Twisted Horror

"A gripping and gut-wrenching thrill ride, as we experience the horrors of kidnap and the terse action David has become known for. Get your copy of Grim Measures today!" – Lt. Colonel Rip Rawlings, New York Times, USA Today and Amazon Bestselling author. "Brilliant, tense, and filled with action!" ★★★★★ – Jonas Saul, International Bestselling author of The Sarah Roberts Series and The Drowning. "David Darling’s trademark crisp writing and lightning fast pacing is once again on display in Grim Measures. Even with the reduced word count of a novella, there is enough physical ...

The Soul Redemption is a brutal, heart-pounding psychological thriller that you won’t want to put down. At the story’s heart is a young man, Jacob, whose early life dealt him a huge blow. It all began with the sudden disappearance of his parents, followed by a series of misfortunes that sent him spiralling down into the abyss. Confined to the Winebeck Hospital for the insane, Jacob becomes a pawn in a sick game within those walls. He is subjected and witness to unspeakable horrors at the hands of twisted, depraved staff and fellow patients. And it takes an insurmountable will for him to...

The new face of evil. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado is home to one of the most breathtaking and deepest canyons in the United States. For twelve-year-old Brian Garrett, a weekend camping trip is meant to be a chance to reconnect with his distant parents. But when his father suffers a brutal accident during a hike to the canyon floor, things spiral out of control. In the next twenty-four hours, Brian will discover a horrifying dark side to his father—and an even darker side to himself.

Enter the vibrant, gas-lit streets of 19th-century Dublin, where camaraderie and temptation collide in this enthralling tale of friendship, desire, and unexpected love. When charismatic London socialite Bertie arrives in Dublin at the behest of his old university friend Charles, the city’s allure promises a week of revelry. But Bertie’s insatiable appetite for adventure leads them to Monto, Dublin’s notorious red-light district, where a chance encounter with Cailín, a captivating Irish beauty with a mysterious past, turns his world upside down. As Bertie’s fleeting fascination ...

While the vast majority perishes in quiet anonymity, a tour of any national monument quickly reveals countless names carved into stone. These names generally identify three classes of people; scribe, conquered and conqueror. Indeed, if anything, life is an endless series of contests, large and small, but these stone-graven records typically ignore the latter for the former. Too often, history overlooks the struggles of mundanity, which perhaps better define those who endure. Pause a reflective moment to ponder the future – anticipate all the boastful elite to be immortalized there. ...

Everyone loves a good joke, but nobody enjoys being subjected to the fun. Pranks are an especially childish form of delight, perhaps because they are the ultimate expression of prurient sadism, which we must disavow as civilized adults. We, the same civilized adults who teach our beloved youth the art of warfare while stockpiling an obscene surplus of thermonuclear weapons. Now that is funny! So, tease a guilty moment to titillate your secret sadist today. Giggling, it whispers. Of spoiled affluence and nothing better to do; of grotesque victimization that makes monsters from innocent ...

Several of the best human hypocrisies are immortalized in catechisms. We say “violence never solved anything” when history repeatedly teaches us otherwise, and once we prematurely labeled an entire, global war as “The War to End All Wars” long before we recorded its half-formed outcome. Dynasties fall. Empires rise. In marble, granite and concrete, we immortalize these events, large and small, and we celebrate the human beings named heroes there. Rightly so. Pause a moment before The Wall – let your finger trace names in stone. From pits of despair and summits of glory, they ...

Within realms of the unknown, superstition stalks. Primitives see god in a rainbow, but they also suspect a deadly serpent beneath every unturned stone. Ignorance and fear sometimes unite to inspire us or spare us, but more often this demonic duality serves to light the torches of enraged mobs. Indeed, history tells stories of witches burned alive amid great celebrations. We know these things happened. We also know witchcraft is a figment. Fearlessly now, step away from the staid, known world that shelters you. Venture into lands of conundrum and enigma to witness ciphered matters of mind. ...

Rascals, rapscallions, villains and varlets; all terms of a bygone era intended to describe the guy in the black hat, that perverse character of low virtue and strayed morality who forever ties the distressed damsel to cold, steel rails. Gasp! Within fictional fantasies, they are always guys and damsels, and they must wear black. In reality, we still mostly read about bad ‘guys’, but the women tend to fight back now, often with devastating effect. Tonight, the devil laces thigh-high boots over fence-net stockings before taking a turn through town. Be warned and beware. Of evil delight ...

Tabloids invite us to gorge ourselves on tales of epic personal failures, and so many of us eagerly oblige. Guilty pleasures, we savor these stories most satisfactorily with a garnish of sex scandal, a dash of fiscal malfeasance and a generous dollop of social corruption. Next, we expect a weeping dessert of shame and regret to follow. Afterward, everything ends in a dumpster or the backseat of an aging sedan before we stagger home again, sated, smug and full of improving condemnations. Cup your ears and shade your eyes now. Peer into the gloom of your neighbor’s windows to eavesdrop. ...

Champions come in all shapes and forms. The same is true of cowards. Most of us line up somewhere between these two extremes of potential, but none of us eagerly anticipate having to prove ourselves in a crossfire. In fact, most notable acts of heroism are not the results of well-considered, carefully laid plans. Rather, these are often spontaneous yet deliberate demonstrations of selflessness occasionally on display when normal human beings must confront life-threatening risk. Take a deep, calming breath now before you dare gaze into the face of death. Trembling, heed its heckling catcalls...

Disinfectants, detergents, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and homicides – everything a human being needs to clear his or her lot and start fresh in life, clean and pure, and it all waits at the press of a finger. Some of us love a good disaster, but we watch from a safe distance and it always happens to someone else… somewhere else… never here. Never us. Distended bellies and skeletal children are always the misfortune of others. Stop and wonder why. Your preferred answer no doubt leaps easily to mind, but the truth is probably quite different, because pestilence comes in all ...

A silly titmouse once sang sweetly to describe love as “a many-splendored thing”. Perhaps this is so. For some. For others, love’s terrible spectacle shines in its many violent twists and unexpected turns. Each feckless angle of its affection or disaffection invariably leaves a disfiguring blemish that renders exquisite facets of character from alternating impacts of tragedy, disaster, triumph and ecstasy. Too briefly, desire’s artistry sparkles the amazed eye with a fateful brilliance before fiery passion fades to leave its victims cold and trembling in its wake. Steal a secret ...

While we collectively fear wild animals and muggers, most contemporary plagues come in the guise of unavoidable corporate logos and unforgettable commercial jingles. This new and most modern form of disease presents symptoms that include unhealthy obsessions, unwise compulsions and preprogrammed responses, all accompanied by an irrepressible tune that inevitably drives a rational mind to the very brink of lunacy. Visualize anything except the latest fad slogan while engrossing yourself in a moment of hysteric interest, and then pause to think. Of dreamscape dominions wrought from the felt ...

Boogeymen, banshees, werewolves and vampires; all figments of horror drawn upon parchments of fable, each the scrawl of individual phobias revisited by trembling quills dipped into inkwells of collective nightmare. Despite vaguely amusing caricatures, these monstrous legends probably developed from grisly human origins. Indeed, we confront our violent primitives in every new atrocity, and each murder teaches a simple lesson that humankind consistently resists. Consequently, we forever lack viable means for exorcising so-called ‘inner demons’. Even now, your secret devil whispers into ...

Peddlers and snake oil, pimps and pornography, lunatics and paranoia… each pair travels the same darkened alleyways to service identical shadow-bound gates. We receive them by the backdoor, thank you, and always well into the evening. These are private matters undertaken and clearly marked by clandestine hush and furtive sidelong glance. Sometimes concealed in the open but more often hidden in a fog of disinformation, our every secret contains a kernel of truth wrapped within a burlap of proficient lies. Patience and due diligence may unwrap the enigma to decipher a hidden message, but ...

Whispers in the Ash A chilling supernatural thriller that blends psychological horror, buried secrets, and the terrifying cost of guilt. When Daniel Reeve buys an abandoned house deep in the snow-covered forest, he wants only one thing: to disappear. Hiding from his past—and the memory of the wife he lost under violent, secretive circumstances—he seeks peace in solitude. But the silence in the house is not empty. Something waits in the basement. Something that remembers. As the nights stretch on, Daniel begins to hear his dead wife's voice. Objects move. Mirrors reflect more than they ...

Praise for the Music of Melancholy "This story shocked me to the core. The ending is so unexpected it left me reeling." - Kate O'Hearn, bestselling author of the Pegasus series. The unnatural and the macabre waltz to an eerie music of their own... This collection of stories takes the reader into the darkest corners of the human heart where fear, insanity and horror lurk. What links most of the stories is a sense of chilling disquiet, gathering unease, growing anxiety, rising panic and menacing crises, of lives beginning to fracture... A rich collection of memorable tales. Also by the same ...

The end is near... This volume of Twisted Tales dives headlong into the end of everything - shortly after the bombs fall and the mushroom clouds have barely settled. Erica's Stepfather (She might very well be the last woman on Earth, but Erica can't get him out of her head), Jacob's Final Days (Life on the farm comes to a fiery end), Waiting it Out (Michael and Amanda are twins hiding in the remains of a shopping mall as a murderous psychopath searches for them)

From the biggest of creatures to the teeniest-weeniest monsters... Twisted Tales 7 dives deep into the troubled minds of psychopaths, travels across the globe into dark jungles, and even calls ancient gods from the sky. What a Zombie Thinks (peeks inside the mushy minds of the shambling dead), When the Rain Came (the dangerous side of deity worship), Monkey Business (a retired general takes on his greatest foe), The Infestation (what happens when billions of vampire ticks are let loose), Ups and Downs (don't get caught out on the road after dark)