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Monsters are very, very real in Steve Vernon’s “Neck Bolt Lynch Pin.”

They are, however, often misunderstood. Well-meaning people misinterpret behavior, misunderstand situations, and forget that as long as people believe in monsters, they will continue to exist.

Because a story, if told well and often enough, in time can grow a life of its own.

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About the Author

Steve is a writer and an oral tradition storyteller; he learned the storytelling tradition from his grandfather, and regularly tells stories to in-person audiences ranging from 5 to 5,000 spectators. He writes horror, paranormal, dark fantasy, and ghost stories, and specializes in the fine old art of booga-booga.

Think of Steve as that old dude at the campfire spinning out ghost stories and weird adventures and the grand epic saga of how Thud the Second stepped out of his cave with nothing more than a rock in his fist and slew the saber-tooth tiger.

Find out more about Steve

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“On a Dark Road to Nowhere,” by Marcelle Dubé, takes place on a winter night in the woods in the Yukon.

An alien ship landed in a clearing near Maggie’s house, and the creature has begun to explore the area.

What the thing wants isn’t clear, but what is clear is that it’s very, very dangerous.

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About the Author

Marcelle Dubé grew up near Montreal. After trying out a number of different provinces—not to mention Belgium—she settled in the Yukon, where people outnumber the carnivores, but not by much.

She writes science fiction, fantasy and mystery stories, and has 12 novels to her name. Her upcoming novel, Epidemic: An A’lle Chronicles Mystery, will be released in late 2018. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies.

Find out more about Marcelle

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Karin’s boyfriend’s ex-lover refuses to go away in P. D. Cacek’s “The Bitch.”

And worse, the woman is smart and manipulative, managing to make other people feel sorry for her even though she’s harassing and stalking the couple.

Karin has to find a way to get the bitch out of her life, for good. But the other woman is full of surprises…

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About the Author

P. D. Cacek originally aspired to be an actress, but her dreams were dashed when, while playing Dinosaur Number 1 in her high school’s production of By the Skin of Our Teeth, she inadvertently crawled off the stage and landed in the orchestra pit. Dinosaur Number 1 died that night, but the experience put her on the significantly less perilous path of writing horror.
P. D. is the author of over 200 short stories, and has won both a World Fantasy Award and a Bram Stoker Award for her short fiction. She’s written five novels: Night Prayers, Canyons, Night Players, The Wind Caller, and The Selkie.

“Horror is an emotion, something that reaches past all the barriers and finds the one dark corner of our self-image that has not grown up. Horror doesn’t have to include dismemberments or gushing wounds or ancient demons dredged up by a new housing development. Anything, even a simple evening’s walk, can be horrific if you look at it the right way…and I do.”

Cacek’s novel Second Lives will be coming out from Flame Tree Publishing, April 2019.

Find out more about Trish

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Christmas

by H. P. Lovecraft, 1920

The cottage hearth beams warm and bright,
     The candles gaily glow;
The stars emit a kinder light
     Above the drifted snow.

Down from the sky a magic steals
     To glad the passing year,
And belfries sing with joyous peals,
     For Christmastide is here!
 
 

This fantastic image by Nelson Evergreen (aka Neil Evans) was designed for a promotional Christmas card for Graphic Classics.

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A private detective is surprised when the pair of men he’s tailing begin digging up an old grave in DeAnna Knippling’s “The Grave-Diggers.”

They claim they’re after a lucky necklace that was buried with one of their ancestors—a woman rumored to have been a witch.

As detectives well know, if you want to know what’s really going on, all you have to do is follow the money.

All the way down to that black place under the dirt.

Find Dawn of the Monsters

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About the Author

DeAnna Knippling is always tempted to lie on her bios. Her favorite musician is Tom Waits, and her favorite author is Lewis Carroll. Her favorite monster is zombies. Her life goal is to remake her house in the image of the House on the Rock, or at least Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. You should buy her books. She promises that she’ll use the money wisely on bookshelves and secret doors. She lives in Colorado and is the author of the A Fairy’s Tale horror series which starts with By Dawn’s Bloody Light, and other books like The Clockwork Alice, A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters & the Macabre, and more.

Find out more about DeAnna

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In Annie Reed’s “Rites of Passage,” Finn guards this world from the monsters on the other side, slaying their servants who continually attempt to create passageways for their masters to come through.

His work is important, lonely, and dangerous. His own master was killed when he got careless after too many decades on the job.

And Finn’s been doing this work for a very, very long time.

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About the Author

A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie Reed’s recent work includes the urban fantasy mystery novels Unbroken Familiar and Iris & Ivy, and the near-future science fiction short novel In Dreams. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a series of themed urban fantasy stories published three times a year written by some of the best writers working today.

Annie’s full-length novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels Pretty Little Horses and Paper Bullets, the Jill Jordan mystery A Death in Cumberland, and the suspense novel Shadow Life, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to.

Find out more about Annie

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Love pulp fiction?

Amazing Monster Tales is here to provide it!

11 tales of monsters, mayhem, strange and inexplicable events, uncanny technologies, wildly improbable events, and more. Some monsters you’ve seen before…

And some of them you haven’t!

Some monsters are the good guys…

And some of them are very, very bad indeed!

Dawn of the Monsters features trolls, goblins, creeps, mad scientists, vampires, aliens, Frankenstein, a very nasty ex-girlfriend, a mysterious egg, a bargain you can’t refuse, something dark and mysterious that lives underground, and a disgusting, evil beast straight out of the swamp!

We can’t promise that these tales won’t make you think…but they’ll grab you by your sense of adventure and take you for a ride!
 
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The Stories

Lester, a research scientist with an egotistical, micro-managing boss, heads in to the office on a Saturday to look for his lost phone in Jamie Ferguson’s “Transmogrification“. Not only does he find his phone, he also discovers the mysterious door in his laboratory that’s always locked is slightly ajar. Scientists are curious, so of course Lester has to investigate…

Mark Leslie’s “The Ritual of the Drawing” is set in the small town of Birks Falls, where tradition is sacred, and the unwanted dregs of society are not a threat as long as the town has Mr. McNeal and the ritual of the drawing. After all, under the proper circumstances, a vampire is a wonderful thing for a town to have.

“On a Dark Road to Nowhere,” by Marcelle Dubé, takes place on a winter night in the woods in the Yukon.
An alien ship landed in a clearing near Maggie’s house, and the creature has begun to explore the area. What the thing wants isn’t clear, but what is clear is that it’s very, very dangerous.

“In the Shade of the Slowboat Man,” by Dean Wesley Smith, is a tale about a vampire saying goodbye to her dying human lover.

Monsters are very, very real in Steve Vernon’s “Neck Bolt Lynch Pin.” As long as people believe in them, they will continue to exist. Because a story, if told well and often enough, in time can grow a life of its own.

Karin’s boyfriend’s ex-lover refuses to go away in P. D. Cacek’s “The Bitch.” And worse, the woman is smart and manipulative, managing to make other people feel sorry for her even though she’s harassing and stalking the couple. Karin has to find a way to get the bitch out of her life, for good.

In Annie Reed’s “Rites of Passage,” Finn guards this world from the monsters on the other side, slaying their servants who continually attempt to create passageways for their masters to come through. His work is important, lonely, and dangerous. His own master was killed when he got careless after too many decades on the job. And Finn’s been doing this work for a very, very long time.

Ten-year-old Isidora finds a pair of odd-looking eggs on the beach in Sèphera Girón’s “Beach Comber.” She takes them home to her mother, not realizing the creature who laid the eggs will soon come looking for them…

Marcella, the queen of the bargain hunters, is surprised when she’s kicked out of a new thrift store in Rebecca M. Senese’s “Bargain Hunter.” Not only is she annoyed, the store’s prices aren’t really bargains—and shoppers are beginning to disappear. Marcella sneaks back in to the store for their special, after-hours sale, and finds out what’s really going on. To stop it, she has to strike the bargain of a lifetime.

A private detective is surprised when the pair of men he’s tailing begin digging up an old grave in DeAnna Knippling’s “The Grave-Diggers.” They claim they’re after a lucky necklace that was buried with one of their ancestors—a woman rumored to have been a witch. As detectives well know, if you want to know what’s really going on, all you have to do is follow the money. All the way down to that black place under the dirt.

“It Came Out of the Swamp,” by Ron Collins, takes us deep into the swamp. A young man heads to southern Georgia, determined to write a book about a supposed swamp monster that left a swath of destruction before being burned to a crisp by a flamethrower. Was the monster real, or a legend? Had it really gone on a rampage and killed people, or was the whole story part of a corporate cover-up about bio-engineering, or dumping of radioactive waste? One thing’s for sure—you can’t kill the swamp.
 

Find Dawn of the Monsters

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