Tag: Halloween

Halloween Extravaganza: Hunter Shea: The Ghost of Halloween Present

megHan

After reading this guest post by the amazing Hunter Shea, all I can say is… I wish I lived closer to him because he’s definitely a house I would stop at on Halloween.

It used to be, I was happy when a Halloween consisted of me dressed up as either a hobo or vampire (I remember being a hobo, complete with packed bindle, was all the rage – not so PC now), a couple of hours to trick or treat, a visit to my grandparents, and a few mom inspected and approved candies before bed. If I was very lucky, my trick or treat bag wasn’t laden with old pennies and unwrapped circus peanuts.

For once in my life, I don’t long for the days of yesteryear. Halloween today in the Shea dungeon is a day long affair filled with indulgence and wicked fun. I tell people what our Halloweens are like and they don’t believe me… until they come and see for themselves. And once they do, they come back for more year after year.

We have the distinct pleasure of having become part of a kind of trick or treat alley. It consists of one suburban block where kids and adults from far and wide descend. On this block, the houses are decorated (One family sometimes changing the entire front façade of their house for that year’s theme. Last year it was a rocket ship. The year before, the bow of a pirate ship). Music drifts along the chilly air. You might hear some creepy horror movie tunes, or maybe some riotous Rob Zombie, and always, always, the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

We prep for the night by loading up the cooler with lots of beer. It used to be just pumpkin ale when it was hard to find, but now that it’s everywhere, the allure has worn off. First beer can be cracked open at any time, be it morning or night. Well, we never wait until night. My daughters will dress up, as will the adults, all the way to grandma and grandpa. Sometimes, if my creative daughter gets the urge, she’ll pull out her makeup effects kit and adorn our necks with bloody slashes and wounds. She’s been known to do it for random trick or treaters, too.

A carved pumpkin sits on the table, spewing massive chunks of green. That would be homemade guacamole and it’s delicious. With extended family and friends present, the first trick or treaters start to trickle in. It’s always the very young ones at first with their moms and dads. At our house, everyone gets a juice box – because trick or treating is thirsty business – and a bag of treats. Once night falls, the neighborhood is transformed into a spooky Mardi Gras, the sidewalks and street packed with people of all ages, shapes and sizes. There have been flash mobs, wedding proposals, screeching when people are scared by one of us, and even the occasional flash for a drink, which makes it all the more feel like we’ve been transported to New Orleans. By the time the night is done, we’ve usually handed out treats to over 600 kids. Adults will get beer and cigars. And a hangover to come.

One year, I dressed up as a trailer park version of Elvira. I called myself Elmira and talked like Wendy Williams, asking everyone who came by, “How you doin’?” Don’t ask me why. It was all inspired by Patron and Sam Adams. People loved taking pictures with the often lewd Elmira. Last year, I bought a giant crying baby mask from Five Below. Slipping into a pair of footie pajamas, I walked around looking tres disturbing. Turns out, moms like to hug crying babies, even if they are almost 6 feet tall and dancing around like a serial killer in his basement.

People we see just that once a year come by to hang, pizza is delivered, and the party doesn’t stop until the treats and booze run out. When all is said and done, I always vow to watch a horror movie, something special I’ve saved for this moment. Inevitably, I pass out before the first act is over. It sure beats the Halloweens of my youth. It may be why I look forward to it more now than ever. So if you ever need a juice box or something a little stronger on Halloween, come on and join the party.

Hunter Shea is the product of a misspent childhood watching scary movies, reading forbidden books, and wishing Bigfoot would walk past his house. He doesn’t just write about the paranormal – he actively seeks out the things that scare the hell out of people and experiences them for himself. Hunter’s novels can even be found on display at the International Crytpozoology Museum. He’s a bestselling author of over 25 books, all of them written with the express desire to quicken heartbeats and make spines tingle. You can find him each week on the Final Guys podcast, as well as the long running Monster Men video podcast. Living with his wonderful family and two cats, he’s happy to be close enough to New York City to gobble down Gray’s Papaya hot dogs when the craving hits. Become a true Hunter’s Hellion and follow him at his website.

Slash

Five years after Ashley King survived the infamous Resort Massacre, she’s found hanging in her basement by her fiancé, Todd Matthews. She left behind clues as to what really happened that night, clues that may reveal the identity of the killer the press has called The Wraith. 

With the help of his friends, Todd goes back to the crumbling Hayden Resort, a death-tinged ruin in the Catskills Mountains. What they find is a haunted history that’s been lying in wait for a fresh set of victims. The Wraith is back, and he’s nothing what they expected.

Halloween Extravaganza: Dev Jarrett: The Rise and Fall of the King of Halloween

megHan

Let’s welcome Dev Jarrett today, who has a story to tell us about his Halloween memories.

My eighth Halloween began on Christmas Day when I was seven years old. Looking back, I don’t even know if Halloween was that big of a deal to me until that age. I mean, make-believe is the realm of children, and pretending to be someone else is just another day in the life of a child. Trying on different masks and different identities is a normal part of finding out who we are. Some of us realize that we enjoy trying on ALL the masks, ALL the time, I suppose, and turn into writers—or maybe schizophrenics.

When I woke up on Christmas morning in 1978—yeah, I’m that old, so what—I found the most amazing gift ever. A “King of the Gorillas Movie Makeup Kit” was nestled under the tree next to the handheld Electronic Football and Simon. I loved all three of these gifts, and I think I played both of the electronic games until I wore out the buttons, but the biggest deal was the movie makeup kit. Yeah, the age recommendation was ten and up, but thankfully Dad (as he usually did) ignored that shit.

I remembered the Planet of the Apes movies and I thought of how cool it had looked in those movies that the actors spoke and their makeup moved with them. This was like that. Realism! Instead of simple face paint, this amazing kit had individual molds of facial features. You had to mix the gelatin stuff together, then pour it into the molds and wait for it to set. When they were cured, you had rubbery appliances to attach to your face with the special glue. After that, paint the appliances and the exposed parts of your skin and put the cowl thing on—clearly the lamest part of the kit. I mean, it doesn’t even really look like hair.

It had enough of the mix for two applications, so I knew I couldn’t wait. I asked Dad to make me up – and I guess in that sense, it was a big kid’s toy, and Dad was the big kid. He made the pieces and trimmed them to fit me, and painstakingly painted me up. And it was so friggin’ cool! Somewhere in my parents’ house is a dusty photo album containing a picture of me in a Star Wars t-shirt and gorilla movie makeup. I knew, absolutely, that this was what I wanted to be for Halloween next year.

I would be the King of Halloween. The KING. After so many years of wearing boxed costumes with dead plastic mouthslits, I was going to look REAL. Next fall, I’d be the scariest monster roaming the streets of my neighborhood. We packed everything away carefully and I waited for the calendar to roll around to October of 1979. While the other kids would have plain plastic masks with eyeholes and stupid costumes, their “Trick or Treat!” muffled and lifeless, I’d be able to show a moving gorilla mouth and say something super pithy and cool, like “Trick or Treat, human.” This would be SO badass.

Halloween finally came. I was excited, ready to take my place as King of the jungle and the neighborhood King of Halloween. Dad hooked me up, carefully constructing the disguise that would make me look like something out of a movie. The mixing, the placement, and the painting took so much time, and all I could do was sit still while he created my alter ego. When he finished, he took my sister and me out to walk the neighborhood. Mom stayed home to pass out candy.

Dad walked from house to house with us, but stayed on the street while we went up to the doors. The first few houses marveled at my glorious disguise, oohing and ahhing over the intricacy of my makeup. In all honesty, the rest of the costume was regular streetclothes, but the makeup more than made up for any shortcoming in the wardrobe department. I began to think I was receiving more candy than the other kids because my gorilla makeup was absolutely the best. My pumpkin-shaped bucket of candy was heavy with the good stuff, none of that orange- or black-wrapped peanut butter taffy shit.

Damn right. The King of Halloween. The King, baby.

But I didn’t know what waited around the corner.

Barely out of sight of our house, already riding high on the idea that I had absolutely the best costume anyone was going to see this year, we went to a house with streamers hanging across the entry to the front porch. The porch stretched all the way across the front of the house, and it was festooned with hanging cobwebs and more streamers. They’d swapped out their usual porch lightbulb for a bright orange bulb. It was cool to see someone else in the neighborhood making an effort for the holiday. We went up the walk to the door and rang the bell, and Dad waited at the curb.

The timing was perfect. The front door opened, and I was already expecting new praises for my amazing getup. I was distracted, and didn’t see the maniac. He jumped over the side railing of the front porch and charged toward us, howling like a monster.

When I look back on it now, I think he must’ve been dressed as Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but at the time, it was only a giant (a grownup? dressed for Halloween? WTF?) guy in a bloody shirt and lumpy plastic mask lumbering toward us and screeching. He may have even had a chainsaw, I don’t know.

The self-proclaimed King of Halloween lost his shit. He dropped his bucket of candy, yelled, and ran for his goddamned life. My little sister ran too, but I think my reaction probably scared her more than Leatherface. I sprinted back down the front walk to the street, screaming at the top of my lungs, and launched myself into my Dad’s arms, crying. I ruined his shirt, burying my face in his chest. He was laughing, and in the same situation, I suppose I’d do the same.

He held me for a moment, and protected me, and he told me everything was okay, and soon the effects of the jump scare passed. When I turned to look, tears still streaming down my tiny gorilla face, the Leatherface guy was apologizing while laughing, and had brought my dropped bucket of candy out to the street. Dad assured him everything was cool, that I was okay, and in a few minutes, we continued on our way.

The King of Halloween, the kid with the awesome movie-quality makeup job, had been handily dethroned by a guy in a lumpy plastic mask whose mouth couldn’t even move. Ugh. How embarrassing.

I’ll always remember that Halloween. Halloween is such a fun day that it’s celebrated practically every day in our house, but that one was the one that truly scared me for the first time.

I was super terrified, and you know what?

It was fun.

So now my wife and I have carried on our own Halloween tradition for the past 25 years, and every year our neighbors know us as the “Halloween House.” We dress up, we play our parts, and really get into the spirit. One year, Jennie actually built a working guillotine for a dungeon-themed Halloween! Last year we had a Pet Sematary, and this year’s theme is a Witches’ Sabbath. Let’s see how many kids (and adults) we can scare this time. Come visit!

Happy Halloween.

Dev Jarrett is a writer, a father of five, a husband, and one of those guys the US Army trained too much. He speaks Arabic, he can break ciphers in his sleep, and can still break down and reassemble an M4 rifle and an M9 pistol while blindfolded.

He’s visited many different countries in the past quarter century, and can’t talk about most of the adventures he’s had. On the other hand, it’s public record that he’s received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, so make what you will of that.

He’s represented by Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, and all he wants is to scare the hell out of you.

Loveless

Till death do us part… sometimes.

When a hapless explorer disturbs the watery grave of Muriel Wallace, a terrifying chain of events is put into motion. Corey Rockland, sheriff of a sleepy Georgia town, must now unravel the mystery behind a corrupt family and a broken heart dating back to the Civil War. Unless he can find a way to stop her, Muriel will unleash her vengeance on anyone she deems loveless.

Dark Crescent

If you could change the future, would you?

Bud Primrose, assistant coach of a Little League team, gets smacked in the head with a line drive and wakes up in the hospital with a kind of second sight.

If you saw a stranger’s death coming, would you try to save her?

He sees others’ deaths hours before they occur. When he uses this strange new ability to save a woman from a brutal murder, he becomes the thwarted next target.

If you had the power, would you use it?

Now he must do everything he can to save himself and the woman he loves from the razor-wielding maniac bent on payback.

If you had to face a killer, could you do it?

Casualties

Fresh from Afghanistan, crippled by both a crumbling marriage and growing paranoia, can a soldier save his family from the ancient evil in his own house? 

Sergeant First Class Chris Williams is back home, and he and his family are move to Fort Huachuca, a small Army post deep in the southeastern corner of Arizona.

From the time they move in, Chris and his wife Molly are struck by the preponderance of ghost stories surrounding their new home. Chris wonders why nightmares still plague him—then, he realizes the reason. He and his family are not alone in their house. An evil older than Fort Huachuca, older than time itself, lives there. Now, enough sacrifices have been made to its blood hunger that it can finally give birth to a powerful, deadly offspring intent on dominating our world.

Chris, Molly, and their two children become pawns of the evil spirit inhabiting their new neighborhood. Already casualties of life, crippled by both a crumbling marriage and growing paranoia, can Chris and Molly save their family from the evil already living under their own roof?

Little Sister

Seven year old Lucinda has a homemade doll that has a special kind of magic. When someone tries to hurt Lucinda and her mother, perhaps he’ll see the doll’s magic too.

For her seventh birthday Lucinda’s grandfather sends her a homemade doll. Her mother Sharon had a little sister once—and now Lucinda has a “little sister” of her own.    

Sharon’s boyfriend Deke is not the man she thought he was—he’s hateful and abusive, like something out of a nightmare. Now he’s on the run from the police and he’s taken Sharon and Lucinda with him.

Mother and daughter must find some way to escape his blood-soaked grasp before he kills them both. They have no way out.

All they have is Lucinda’s homemade doll.

Halloween Extravaganza: A.J. Brown: Halloween

megHan

A.J. Brown joins us today to tell us a little bit about his favorite holiday and the story of a really good friend of his, now gone.

Halloween is my favorite day of the year. It also used to be Chris Dunne’s favorite day. I say used to be because Chris died on Halloween night in 1995. For the record, this is not a lead in to a fictional story of some movie slasher who wears a mask and carries a chainsaw or machete or has Wolverine type claws on his fingertips. Please, understand that now before you read any further.

I don’t want to tell you the story of Chris’s death, though I have to, somewhat, so you understand. I’ve already written a book about his death and the events leading up to it. For those who don’t know, he died of a gunshot wound to the head. I’m going to leave out the rest of the details. If you want those, you can pick up Closing the Wound and read all about it.

What I want to write about here today is the irony of something he did, something I helped him do. Stick with me for a few paragraphs and I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.

Most of you know me as an author of dark stories, most of which are considered horror. Before I began writing, I used to draw. My favorite things to draw were superheroes. I have entire sketch pads dedicated to just superheroes. One Sunday at church I wasn’t feeling the message. I’m not going to lie here, the sermon was boring and the preacher lost me at hello. On the back of the bulletin I drew a picture of a man holding a balloon and floating away—it was what I wanted to do right then: float away. It was nothing special, just a sketched out person holding a balloon, shaded to look like it could have been red or blue or some other dark color.

After church, in the car as I took Chris home, he said to me, “That’s a pretty cool drawing you did in church.”

Part of me was embarrassed that he saw it. The other part was flattered. However, I’ve never been good at taking compliments, so I played it off with, “It’s just a sketch. I do them all the time.”

That’s when Chris asked me, “Can you teach me how to draw like that?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

A couple of weeks later, he came to my house. We sat at a picnic table in the backyard, each of us with paper and pencils in front of us. I showed him the basics of drawing, using shapes, like ovals, squares, rectangles and triangles. He drew those shapes on his paper, just as I had on mine. I showed him how to connect the shapes and add depth and layers to the drawing. He seemed to really enjoy creating something from a piece of paper and a wooden stick with lead in it.

That began a run of a few weeks where he came over on either Saturday or Sunday and we would draw together, me showing him and him learning and getting better.

Abruptly, those lessons stopped when he met Chris Pettite. He was a year older and looked like a weasel—literally, his face had the shape of a weasel’s. He was also a bad boy. He didn’t play by the rules and he was good at manipulation. (For the sake of the rest of this part, I will refer to the boys as CD for Dunne and CP for Pettite, otherwise there is the potential for a lot of confusion.) It was mid-summer when they met and CD’s life changed.

CD left the church we all attended. He started skipping school. He stopped hanging around all of his old friends. His skin took on a different appearance, almost waxy, as if he no longer took showers. The skin beneath his eyes always seemed to have gray or bruised bags beneath them. There was speculation that he was using drugs and doing things he shouldn’t be. During that time period, he turned sixteen, and what can you tell a sixteen-year-old rebellious boy? Nothing. That’s the answer. Not a thing.

On Halloween morning in 1995 I talked to him around eight. It was the last time I talked to him. Around twelve or so hours later, CD would be dead.

Just writing that sentence gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes.

Before I go, I want to tell you about the irony of Chris’s death and drawing superheroes. Chris, as I stated earlier, loved Halloween. He loved horror movies and the darker side of entertainment. The last time he came to my house for a drawing session, he left a few pictures in a brown letter-sized envelope. I didn’t think anything of it and I put it in my portfolio of pictures. Years later, after I wrote the original form of Closing the Wound, I came across that envelope. Not knowing what was in it or who it even came from, I opened it.

My heart stopped. Well, I believe it stopped. If not, it missed a good chance to do so. There were three pictures, one that held a word and two that were actual pictures. The first one I saw made my stomach drop into my thighs. It was a picture of a coffin. Above it was the word FUNERAL. The second was the single word, which was the same one on the coffin picture and on the last one as well. The third image was of this big, muscle bound hero with a spike on the backside of each hand. He had a little, bald head and a huge body.

As I stared at the pictures, the only thoughts I had were I taught my friend how to draw a coffin and a hero who went by the name of Funeral. In writing, we call this foreshadowing. In life, we call it heart wrenching. I’ll never say my friend had a death wish, but you have to admit, that’s kind of what it looked like when I found those pictures.

Chris loved the darker things in life. He loved Halloween. In hindsight, he might have even foreshadowed his own death.

I leave you with this: though my friend is gone and has been for many years, I still think about him on a regular basis, especially on Halloween. So, this year, if you wouldn’t mind, get your favorite candy bar and raise it in the air for my friend, Chris.

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween. As for me, I will, even as I remember my friend.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.

A.J. Brown is a southern-born writer who tells emotionally charged, character driven stories that often delve into the dark parts of the human psyche. Though he writes mostly darker stories, he does so without unnecessary gore, coarse language, or sex. More than 200 of his stories have been published in various online and print publications.

Website ** Blog ** Amazon ** Facebook ** Twitter ** Instagram ** Email

Halloween Extravaganza: A.F. Stewart: Ghostly Tradition

megHan

A.F. Stewart joins us today to discuss ghost stories, a Halloween tradition that we both love. She even includes a couple of stories from her native Nova Scotia.

To me the ghost story is the one horror tradition for Halloween that is essential. From tales around the campfire to classic icons from literature—such as the Headless Horseman or the Canterville Ghost—spooks haunt Halloween to perfection.

So what makes the eerie ghost tale so appealing to me?

Ghost stories are, in essence, born from tragedy, the need to remember those lost. They are the emotional resonance of those haunting memories on human consciousness and the ultimate in psychological horror.

Nova Scotia, where I live, has a long tradition of ghost stories. Most every town has a tale, from Alexander Keith, a brewmaster that still haunts his original brewery, to the spectral lady of Peggy’s Cove, or the ghostly tall ship that sails the Northumberland Strait from beyond the grave. You cannot grow up in Nova Scotia without hearing a ghost story or two, or three. They are bound up in our seafaring tradition, our folklore, and in the very fabric of our culture and history. They are real life misfortune woven into tradition, belief, and heritage.

So I thought I’d share two of my favourite local tales.

The Ghost Ship of Mahone Bay

Privateers are another bit of Nova Scotia history as more than a few scoundrels and scallywags plied their legal pirate trade in and around our seas. One such ship, was the Young Teazer, out of Maine, who made the mistake of sailing north in 1813 to tangle with the British. Unfortunately, outside Mahone Bay they met their match and were on the losing end of a skirmish with a British ship and their cannons. To avoid capture, the crew set the Young Teazer on fire, but compounded their problems when their gunpowder exploded. The ship went down in a flaming blaze and sunk beneath the waves.

Yet, you can’t seem to keep a privateer down, as several sightings of a ghostly ship burning in the Mahone Bay waters have occurred. Some have claimed to have even heard the screams of the crew. Visions of a flaming ship shimmer on the horizon and then vanish. It seems the Young Teazer may still be trying to escape the British and go home…

The Face in St. Paul’s Window

On December 5, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax Harbour, one a relief ship and one, a munitions ship stockpiled with explosives. The resulting explosion devastated the city of Halifax and killed over fifteen hundred people. It also left a legacy of ghosts. The window of St. Paul’s Anglican Church is one. As the story goes, an organist was caught in the blast, decapitated, and his head smashed through a church window. And the silhouette of his head is said to remain etched in the glass to this day, despite the window glass being replaced at least three times. It appears a piece of the poor man’s soul still lingers in the place where he died…

Further Reading:

If you’d like to know more about Nova Scotia ghost tales from a master storyteller, check out these books:

The Lunenburg Werewolf and Other Stories of the Supernatural by Steve Vernon
Where the Ghosts Are by Steve Vernon

And if you like a few more classic ghostly gems in books and movies this Halloween season, check out these recommendations.

Books:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Shining by Stephen King

Movies:

Sleepy Hollow
The Others
The Sixth Sense
Stir of Echoes

A steadfast and proud sci-fi and fantasy geek, A.F. Stewart was born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada, and still calls it home. The youngest in a family of seven children, she always had an overly creative mind and an active imagination. She favours the dark and deadly when writing – her genres of choice being dark fantasy and fiction – but she has been known to venture into the light on occasion. As an indie author, she’s published the Saga of the Outer Islands trilogy, as well as various novellas and story collections, with a few side trips into poetry.

Saga of the Outer Islands series

Saga of the Outer Islands 1: Ghosts of the Sea Moon

In the Outer Islands, gods and magic rule the ocean.

Under the command of Captain Rafe Morrow, the crew of the Celestial Jewel ferry souls to the After World and defend the seas from monsters. Rafe has dedicated his life to protecting the lost, but the tides have shifted and times have changed.

His sister, the Goddess of the Moon, is on a rampage and her creatures are terrorizing the islands. The survival of the living and dead hinge on the courage and cunning of a beleaguered captain and his motley crew of men and ghosts.

What he doesn’t know is that her threat is part of a larger game. That an ancient, black-winged malevolence is using them all as pawns…

Come set sail with ghosts, gods, and sea monsters.

Saga of the Outer Islands 2: Souls of the Dark Sea

From the depths, darkness is rising…

Something ancient and powerful stirs beneath the sea of the Outer Islands. A creature strong enough to challenge Captain Rafe Morrow, Gods of Souls, for control of the dead and the survival of the living.

Still reeling from the aftermath of his battle with the Goddess of the Moon, Rafe and the crew of the Celestial Jewel finds a mysterious shipwreck and strange tales of bones. Tasked by a new ally to find answers, Rafe stumbles on long-buried secrets shrouded in the shadows of the Nightmare Crow.

Now armies of the dead ascend from the ocean. And their master is not far behind.

Set sail on a new adventure with ghosts, gods, and sea monsters!

Saga of the Outer Islands 3: Renegades of the Lost Sea

A god, his mother, and a Nightmare Crow.

Old enemies surface once again and undead pirates roam the seas. The man he killed, Black Axe Morgan, has returned for revenge on Captain Rafe Morrow, while from the shadows the Nightmare Crow reveals his true self. The two form an alliance and bring mayhem to the seas, all to draw out Captain Morrow and his crew.

Yet, this time, Rafe doesn’t face his enemies alone. Death walks the Outer Islands to save her son and the Sovereign of the Gods leads Captain Morrow past all the lies to the truth. The fate of Chaos and Harmony itself hangs in the balance of this fight.

Will centuries of schemes and plans reforge the bond of the realms, or will the Seven Kingdoms and the Outer Islands fall?

Can the God of Souls find his destiny before it is too late?

The endgame of gods begins…

Killers & Demons series

Killers & Demons

Sometimes the villains win…

This time the heroes don’t rise, there are no knights in shining armour, and good doesn’t triumph. It is time for the villains’ story.

Craving a little blood or perhaps some horrific death? Slake your gruesome thirst for vicarious thrills with five chilling stories that go inside the twisted lives of serial killer and beyond to the dark, disturbing company of demons.

Craving a little blood or perhaps some horrific death? Slake your gruesome thirst for vicarious thrills with five chilling stories that go inside the twisted lives of serial killers and beyond to the dark, disturbing company of demons. Turn the pages and delve into the dark and murky world of evil.

The Tales:
A woman wakes up afraid, alone, and in complete darkness.
A collector of hearts stalks Valentine’s Day.
One man on the edge of being London’s most famous serial killer.
Hell has a bounty hunter.
Demon vs. knight with one soul as the prize.

Killers & Demons, where the macabre murderers don’t get caught and evil triumphs. Come watch the blood drip slowly, sweetly from their fingers.

Killer & Demons II: They Return

Evil is back, with a greater appetite for death.

Killers.
Demons.
They lurk forever in the shadows, smile at you in the morning, and haunt your dreams at night. You can’t hide, you can’t run, and there’s no escape. You can only scream when they come for you.

Killers & Demons II: They Return is a collection of thirteen tales, blending short stories and flash fiction, tales where the blood lingers on your tongue or spurts quickly from the swift cut.

The Villainous Roster:
Wade, every parent’s nightmare.
Hannah and Mr. Greeley. Who is the victim and who is the villain?
Simon and Zoe, a married couple who are dying to be single again.
Norman and his “cookie” of a wife, Mabel.
Millicent and Jane, a delightful duo you shouldn’t invite to your Regency tea party.
Amanda, who literally has a skeleton in her closet.
Balthazar, the demon bounty hunter on the hunt once more.
Sarah, a young woman going through some changes and craving new tastes.
Emmeline, hanged as a witch, now back from the dead for revenge.
Gabrielle, a woman haunted by shadows.
The Dollmaker, she showers death, and an umbrella won’t help.
Nightmare Demons bent on driving a town insane.
And then there’s Alice, a little girl locked in the basement by her Daddy…

Together they form a spine-chilling cadre of predators. Who will survive and who will fall?