Monster Horror

Welcome to Your Worst Nightmare… These aren’t your Grandma’s ghost stories. These tales are dark, twisted, and so real they’ll crawl under your skin and stay there. Each story is designed to worm its way into your brain like a juicy earthworm, leaving you haunted long after the last word is read. Children and adults alike are drawn to the thrill of fear—and for good reason. Research shows that scary stories can boost confidence, empathy, and even dopamine levels, making them as satisfying as they are spine-chilling. This collection of ghost stories and eerie tales taps into the ...

Beneath the serene façade of Twin Pines, an ancient evil waits in the shadows. For Emma Flowers, a troubled teenager grappling with her father's mysterious disappearance and her mother's overbearing nature, life has become a labyrinth of bad moods and unanswered questions. Then, after a night of bad storms, Emma finds her neighbor’s dog dead in the middle of the street. As the mystery intensifies, teenagers around town begin falling into coma-like, nightmare states. As the creature moves in on Emma, she begins to uncover the evil’s origins, discovering dark parts of her own past in the...

When a missing person case lands in the lap of Black Knight Investigations, Jimmy Black and his partner, Greg Knightwood, jump back into action - until their missing person rises as an uncontrollable vampire and all signs point to a supernatural coup orchestrated by an unknown vampire of immense power. With the case going sideways, more missing girls, and a new cop in town way too curious about Jimmy's perennial youth, life in Charlotte is about to get interesting again.

Bane County is an Ongoing Saga . . . Mystery, Suspense, an edge-of-your-seat Thriller with characters you’ll fall in love with. An old-school, heart-pounding, coming-of-age Horror series with 1,000s of 5-Star Reviews. For nearly two decades, life in the small rural town of Silver Canyon had been peaceful and serene. People went about their daily lives as usual, completely oblivious to the inescapable horror that loomed on the horizon. All but a select few of Bane County’s residents had forgotten the macabre occurrences of the past. It was hard to believe that twenty-one people, missing ...

It takes guys as simple as the Squid and Ogre to make a story this complicated... and they’d really rather be trucking.Good old boys, the Squid and Ogre are trucking cross country when a UFO crashes right in front of them. Against his better judgment, the Squid lets Ogre load it onto his flatbed, then the feds in black helicopters show up.Life gets a whole lot weirder when they find themselves on the run not only from the law but also from every manner of Lovecraftian horror imaginable. To top it off they also get a beautiful stowaway, named Shaurna, who may not be from their own universe...

A creature that has already survived for 65 million years is not so easy to forget. Six years have passed since Gerry's extraordinary adventure at Lake Ness, but he hasn't made much of his own life since then. When echoes from his past return to remind him of his multiple inadequacies, Gerry finds a new lease of life at the thought of returning to the lake that made him a hero. Montworth is still a small town but a sense of newness pervades the place these days. It's not long before Gerry reacquaints himself with Barbara and Larry, and a plan is made to take a trip to the lake beyond the ...

A student’s investigation into a secret cult leads to madness.

"Perfect deadpan marks the opening of Ali Simpson’s The Monster'" writes Susan Merrell of The Southampton Review in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading.

Pyatak, in Russian, means "slash five". It is the last stop for the most violent and incorrigible prisoners in the modern Russian penal system. Famously, it is said to have two ways in and only one way out. Inmates enter its cages via a dilapidated, one-hundred-year-old foot bridge or an aging boat. The only way they leave is via their grave. Lately, however, many of its worst have gone missing from their cells, although they never escaped its walls. Something ancient and evil has alighted in Pyatak. A mysterious entity, it is both vicious and insatiable. No one is safe.

A group of friends must band together to defeat an ancient evil in Daniel R. Mathews’s terrifying debut, The Unseen Kingdom. In a small New England town, thirteen-year-old Tommy Wilson’s biggest worry is coming out to his close-knit group of friends. All of that changes, however, when the boys discover a dream portal to R’lyeh—home to the Titan god Cthulhu himself. Inhabited by monstrous creatures and eerie children who have appointed Tommy and his friends their new “apostles,” R’lyeh becomes a horrifying yet darkly fascinating world that proves to be increasingly real. ...

In the harsh cold winters of north central United States and Canada there has always been an ever-present malicious force. A force that would drive men to devour their families. This psychosis has been so well documented that it has a legitimate medical diagnosis. The Wendigo has twenty-four different incarnations across as many different cultures, all of them warning of this corruption of humanity. A bereaved father, an Ojibwe Elder, and a small-town Police Chief do everything in their power to stop it. They lead it to the ends of the earth or has the Wendigo led them.

Something old lives beneath the mountain. And it remembers everyone who enters. When down-on-his-luck land surveyor Will Farris takes a solo job in a remote Appalachian valley, he thinks it’ll be a quick payday—just map out an abandoned mining claim and be done. But the locals won’t go near the place. They mutter about Hollow Number 6. About claw marks in stone. About voices that call to you in the voice of someone you lost. Will ignores the warnings. Until the mine starts groaning. Until he finds bones in the dark. Until he sees something massive watching from deep in the shaft—...

In the backwoods of the Miskatonic River valley, an unspeakable creature seeks to come through the veil into our world.

Bubba’s back from Fairyland, and sometimes it feels like they shoulda just stayed there! Man, coming back to the real world sucks. Bubba and his whole team have been fired on account of going MIA for a year and a half (yeah, time moves differently in Fairyland - yay), and now they’ve got to…get jobs? Oh, this is going to go well.

Bane County is an Ongoing Saga . . . Mystery, Suspense, an edge-of-your-seat Thriller with characters you’ll fall in love with. An old-school, heart-pounding, coming-of-age Horror series with 1,000s of 5-Star Reviews. A Bane County Short Story. This 8,000-word Novelette entitled “When Bane Flowers Bloom” takes place within the Bane County Universe. The timeline of the story is set during the third book of the series (First Moon), and it answers many questions and reveals new mysteries spanning all the way back to Book 1 (Forgotten Moon). Prepare yourself, for a twisting turning ...

A brutal snowstorm traps five strangers in a remote cabin deep in the northern pines. When mutilated animals, strange symbols, and violent visions begin to surface, it becomes clear something ancient is hunting them in the dark. An emaciated figure with antlers watches from the trees—silent, calculating, and starving. As survival instincts turn to madness, the line between man and monster begins to blur. Inspired by real Native American folklore, this chilling cryptid horror thriller explores what happens when the cold sets in—and something colder follows. Wendigo: Hunger in the Pines ...

During the chaos of the Vietnam War, American soldiers faced more than just enemy fire in the dense jungle, they encountered mysterious creatures known as “Rock Apes,” fierce and elusive beings that locals believed were real, not just legends. These creatures, similar to Bigfoot, Sasquatch, or the Yeti, roamed the jungle depths, attacking without warning and leaving behind terrifying evidence. Unlike the shy Sasquatch of North America, these Rock Apes were aggressive and dangerous, turning the war into something far more frightening. This story reveals true accounts from soldiers who ...

The deadly dimensions over London have been sealed, and the monsters have departed. But word has come to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of a more terrifying creature still - the great Cthulhu has been sighted off the waters of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Only Holmes can defeat him. And in the muddy village of Innsmouth, surrounded by villagers who are more sea-monster than human, Holmes meets again his nemesis, Moriarty, and yet greater foes: Amelia Scarcliffe and Maria Fitzgerald, harbingers of Dagon, who have called forth Cthulhu.

A short story of horror in the woods Four campers embark on a weekend hike through the wilds of Fallow Pines, despite warnings that there is something in the woods... ...there is something in the woods of Fallow Pines. Something that hunts the darkness. Something with an insatiable appetite. For fans of cryptids and monsters in the woods.

21 Tales and Poems of Weird Horror spanning centuries and continents, but always disturbing closeWhat stirs from yonder gloomy crypt?What really happened during the Cold War’s Space Race?Can a king’s spirit be trapped in a violin?A lost chapter of Hemingway’s Paris years relates to what strange creature of the night?How do you kill a Tengu Lord?What horror did U.S. service men see during the first gulf war while in the deep desert of Arabia that was NOT man made? Does hazing happen at Area 51?And gunfighter Porter Rockwell tangles with supernatural surprises throughout the Old West."...