Showing results by narrator "Kevin T. Collins" in All Categories

The world is out to kill Mitchell Roberts. The helpless girl who needs help changing her tire. His petty ex-girlfriend and her new mate. An entire mall full of unassuming shoppers. They all want to murder Mitch in a blind rage when he's in their presence. As Mitch attempts to unravel the mystery around his situation, he learns quickly that rabid strangers and friends aren't his only predators. Police attempt to hunt him down by any means necessary, and his every move is tracked by a shadowy government official with a secret to protect.

George Rott wants revenge. After the death of his daughter, Cassandra, he vowed to find and destroy all the dragons. When he locates one of their hidden enclaves within the city, he enlists the help of an angry and unstable demigod to make them all pay. If he launches an attack, he risks angering the dragons, plunging the city into an all-out war, and getting the unwanted attention of powerful gods. Now Simon, with Tristan’s help, must find and stop George before he turns the city into his personal battlefield, killing them all.

From cakes to stakes, a celebration of everyone's favorite bloodsucking subculture by a baker's dozen of favorite authors. Each of these 13 original stories offers a fresh and unique take on what birthdays mean to the undead. From Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse attending a birthday party for Dracula to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden battling bloodsucking party crashers, these suspenseful, surprising, sometimes dark, sometimes humorous stories will ensure paranormal fans will never think of vampires or birthdays quite the same again.

On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid schizophrenics: Clyde Benson, an elderly farmer and alcoholic; Joseph Cassel, a failed writer who was institutionalized after increasingly violent behavior toward his family; and Leon Gabor, a college dropout and veteran of World War II. The men had one thing in common: each believed himself to be Jesus Christ.

His deal with the Demon Prince has taken Hadjar deeper and deeper into the Strange Lands, where every step could be his last. With the aid of Abraham's squad, he's looking for clues and uncovering all sorts of secrets and mysteries, but the Raven Sect's fanatics are on their trail. What will this new twist of fate bring? Will Hadjar be able to fulfill his part of the deal? Did he make a mistake when he agreed to destroy the oldest and most powerful sect of the mortal realm?

"Yellowjacket Summer”, a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in The Twilight Zone magazine, October 1986.

Catch up with Ethan, Lena, and Link as they finally graduate from high school and get ready to leave the small Southern town of Gatlin. But when Dark Caster Ridley makes an appearance, the sometime bad girl can't resist picking a fight with her sometime boyfriend, Link. Angry and rebellious as ever, Ridley ends up alone in New York City and becomes entangled in the dangerous underground Caster club scene, where the stakes are high and losers pay the ultimate price. Where's a Linkubus when you need him?

"The Red House”, a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in the 1985 anthology Greystone Bay and was selected for inclusion in The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 1985.

The history of our world tends to move along a shallow spiral - when completing a turn, you end up mighty close to where you started. The history of Second World, in contrast, seems to have simplified its path to a ring from which there is no apparent way out. An unforeseen invasion lays waste to whole provinces, prompting the game's most powerful clans to ally with the emperor's guard to stop the monstrous hordes in their tracks. A war erupts that nobody saw coming, shattering the tedium of peaceful life.

The new, detached setting is teeming with "land mines"—highly unusual ones. Plenty of other, deadlier things would be happy to reach out and touch someone anywhere, be it the roof of a skyscraper or a subway tunnel deep underground. Tons of somnambulant extras could swing either way: cut your throat or help you, purely on a whim. Weapons are as deadly as they are improbable. Deliberately imposed multiple handicaps make any attempts at camouflage meaningless.

Maximilian Valevsky quite unexpectedly finds himself with spare time on his hands-time he can even devote to studying. Learning all the intricacies of runecraft, becoming Magister Meram's best pupil, and making his statement to the world! It all sounds like a dream, but reality is quick to put him in his place. Padishah Bayazid the Third wants to personally meet with Maximilian and our hero will have to do unprecedented things just to survive. But could a former doomed soldier do it any other way?

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay - and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

Something quite odd is happening in Second World - the planet's foremost MMORPG. Something that's causing alliances to be broken, and friendships, forgotten. A worthless low-level mine becomes the stage of vicious battles, its burned ruins suddenly contested by the game's toughest clans. Every border is controlled, and every road in the province blocked off. The weak players and NPCs alike are subjected to non-stop violent raids courtesy of Eastern invaders. And the strong are scouring the virtual world for the culprit - the weirdest noob the game has ever seen.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

Centuries in the past, mankind fought a seemingly unbeatable adversary from sector to sector across the Spiral Arm until the war ground to a standstill and the Enemy withdrew. Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

Michiko Nakatomi has led the Dark Council for over a century, maintaining the uneasy truce between humanity and the supernatural. But when an ancient enemy returns, the delicate balance is shattered, and vampires start dying. Now, Michiko must fight for her life and the survival of the council. She has no one to trust. Her inner circle is destroyed, the council is on the verge of collapse, and her only hope lies with Simon and Tristan.

In Rhapsody, a fellowship was forged - three companions who, through great adversity, became a force to be reckoned with: Rhapsody, a singer of great talent and even greater beauty; Achmed, an assassin with unearthly talents; and Grunthor, a giant sergeant-major whose jolly disposition stands at odds with his deadly skill at weapons. Having fled the F'dor - an ancient, powerful evil - the three emerged on the other side of the world only to discover 14 centuries had passed.

When the Apocalypse descended, Bain Lee and the other death row inmates managed to survive the first year. Together, they joined forces with challengers from other worlds and managed to survive the next phase. Now, things have changed. Factions are forming, and with them, new alliances and rivalries are being forged. All the while, Bain's Occularist class continues to break the system in new and unforeseen ways.

The White Dragon region has been left behind. His oaths and obligations there have been fulfilled. Now it is time to look ahead. What awaits our dauntless protagonist? A gray sky, one where the stars never shine, is overhead. A white sand made of ground bones is underfoot. That is the horror of the Demon Lands. But the dragon's heart in his chest will not give in, and it will keep beating steadily. He will not falter.

What do you do when home is a conspiracy that's been discovered and destroyed? When home is a planet in a star system that's gone missing? When home means working for the destroyers of galaxies? When home is a spaceship that's calling out to the enemy? Cantra 'yos Phelium isn't a quitter, but she has more than a little problem: the Enemy has accelerated its attacks and how do you fight an Enemy whose major form of attack is the de-crystallization of everything around itself?