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.

Rick Yancey won the Michael L. Printz Award for the stunning first entry in his Monstrumologist saga. In the series’ third entry, Will Henry is left behind as Dr. Warthrop and his eager new assistant Arkwright embark on a quest to find the “Holy Grail of Monstrumology.” But when Arkwright returns with news of the doctor’s demise, Will sets off on his own quest, to the Isle of Blood, to determine the truth.

In the woods, fear meets the unexplained. Things in the Woods is a chilling anthology curated by Erik Lake, a former anthropology professor with a keen interest in the paranormal and unexplained. This collection brings together true accounts of unsettling encounters within the enigmatic wilderness—from Bigfoot and Sasquatch sightings to inexplicable lights and haunting apparitions. Blending academic rigor with the allure of campfire tales, the book challenges readers to question the boundaries of scientific understanding and confront the unsettling notion that we are not alone in the ...

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 remote Texas desert. A bloodthirsty legend. A conspiracy that will bury them all... or unleash hell on Earth. When livestock are found savagely mutilated and drained of blood, the terrified whispers begin: El Chupacabra walks the night. But the reality is far more horrifying than any folklore. Border Patrol Agent Luis Herrera and local veterinarian Marisol Flores stumble upon a truth that chills them to the bone: a top-secret government program, Project Chimera, has lost control of its monstrous, genetically engineered bio-weapon. Now, the creature stalks the desolate canyons, its hunger ...

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.

He came to conquer the wilderness. He found something wilder. Before he was president, Theodore Roosevelt was a hunter, explorer, and relentless force of nature. But nothing in his journals — or his nightmares — prepared him for what he would find in the darkest corners of the American frontier. Bigfoot – Teddy Roosevelt is a ferocious blend of historical fiction and horror, plunging you into an untamed landscape where man is not the apex predator. Roosevelt’s hunting expedition starts with grandeur and bravado — but turns into a desperate fight for survival when his party is ...

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. ...

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 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.

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

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 ...

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.

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."...

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 ...