Showing results by author "Kevin Candela" in All Categories

Take a freakishly harrowing journey with an ordinary person who comes to realize that his nightmares have manifested as a power of sorts...though his "gift" is anything but welcome as it stalks and murders at will. The powers of the mind and the campfire scare stories of childhood merge in Tickles: A Little Bedtime Horror Story, creating a monstrous darkness

Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein. You've lived with the stories your whole life. You've read the tales. You've watched the films. But what if the stories were different? What if the things you read about these monsters were warped and twisted? Here lie stories you may not have heard. Stories both weird and shocking. Bizarre and grotesque. Alternate versions of your favorite classic monsters you've never read and never will again. Featuring 13 stories by Jonathan Moon, The Sisters of Slaughter, Tom Lucas and more!

The Red Bozos were the friendliest faces in frenetic Midlands Amusement Park. Security personnel, yes, but they were more than that, for lost children seeing one of those garish outfits and the sympathetic smile on the painted face atop it knew they would soon be reunited with their parents.

In a quartet of tribute tales from theses authors that both idolize and have recently encountered Hank's works, the voice of the poet laureate of the gutter is restored, so that once more the good duker can take a swing.

Unityfest is more than just a huge pop event organized by superdivas Tarina, B-Word, and Kalli, globally renowned as the Sirens, for the chart-topping trio are in reality sorcerers many centuries old and the event is a ruse designed to drain the very life from their millions of adoring fans, thus making the three veritable gods on Earth.

In the year 1284, the legendary Pied Piper punished the villagers of Hamelin, Germany, by leading their children off into a hole that opened in a mountainside. The parents never saw their offspring again. This much is common knowledge thanks to the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which came to be in the year 1482.

The saga of Krakenstein concludes in cataclysmic, mind-blowing action in the Next Regeneration trilogy. The former Dr. Max Shepperton, who long ago became a superhero daikaiju by default when he merged with an ancient marine creature and the mutated result grew to immense size, is still at it 20 years after the original trilogy. This time around, he takes on a shape-shifting titan made of nanobots and controlled by his vengeful brother, and battles a life-draining giant horror from the depths of outer space.

On distant Gavelin, Roman and Nikala face the daunting prospect of taking on the consolidated powers of most of Gavelin’s Howling Wind-infected tyrants without the aid of their Dragon Child friend Chalice Rayne. Meanwhile here on Earth, renegade conservative mouthpiece Carl Morrow’s stolen super-stealth blimp is quickly running out of corners to hide in as “Charlie Tomorrow” and his high-tech rebels work to put together a plan to expose the true darkness that has all but overtaken their society. But Charlie and his crew have no idea how truly outmatched they are.

The world teeters on the edge of catastrophe in the sixth and final saga in the Krakenstein series. But this time it’s not because of some nightmarish new city-smashing horror arriving on the scene. No, it’s our species on the attack. Well, a handful of humans, anyway. Fanatic extremists, Generals Blakemoor and Dilack, have taken over the United States’ military forces who in turn had stepped in to run the country after the devastating strike on Washington by Vampulon, the extraterrestrial horror.

Working on the High-Altitude Atmospheric and Light Observatory research platform 16 miles above Earth's surface , Crystal Calhoun is used to an alien form of existence. But when she dreams through the waking eyes of a shipboard peer, the game changes, and when she learns that the same thing is happening to others, her paranoia kicks in and she seeks to understand what's happening. The problem is that even the people running the entire operation don't have a clue, and what's worse is that they're more confused and worried than she is. Crystal becomes determined to get to the truth.

The ghosts were there the day it opened for business. The Leeward Hotel is a mirror. From the moment its first stone was laid, it has reflected the mysteries of the restless and the restless Atlantic Ocean over which it looms atop a stark cliff in Cornwall, with guests frequently seeing the highly eccentric owners walking around the halls while they were supposedly locked in their private haven upstairs.

You won’t find the place on any map. It’s somewhere else, hidden away in a wondrous parallel reality of mystery, awe, and terror. This both is and isn’t the “Old West”. They share the same stark and unforgiving terrain and exist in the same timeframe, primarily the 1800s. But there the similarities cease. In Spirit County, for example, death is often not the end, but the beginning. Sometimes even the middle. Mythological creatures prove real...and deadly. Towns can disappear by daylight and return with the setting sun.

John Bruni, Kevin Candela, and Kent Hill reteam for a second adventure, roaring down the Hunter S. Thompson highway to Gonzo nirvana. Following the success of the trio's The Doctor Is...In!, this group of humble seekers reignites Thompson's joint and takes you to places real and otherwise...as per the Doctor's orders. This second amazing tribute to the man who epitomized rebelliousness seeks once again to bring Hunter back from the grave for yet another wild adventure while fearing and loathing in the dissection of the American dream.

Stepping up the horror considerably from previous installments in the Krakenstein saga, this fifth tale, and the second in the The Next Regeneration trilogy, sees the return of first trilogy heroes Jeremiah Savage, Key Sharlayne, and even Key's brilliant scientist half-sister, Dr. Deanna Sharlayne, who have just been evicted from the ancient facility that is Emerald Island by its hardly cordial creators.

With great power comes great responsibility. And on modern day Earth, if great power doesn’t play nice with greater powers it gets something else too: Deadly persecution. After all, the stakes are no less than absolute control of every living being on the planet. Roman Novato and Chalice Rayne can communicate telepathically, sense imminent danger, and more now, but when those accidentally inherited talents are set against shape-shifting alien assassins, invisible drones, devastating particle beam satellites, and the world’s hidden ruling elite the game isn’t exactly fair.

Aurora Hayes is probably the most agreeable and least judgmental of the Roads Unlimited driving team, but even she has her limits. When something that sure looks like the scary bipedal "myth" called the chupacabra races in out of the darkness in North Texas and jumps aboard her rig, Aurora finds herself stuck with the edgy, bug-eyed little monster on a long haul across the South to Florida. But dealing with the freakish creature, which appears to have no language and seems determined to stay with the truck, is just the warm-up: The thing's master arrives.

Just like their new home of Sunder Creek, set in the shadow of Blood Ridge, young Ronnie Carpenter and her shy ward Essa Hale harbor strange secrets. In fact, their arrival seems to bring the town’s dark and unspoken terror to light, as it affects Essa in mysterious ways. Soon, inexplicable events all point to an ancient legend being all too real. What does the dreaded ilé nagí, the fiery spirit of the woods, want with the girl? Ronnie must find out before it’s too late.

It’s that time of year again. In the shadows, otherworldly creatures lurk, under the gravestones, the dead begin to rise, and in that old house down the lane, ghosts rattle their chains. For once more, Trick or Treat Thrillers brings you our pick of the best Indie-paranormal short stories for 2020! Before you begin listening to our selection of 13 stories, however, we recommend you first check under your bed, in your closet, and outside of your window. You never know what may be coming your way.

Months have passed, the trail has grown cold, and ZC has all but given up when out of the blue, a back road diversion leads him to the mystical, but apparently not mythical Bizarre - a place where all kinds of beings want all kinds of things...and barter and gamble to get them. He's about to meet some utterly strange new friends, including a dogman named Ekos, a human-like woman with a nest of serpents for a head, and a gigantic bat-dragon that doesn't like being referred to as either.

On far distant Gavelin, Leks and Quinara - scrappy human survivors of a demonic plague that has all but wiped out their civilization - race against time in a perilous journey to the perceived safety of the cradle of their society: the great coastal city of Amaline on the Sandarine Sea. Along the way, they meet horrifying carnivorous mud monsters, sentient human-hunting thunderstorms and an outcast bio-alchemist with a warped sense of humor whose bizarre menagerie features a panther-like beast made of living metal.