Showing results by author "Matthew Fish" in All Categories

A completely satirical guide to the great corn prairie state of Illinois. What starts off as an idiotic and darkly humorous travel guide slowly devolves into the realm of horror for both the travel guide and his family.

Written exactly 20 years after the first novel A Window in the Earth, the sequel tells a unique story throughout time as different members of the Janes family return to Pine Hallow in order to discover the past. Some come with hopes of revisiting the hopeful memories they have long since left behind, while others seek to forge a new future.

A young musician escapes from the kingdom on the night before a great battle is to occur. In his attempt to sneak away in the darkness, he is met by others who soon become traveling companions as his journey to discover his role in a war that will sweep the entire world begins.

The Short(Cuts) is a collection of seven unique and individual stories that range across all different genres. Sometimes humorous and other times sad, the collection represents some of the smaller works that Matthew Fish has written in the past 18 years. They range in length from 1,000-word shorts to 30,000-word pieces that have been dated to show a progress and change in both narrative style and tone.

A second chance at life leaves Daniel Argent with an important mission to protect his son. With this task, he is accompanied by a strange woman with a mysterious past. The pair must unravel the mystery behind her origins in order to face the terrors that chase them and ultimately threaten Mark and his companions.

On his way to attend a funeral for a friend hundreds of miles from home, a young man is stricken with a crippling panic attack that causes the ground beneath him to swallow him whole. Scared and confused, he finds himself in a dark fantastical world where his fears and anxieties manifest into the creatures and people that inhabit the land known as the Abyss. As he begins a journey to navigate his way back to his own world, he begins to understand that maybe the worst thing in life, is to remain afraid of the things he cannot control.

A young man named Jack Wolfe reluctantly returns to his rural hometown after losing contact with his parents. Accompanied by a love interest, the couple slowly begin a descent into madness as they enter a surreal and horrific world created by strange and animalistic memories. As they venture further into the unusual world, the story begins to fragment, and strange and jarring events begin to unfold around them. Caught up in events well beyond their control, their only way out of this savage new world may be death itself.

Four college friends find themselves being torn between two worlds; a familiar reality and a strange world where they are princes and princesses of fantastical kingdoms at war with each other. This dark war is slowly eroding the mental state of all those involved as they are guided to seek answers and resolutions by a mysterious man who has a deeply troubled past of his own.

While running one rainy evening, a young man finds a confused young woman who should not be alive. They attempt to unravel the mystery of the unusual state of her existence as they find that her body has been exhumed due to circumstances surrounding her young sister's untimely death. With her return come daily storms and rain. Faced with uncertainty, they begin to wonder what will happen when her body is returned to the ground once more and the skies finally clear.

A young man named Benjamin Strong has just lost everything after the death of his parents and girlfriend. After a failed suicide attempt, Benjamin wakes up to find an angelic version of his girlfriend, Charlotte, sitting by the edge of his bed. She tells him that he has seven days left to live - and that he has a very important decision to make: Die alone, or take all of humanity with him.

In the summer of 2019, a Photographer who has lost their way and a young woman who is losing her vision go on a meandering journey westward. Over the course of their travels, they both strive to connect and find happiness along the open road and the spectacular views of nature the trip affords them. All the Best Roads Still Lead West is a story about dealing with the difficulties that can often be found in life and holding onto the idea of hoping for better days ahead. Along with the story, the novel contains over 80 photographs from my own personal journey west.

A troubled girl named Emma Corbeau begins seeing "clones" of herself that exist only in the daytime and disappear into ash at nightfall. These different versions of herself lead her on a journey of self-discovery and expose the terrible past that she has been hiding for so long. As time grows short, Emma sets out on a journey to piece together her troubled past and become whole once more so that she may stop the coming end of all existence.

Around 200 years have passed since a great cataclysm struck the Earth. A young girl named Canary is part of a settlement attempting to rebuild and learn about the past. While dealing with a human life that seems to have devolved over the long passage of time, Canary desperately dreams of escaping to the stars high above to a mysterious place called Haven. However, her dreams may be her downfall.

Six strangers, who are mysteriously drawn to a campfire on the shores of a beach, hold the keys to unlocking the secrets of a troubled girl's past and her continued existence. One of the six, however, has intentions that are much darker and destructive. The remaining group must unravel what is real and what merely a dream in order to save the girl's life and the future of all who are "unique" like they are.

After returning home to die, a young man named Oliver begins an unexpected adventure. Inert is a surreal story about the search for reason and purpose in an often irrational world.

In the near-but-not-too-distant future, a group of six comets threaten to both strike and destroy all of America. It is up to a small group of White House officials, an unfrozen Einstein, a Japanese/American fisherman from Florida, a dolphin trainer, and an incredibly smart Asian child to save the day with their plan to launch nuclear armed dolphins into space to intercept the comet assault before time runs out and all of America is lost to deadly explosions and fire.

Waiting for Fireflies is a story about how love can change both the past and the future in unexpected ways. Connected through time by the secretive Red Manor and a mythical white stag, Elise, Andrew, and Anna may just find the hope they are so desperately waiting for.

As the residents of Red Manor come into a possible conflict with the Perpetual Council, an outcome must be decided as something completely unexpected looms just on the horizon that may end the future for all. Betrayal of Cernunnos is the sequel to Children of Cernunnos and Children of the Pomme.

The residents of Red Manor must stand with a daughter of Cernunnos as death comes hunting for them. Facing against insurmountable odds, the group must strengthen their bonds and seek help from a former enemy before all is lost.

Eight years after a virus has left half of the population of the world mentally unstable, a man named Ethan Chase enters into a program to become a "Sitter", or caretaker, to two "Unstables". One of which, is a girl, a "Mirror", who believes that she leaves for Paris every Sunday and returns on Tuesday and often mimics and repeats the actions of those around her. The other, a highly functioning "Amnesiac" named Noah who is at one moment lucid and the next completely incoherent.