read stories by top-notch horror scribes. How can you lose? The answer: you can’t.”—Atomic Fangirl, on Volume Two “If you have not tried the series yet, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of any (or all) of the books for yourself.”—Examiner.com, on Volume Three “Fans of horror of every variety will find something to love in these pages.”—LitReactor, on Volume Four “[Volume Five] runs the gamut from throwback horror to lyrical and heartbreaking tales.”—Publishers Weekly

Dark Screams: Volume Seven

In a review of his first collection, The Convulsion Factory, esteemed critic Stanley Wiater stated, “This writer knows where the sad people, the bad people, and the mad people live.” Indeed. For his expansive command of characters as well as the situations, from the visionary to the grittily mundane, in which he finds them, and for his lyrically crafted prose and skewed perspectives (not to mention his penchant for run-on sentences), Hodge has racked up an eclectic list of comparisons: from Elmore Leonard to Clive Barker, from Honoré Daumier to David Cronenberg, from Carl Jung to Marilyn Monroe*. Now comes his most far-reaching collection yet, 150,000 words chronicling the people, places, and things that his readers have come to expect, but never predict: The dancer who becomes the latest repository for the fervent sexuality that fueled the world’s most ancient cities. The serial killer whose grasp of media symbiosis puts him light-years ahead of the law. The modern-day castrato learning undreamt-of lessons in love, death, and divine madness. The Civil War veteran living a grotesque twist on the Old West myth of the outlaw who never takes off his gun belt. William Faulkner once noted that writers are congenital liars … that if they weren’t liars, they would never have become writers in the first place. In that spirit, Brian Hodge has been enthusiastically lying ever since his earliest mastery of the alphabet, guided by only one stipulation: Never letting a trivial thing like the facts get in the way of the ugly truth. * Sadly, the Monroe comparison is a total fabrication. Stories included in this collection: “Madame Babylon” “The 121st Day of Sodom” “Empathy” “Cancer Causes Rats” “Some Other Me” “Nesting Instincts” “Before the Last Snowflake Falls” “An Autumnal Equinox Folly” “Confession” “Cenotaph” “Far Flew the Boast of Him” “Now Day Was Fled As the Worm Had Wished” “Pages Stuck By a Bowie Knife to a Cheyenne Gallows” “Driving the Last Spike” “Little Holocausts” “Dead Giveaway” “Past Tense” “Our Lady of Sloth and Scarlet Ivy” “The Last Testament” “The Alchemy of the Throat” “Come Unto Me, All Ye Heavy Laden” “Endnotes: From the Gutters of Civilization to Your Discerning Eye”

Lies & Ugliness

A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.

Raymond Benson

Richard Christian Matheson

G. Wayne Miller

Michael Boatman

David Niall Wilson

David J. Schow

Gary Braunbeck

Rick Hautala

Paul Dale Anderson

Monica J. O'Rourke

More than 160 short stories from bestselling and award-winning authors. This volume will introduce you to horror, mystery, fantasy and thrills, from the dark worlds of Lovecraft to the cutting-edge suspense of the mean streets of the cities of the world. This monster collection speaks in the voices of some of today's leading masters of the short story, with something certain to appeal to every reader. Find a new creative voice to follow. Find a new world to love. An amazing wealth of fiction and imagination. Included in Corruption at the Crossroad: 12+1: Twelve Short Thrillers And A Play — Raymond Benson The Devil Made Me Do It Again And Again — Paul Dale Anderson Seeing Red — David J. Schow Bedbugs — Rick Hautala Destinations Unknown — Gary Braunbeck The Call Of Distant Shores — David Niall Wilson Falling Idols — Brian Hodge In The End, Only Darkness — Monica J O'Rourke 13: A Collection Of Horror And Weird Fiction — Michael Boatman Vapors: The Essential G. Wayne Miller Fiction, Vol. 2 — G. Wayne Miller Scars And Other Distinguishing Marks — Richard Christian Matheson

Corruption at the Crossroad

From the primeval rain forest comes an uncontrolled substance never intended for consumption by the civilized mind... To the warrior-shamans of the Venezuelan forest people, the drug is a sacred substance: part pain, part pleasure, all power. Skullflush is pure psychic whiplash... an exhilarating gateway to an advanced consciousness beyond time and species. Deep in the Amazon, the primitive tribe has kept its secret safe from civilization. Until a rising drug lord ends up with a stolen six-kilo stash, and begins to peddle his prize in the nightclubs of Florida. Tampa’s thrill-seekers are eager to sample the pale green powder. But generations of urbanized decadence have left them jaded, shallow, and weak... too weak to handle the drug’s mystic high. The ancient rain forest chemistry warps bone, muscle, and sinew in their city-soft bodies, setting free the ferocious power of man’s basic nature. On the rebound from a life in ruins, Justin Gray is the sole witness who can connect the fearsome power of skullflush with the carnage left in its wake. A marked man, with a new love and an unlikely ally from the heart of the rain forest, he's forced to learn the ways of the urban jungle, where everyone is both hunter and hunted. PRAISE FOR NIGHTLIFE "Hodge has come up with a scary winner. Unlike many of today's horror genre, Nightlife is believable ... keeps you moving in a straightforward line until you get to the catastrophic end." — The Santa Cruz Sentinel "Color, sprawl, melodramatic action, and a feel not altogether unlike the prime of Miami Vice ... it's right in there like a Charles Willeford portrait of South Florida at its grotesque best. Lots of heat." — Ed Bryant, in Locus "Switching back and forth between the mundane, the desperate, and the surreal, Nightlife displays a fascinating range: varieties of darkness." — Farren Miller, in Locus "Fascinating, frightening, and fierce, without for a moment failing to be richly human." — Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser series.

Nightlife [eBook - Biblioboard]

Tim Lebbon

Jeffrey Thomas

Gary A. Braunbeck

Wrath James White

You threw away the kitty litter, didn¿t you. But that¿s okay, he doesn¿t need it. Don¿t bother running out for a bag of cat chow, the stuff falls right out of him. Afraid of fleas in his fur? They¿re afraid of him! He¿s dead, but he¿s back, and he¿s looking for you! Don¿t think spending a few thousand years buried in sand can keep Dead Cat down. He¿s gone through Hell to come back because he knows you can¿t live without him!Break out the surgical tape for those mummy wrap malfunctions. Fluff up the old comfy pillow, find a nice, sunny spot by the window and settle down with Dead Cat, GAK, and sixteen twisted horror writers who enjoy playing with dead things for the finest Circus of Wonders and Miracle Medicine Show you¿ll ever experience. Dead Cat guarantees your satisfaction!Remember, Dead Cat came back from the dead for you! It¿s not wise to ignore the dead...Tim LebbonGary A BraunbeckBrian HodgeJeffrey ThomasLinda D. AddisonGerard HouarnerTrey R. BarkerJack HaringaMichael T. Huyck, Jr.Garrett PeckP.D.CacekMichelle ScaliseRobert RhineMark McLaughlinWrath James WhiteAaron WorleyWith artwork from:GAKAlan M. ClarkErik WilsonChad Savage

J. K. Bloom

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