THE DAMNED by William Ollie


Chapter One


After a long and frustrating week at the end of what may well have been the shittiest day of his life, Scott Freeman found himself tagging along behind a light blue Honda Accord while the auburn-haired moron driving it puttered along slow as hell in the fast lane. The guy, side-by-side with two other pricks, was keeping Scott and a long procession of others from reaching a wide-open expanse of freeway wavering like a mirage beneath the searing hot August sun. Skynyrd's Gimme Back My Bullets blared from the radio, a sharp contrast to the tortoise-like pace of the traffic.

A shitty day at the end of a shitty week, and here he was traveling down a ... (more…)

City of Demons by Scott A. Johnson

Excerpt

Chapter 1

It was good to be a nightcrawler. Houston in the daylight was a study in monotony, petty crimes and car wrecks with the occasional murder to spark interest. But still, the daylight was predictable. During the day, police sat in their cars and baked on the freeways, waiting for their chance to mimic the television highway patrolmen who got the beautiful girls and chased cars through heavy traffic. Off by six, drunk by eight, bullet in the head by nine. It was the monotony that drove men mad. Cops could only go for so long, the same faces every day zipping by and the same angry looks for tickets. The whole daytime existence of a Houston cop ... (more…)

DON OF THE DEAD is available from Amazon

Don of the Dead
by Nick Cato

CHAPTER 5 (section 1)


Wednesday mornings always annoyed the old-timers. Despite staying up late the night before playing cards, they kept a forty-year-old tradition going strong: the mid-week pick-ups. Like retired cops opening a sports bar in an attempt to keep their sanity, the old-timers continued to collect petty debts.

Lenny's Pool Hall didn't open for another two hours. Carl the Calamari sat at the small bar waiting for some young punk named Max to show up. They'd let him go for three months but now it was time to pay-up. Max was five grand in the hole--over a silly pool tournament. The Calamari loved to bet at Lenny's ... (more…)

- PROLOGUE -

For a while, the bullets were the only things keeping me alive.

It was a sack of one hundred and fourteen of them, each with a date scratched onto the casing. The first date was nearly four months ago, a Thursday. I'd spent that entire morning in the bathtub, tears streaming down my face, the barrel of a revolver in my mouth, garbage bags taped to the wall so the landlord wouldn't have to repaint. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to commit suicide, but yet I couldn't force myself to pry the gun barrel from between my teeth.

Finally I did pull the gun away and removed the bullet. Then I scratched 12/25 onto the casing with a pocketknife, as a reminder that I hadn't killed myself ... (more…)

Eleven

There is an ugly truth about wearing personal protective equipment, or PPE, as we call it in the business: What is difficult to put on is also difficult to take off. The biohazard space suits we'd been issued were gray, one-piece outfits with built-in booties and a hood. That went on first. Next you had to slip on the gloves, and those had to be sealed to the suit at the seam with duct tape. The last item you had to put on was the gas mask, which had to be properly seated and sealed so that no skin or hair was exposed.

The first rule of wearing PPE is: DO NOT LET ANY SKIN SHOW.

When all three parts--body suit, gloves, and gas mask--were properly worn, the wearer would theoretically be ... (more…)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Celebrate April Fool's Day in the Fear Zone by reading "The Three Little Pigs," Jeff Stand's demented take on the beloved bacon tale from his short story collection Gleefully Macabre Tales, which was just nominated for a Superior Achievement in a Collection Bram Stoker Award. We reviewed the collection way back in March--2008! "The Three Little Pigs" is my favorite Strand tale that doesn't feature the words "pressure" or "corpse" in the title.

Once upon a time there lived three little pigs. Oh, these pigs had a merry life! They sang and played games and danced around the meadow and took six naps a day. But for all little pigs there comes a time when they must set out on ... (more…)

The fortress watched me.

From the moment I set foot across the threshold of the Tyst compound, the Chronous had sensed me like a king cobra scenting the air with its forked tongue. I confused it; its sensors raced to understand the anomaly that flew through its halls with a speed that the mortals it tracked mindlessly day in and day out were incapable of. Invisible tentacles of the machine's cold sharp surveillance snaked from every surface, reaching out to me, through me, as it silently stroked my soul for a way to isolate and disarm the threat. In my mind, its voice rippled each time I came to a new access panel to an interior ring, a metallic choir of impressions that leaked through the ... (more…)

Gord Rollo's The Jigsaw Man came bolting out of the starting gate and now, just a hop, skip and a jump later, his followup novel, Crimson, is available from Leisure Books. Leisure Book Club members have already received their copies, and this mass market paperback will be in bookstores come March. Here, now, is an excerpt that should warm your cold blooded hearts.


CRIMSON

In the Beginning...
The Genesis of a Small Town's Fear
Dunnville, Ontario, June 21, 1955


A tall, heavy-set old man walks along a desolate country road by the cloud-filtered light of the new summer moon. In his wake he leaves a dotted crimson trail dripping from the blood-smeared head of the axe casually slung over his ... (more…)

Elmer opened the toolbox and lifted a hammer. Turning to Moore, he said, "Do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Can you gag this woman? She's about to start screaming."

"Sure buddy. How about duct tape? We've got plenty of that."

"Yeah, whatever. But put a towel in her mouth, will ya? Duct tape alone won't do."

"Listen guys," Debra said. She knew she had nothing to bargain with, and they weren't going to listen. But she had to try. She had to. This was it. "You don't have to do this...I can give you money. I'll do what ever you want!"

"Oh God." Elmer said, sounding bored. "Hurry up, will ya? She's starting to gush."

"Yeah, yeah. Hold on."

"Come on!" Debra cried. "Don't do this! ... (more…)

Fear Zone is proud to present Chapter One from Lisa Manetti's new novel, The Gentling Box, which is now available and has been scaring up terrific reviews right out of the starting gate.


Description:

A 19th century half-gypsy horse trader, Imre, has been cursed with a hideously disfiguring and fatal disease by the Romanian sorceress, Anyeta. On the verge of death, he must contend with his most hellish childhood memory--which he has sworn never to use--in order to save his wife and daughter. A presence even more terrifying to him than Anyeta: the gentling box.


Blurbs:

"A keenly conceived and richly executed cornucopia of the blackest magic. Mannetti's prowess as a ... (more…)