Horror Town

The time: the waning years of the 1990s at the dawn of the millennium. The place: an isolated rural town called Auburn, which could be anywhere at all - a town where everyone knows everyone else - where dark secrets run through its veins like blood. Everyone knows that 16-year old Mikey Childress is "different." A target for bullies since he was a small boy, everything Mikey does attracts abuse: the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks. Everyone knows he's not like the other boys in Auburn - the boys who play hockey, who fight, the boys who pursue girls.

Mayhem explodes when monsters mix with guns, rednecks and beer. Craig Nybo's second novel, Small Town Monsters, visits the town of DePalma Beach, Montana, a peaceful lake community with a five-star rating in any tour travel guide. Monster hunter isn't in the job description when Kurt McCammus, a Los Angeles homicide detective, leaves the big city and all its violence behind to take a job as chief of police in DePalma Beach. He falls in love with the clean air and peaceful community. That is until a local rancher finds 50 head of sheep mutilated on his spread.

Brad's mostly been a loner, content with his job and his tiny apartment. He's never thought much about being part of something. He's never really thought about the bigger picture. Until he meets a beautiful (and possibly psychotic) girl named Dawn. Dawn leads Brad into a vicious world as hedonistically carnal as it is brutal, forcing Brad to decide if he's going to dig deep within himself and continue to resist the community he's remained apart from his entire life or embrace it and accept his new reality.

From the Bram Stoker Award-winning publisher Crystal Lake Publishing comes the fiction series, Still Water Bay. In the first episode, “The Guild”, we meet Asadi and his pregnant wife, Taqiya, a couple who have just moved to the small Georgia town of Still Water, on the edge of Still Water Bay. Asadi has joined a group for those suffering from grief to discuss the violent nightmares associated with his past. What he doesn’t know is that Still Water Bay is a haven for monsters, and they’re about to make his worst nightmare come true.

In Forestdale, a new girl has arrived. She carries a dark secret. There is a darkness attached to her that follows her wherever she goes. She made a pact, a promise she could not keep. Mark, a town outcast, has taken notice of the mystery girl and is infatuated with her. The locals are fascinated by her for all the wrong reasons. There is a magical magnetism she presents that is unexplainable.

Ben Weaver relocated to a small desert town to escape his past failures. But not everyone is happy with Ben’s arrival. When a young girl vanishes from her bedroom the morning of the town’s famous Harvest Moon Festival, Ben uncovers an unsettling legend dating back to the town’s inception. With the local’s distrust of outsiders, Ben will discover how dangerous this sleepy desert town can be.

Due to an error made by Li, the Guild is split while on a monster hunt. Jonathan and Sam wind up at the Guild's cemetery, while Asadi and John make their way back to the library. Here they learn the true identity of the monsters and what they need to trap them. Unfortunately for John, the materials can only be found at the bait shop owned by his estranged wife, Gladys.

Sheila Tulane is in love with the resort's pool boy, Teague Harmon, and will do anything to please him - even if it means murdering Guild member Sam Carstens. Meanwhile, Asadi doubts his position in the Guild when he is forced to violate his own personal code. Are his days with the Guild numbered?

Asadi's world has ended with the murder of his wife, Taqiya. Yet, even as he buries her, a new tragedy occurs in the small town of Still Water. It seems the sheriff has returned and a member of the Guild has fallen at his hand. As the Guild reels from the blow, Asadi meets a strange being who will challenge the way he sees them. Is the creature telling lies? Or will Asadi learn the Guild is not all it seems?

A horrific car crash leads to problems for the people who scavenged the remnants of the accident scene. A small and peaceful town becomes a nightmare for those involved. This 19,000 word short story makes for a nice afternoon or evening listen!

Amos Lee has never played well with others. He prefers to live his life alone. When the mother he’s never known dies and leaves him a remote trailer house on a few country acres, he jumps at the chance to live life as a hermit. But there seems to be more to this property than he bargained for. Memories he thought were gone return, bringing feelings he didn’t know he had. A couple of people from the area seem way too interested in him. He’s hearing and seeing things that can’t be real. What has gotten into him? Can he survive it?

Doctor James Mason was looking for a peaceful place to retire. The little town of Bradville was like a walk in the past. People were friendly, life was slow, and the atmosphere serene. It was perfect! When he bought the old Victorian style country home, he didn’t believe in the supernatural. But it didn’t take him long to realize that he was not alone in the house!

When the cracked harbor bell of Greyhaven rings without wind, the town wakes to something old and listening beneath the tide. The Quiet That Walks: The First Echo begins the Greyhaven saga—a slow-burn supernatural thriller about resonance, memory, and the cost of hearing what should remain unsaid. Archivist Nora Callow captures a recording of the bell’s impossible tone; sound engineer Mara Vale studies its frequency; and choir director June Harlow feels the vibration beneath her own voice.

It was a simpler time. Widower Jacob Ernst struggles to raise his young sons, Nathan and Mead, on their modest farm in the small town of Painted Post. Listening to the songs of their hounds while pursuing the wily raccoon through the nighttime forests, Jacob teaches his children a deep respect for all woodland creatures and the many legends abounding in these tall hills. For Painted Post is a storied place where the lessons of life, love, and death play out beneath its mighty oaks. And Nathan and Mead grow loyal to each other and their coonhounds till the end.

Jacob Reese enjoys the quiet life, running a coffee shop and renting out his cottage in The Hollows, Vermont. But the calm is shattered when a woman who looks eerily similar to his ex-girlfriend Laura turns up to stay in the cottage, and leaves a mysterious note in the guest book. Now Jacob’s seeing Laura everywhere - a glimpse of her face across the street, her music box left outside his house, a gift he gave her years before hanging from the trees. But it can’t be Laura. Because Laura’s dead.

All her life, 17-year-old Chessie has had recurring dreams about a little white farmhouse. Quaint? Not quite. The house is the site of the unsolved murders of Villisca, Iowa, where eight people were slaughtered in 1912. With her parents on the verge of divorce, Chessie is stuck spending the summer with her grandparents in Villisca - right across the street from the axe murder house.

Cole and Stella have lived in Costa Rica for the last seven years. They wanted to believe that it was really over...but there were always doubts. And when Stella sees a horrifying vision in the jungle, she's certain that the Ancient Enemy has returned. David, living at his aunt's house in New Mexico, knows the Ancient Enemy is back; he can feel it. And now nightmares about a serial killer possessed by the Ancient Enemy plague him, a killer who will stop at nothing, a killer who is coming for David.

A horrific monster has robbed Asadi of what he loves most, forcing him to make a decision that will change his life forever. Will he make the right choice? Discover the truth in Still Water Bay's episode two, A Call to Action.

High in the ridges of Appalachia, Emily Child carries a secret that could kill her. Pregnant, but not in the way she dreamed of, her body has turned against her, and time is running out. While her husband searches in desperation, Emily follows an older trail: the half-forgotten path to the Isabella, the midwife who raised her, a woman whispered about in both reverence and fear. Guided by memory, folklore, and the voices of the hills themselves, Emily must navigate not only the dangers of her own failing body but also the haunting pull of a world where the line between healing and myth blurs.

"An engaging, plot-driven thriller . . ." -- Kirkus Reviews, on This Town Is Not All Right "For junior conspiracy theorists everywhere." -- Booklist, on This Town Is Not All Right In the sequel to This Town Is Not All Right, Beacon, Everleigh, and Arthur think they've left the horror of...