Humorous Horror

When you look into the abyss...the abyss looks into you. After dumping the body of a serial killer on my former boss’s desk, I handed in my cop badge, which I’ve replaced with an FBI badge. Yep, I’m a Fed. I work for Special Affairs, a clandestine department tasked with policing the occult underground. In the meantime, my personal life is a disaster zone. There’s a Yakuza boss who wants to kill me, and my crazy Hellicorn is going through an existential crisis. But it’s the evil warlock who is making my life a living nightmare.

On a scale from zero to dumpster fire, I tend to hang out at the far, trash-burning end. But lately, things have been going eerily well. So when Festus showed up with a birthday cake and less blood on his suit than usual, I was a little more than skeptical. Add to that a scythe-wielding accountant that is wearing the carpet thin, a demonic soiree in Missouri, a murderous gang of Red Caps in cheese country, a lie-detecting seven-year-old, and a snooty corporate cult, and I can smell the gas fumes on the trash heap at 40 paces.

From across the far reaches of the internet, the community at Fark.com presents . . . Something Woked This Way Comes: The 2023 Fark Fiction Anthology. Our editors have worked feverishly to bring you the best short fiction of 2023 from the minds and imaginations at Fark, the online community where snark is king and wit reigns supreme. Gods. Angels. Devils (maybe.) St. Nicholas and sinners, foxes and dogs, the future and the past all come together with much, much more. And even better, for the eighth year in a row, all proceeds from the sale of this anthology will benefit an excellent ...

What is it with Olivia and ghosts? No matter where Olivia Kidney goes, they follow. Even when she and her klutzy handyman father start over in a new brownstone in New York City - owned by the mad, bad, and dangerous Ansel Plover - there is no escape from the weirdness that is Olivia's life. Their new living room is entirely submerged underwater, and Olivia needs a boat to navigate past the bobbing furniture and snapping turtles just to get to her bedroom. And then, there are the ghosts. The house holds secrets, lots of them - Olivia can feel it. Why, she wonders, was she invited to live there?

Matteo, an aerospace engineer, returns home after working on a recovered spacecraft, expecting a sense of accomplishment. However, an unsettling feeling gnaws at him, and he can't shake the sense that something is amiss. Despite a reassuring doctor's report declaring his health normal, Matteo's unease persists. As he succumbs to exhaustion and drifts into sleep, Matteo awakens to a reality beyond comprehension. No longer in his own body, he finds himself inhabiting the unfamiliar form of another being. Bewildered and disoriented, he discovers the shocking truth: his body has been hijacked ...

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

In 1838 Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and her children travel to a monastery in Mallorca. They are there to create and to convalesce, to live a simple life after the wildness of their Paris days. Witness to this tumultuous arrival is Blanca, the ghost of a teenage girl who has been at the monastery for over three hundred years. Blanca’s was a life cut short and she is outraged. Having lived in a world full, according to her mother, of ‘beautiful men’, she has found that in death it is the women she falls for.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is celebrated as a master of the gothic tale of the macabre and the supernatural, but he also wrote a number of humorous and satirical tales, seven of which are presented here.

Many full moons ago, a young American boy with ambition in his belly and the moon in his veins followed his destiny west, determined to carve a path to success no matter the carnage. Two centuries later, a city is captivated by the strange and savage murder of a young woman. Her roommate, Natasha, no longer able to afford their apartment alone—and hounded by both rumors of wolves and a pop-star’s angry fan-swarm—has resorted to living in her car. There’s nothing left for her ... except vengeance.

Brad's mostly been a loner, content with his job and his tiny apartment. He's never thought much about being part of something. He's never really thought about the bigger picture. Until he meets a beautiful (and possibly psychotic) girl named Dawn. Dawn leads Brad into a vicious world as hedonistically carnal as it is brutal, forcing Brad to decide if he's going to dig deep within himself and continue to resist the community he's remained apart from his entire life or embrace it and accept his new reality.

Richard always believed he'd enjoy a few golden years before Death's bony hand reached for him. But what does he get? He gets to live across the hall from friggin' Stanley Kapcheck, with his shiny bald head and perfect teeth that are all his own; Stanley Kapcheck who struts around like a peacock in his leather coat.

Stanley's lonely. Before the strange events of the past few months, the self-proclaimed alien abductee and T.V. crime drama aficionado would drink and bowl with his friends, Herb and Dallas. Everything changes when Stanley becomes a zombie. With each bite, he gains a new friend. Soon, he has more friends than he would've ever thought possible. If he could just sink his teeth into Herb, Lois, and Dallas, they'd all be together again, and everything would be perfect.

Min’s playing with fire—and probably her own life—when she ensnares a bloodthirsty vampire with her magics for one night of passion. But when she discovers he holds the key to finally solving her family's deadliest secret, can she keep a pack of werewolves, a crazy vampire ex-girlfriend, and the Fae Queen of Winter from slaughtering them all? Buy your copy now to find out! *Beware of spoilers in the reviews below that are without spoiler alerts* Review: These Vamps are yummy and sexy and O.M.G. hot to the tenth power. Someone tell me where I can get bitten and I am there... Amazon ...

Fans of Scott Telek’s film writing have come to expect an irreverent, insightful and often outrageously funny take on films from the good to the very, very bad. The tradition continues in this fourth volume, archiving 43 movie reviews in the horror genre, all beginning with the letter D. It turns out the letter D is a good one for horror, as it contains the words “Dead,” “Don’t,” “Demon” and “Dracula.” And if you were trapped on a desert island with these movies (as well as fresh water, food and a TV and DVD player!) you would actually be doing pretty well, as many fine ...

Terrance O’Hara is a priest with a dark past and a secret. By day, he preaches the good book. By night, he hunts the creatures that stalk the innocent. Haunted by past actions and family sins, he vows to hunt down the demon lord who wronged his ancestors. Teaming up with the unlikely allies of Lucy, a succubus and lawyer by trade, and Mary, a day-walking vampire, the trio goes on a journey from Boston to New York, quickly falling into a rabbit hole of demonic conspiracy. Can Terry outrun fate and overcome his family curse? Or will Lord Barbatos claim another soul?

Lawrence Nurdle fancies himself a Goth Edgelord. His girlfriend isn't impressed. To convince her he's the edgiest guy in Toledo, Ohio, he joins a coven of vampires. The vampires kill Lawrence. Death just wants to enjoy a ballgame. But Death has a job to do and must collect the soul of Lawrence Nurdle. There's just one problem. Death can only collect the souls of the dead and Lawrence is now undead, like the rest of the vampires.

Men come and go, but magic is forever…right? Wrong. After a few months of letting witchcraft slide, Jane Madison discovers that not using her powers has her rapidly losing them. Meanwhile, her warder is avoiding her, her familiar has moved out, her mother is abandoning her again, and her grandmother is…getting married? With her world turned topsy-turvy, Jane is at her wits' end trying to set things right. Staking everything on a last-ditch spell that backfires spectacularly, Jane is left full of questions.

Something not quite human stalks the city streets under the full moon after the gay bars close. As the ravaged corpses start piling up, coroner Becky O’Brien and her unlikely allies realize they are the only defenders who can protect scores of unsuspecting pretty boys from a grisly, bone-crunching death by werewolf.

ONE Girl & SIX Men! Some Girls Can Take the HEAT! And Keep Coming Back for MORE!!! Going ALL in with ALL HOLES FILLED by strangers who just happen to be firefighters! A free-spirited nymph where anything goes, Suzi takes one for the gang! After her MFM night with two hot guys, Suzi has to come up with an idea to get with even more guys at the SAME time… for even more pleasure the answer is a Reverse Harem… and she knows just the HOT guys to make her fantasy a trill!!! Sexy coed Suzi is anything but shy, and at nineteen she’s ready to take on the entire fire department … all six of ...

Bestselling author Jason Hutchinson is at it again! By day, Brian is a talented, yet low-tier IT consultant... ...by night? Well, he's generally even less than that! Living in the big city isn't all it's cracked up to be. Brian's job sucks, his boss is overbearing, and he doesn't see much future in it. That is, until he walks into the halls of MCC, Magical Community College. Things are going well, at least until his first class session. He might have been a little bit distracted by gorgeous Pandora, the hot and overly-curious subject of his magical history class and allowed her to open ...