Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts

Home is where the heart is ... or the hatred. You can feel the love and care someone puts into their home just by walking into it. Equally...


Home is where the heart is ... or the hatred.
You can feel the love and care someone puts into their home just by walking into it. Equally, you can feel the hatred and malice when you step into a home where dark deeds have been done.

Alex and his team of so-called paranormal investigators are given the opportunity of a lifetime when they are able to film inside one of the most haunted, and cursed, locations in their area.
The Jackson Mansion.

The thing that makes this mansion truly unique is that it is built completely underground. Determined to uncover the dark secrets of the mansion's past, and prove himself a notable investigator, Alex doesn't care what it takes. The mansion, however, has other ideas, as well as some rather restless occupants.


How are you doing with your reading challenge?  I still haven't picked all my books. The good new...



How are you doing with your reading challenge? 

I still haven't picked all my books. The good news is I'm about a third of the way through my bingo blackout! Not as far as I'd hope to be, but I'm such a mood reader so I've jumped around a bit and haven't stuck just to my planned reads. I still haven't gotten bingo yet either! 

There's still time left to join! Remember, you don't have to do the entire board. Bingo is only four books so see what your TBR looks like and jump in!

Feel free to reach out to me if you need a book rec or are wondering if a book fits the category enough! You're also welcome to create your own post and use the graphic (here) to keep track of your own bingo card!

Happy Reading!

I  know it's not really fall yet.  We are still firmly in the dog days of summer here in the south. Shh, I...


know it's not really fall yet. We are still firmly in the dog days of summer here in the south. Shh, I'm dreaming.
You see, I'm one of those crazy people that hates everything to do with summer. I hate the heat. The beach. Sand. Bugs. It's just not my season. Oh, but fall... I love the sunsets and the cooler mornings. Sleeping with the windows open. The smell of wet leaves. Reading outside without having heatstroke. 
Oh, and did I mention Halloween? It's my absolute favorite holiday of the entire year!! Haunted houses! Scary movies! Costumes! We throw a Halloween party every year and I'm like a big kid. I can't wait to get my Halloween decorations out to start getting into the mood for the season. I love the that spooky goes mainstream! Of course, since I'm an urban fantasy and horror reviewer, well, that's just the icing on the cake. This has been a really good year for the horror genre and I have a lot of great fall reads waiting on me.
I decided to get a jump on it this year with a bookish bingo challenge. I think bingo challenges are a great way to knock some of those books off the TBR without the pressure of a lot of planning like other challenges. I'm very much a visual person and I like the feeling of accomplishment that Bingo challenges give me. 

While I've creeped on other challenges before, none of them really fit with my reads. Since there really aren't a whole lot of bingo challenges geared towards my genres, may I present: 

The Scaredy Cat Bingo Reading Challenge!!


  • Read a book that fits the category. 1 book=1 category. No doubling up!
  • Complete a row - up, down or diagonal!
  • For extra credit, go for a blackout. That means every square filled!
  • All books must be started/finished in September and/or October 2019.

That's it! Pretty easy huh? And don't worry if you don't really do the spooky stuff. Any of these categories could work for urban fantasy as well. You don't have to have a blog to play either. Anyone is welcome to jump in!



The Z Word
Walkers, Zeds, Deadheads, Biters. Whatever you call them, if it should be dead, and it's not, it counts. 

Strange Fiction
This is that category for the book that you say "Wow, what did I just read?"


Don't Sneeze
Ebola? The Plague? Kellis-Amberlee? Whatever ails you, this is the category for you. 

Under the Sea
It's a big, big ocean out there. And I doubt it's full of red-headed mermaids pining for princes named Eric.  

Short Story Collection
Variety is the slice of life. 

Let's Summon Demons
Don't do this. Gates of Hell should stay closed and your arms should remain in the circle at all times.
Any book with a demon or possession gets you a square.

Howl at the Moon
Shapeshifters. Werewolves. Were-rats. Yeah, they are a thing. Shifty people don't count.

Bite Me
Walk softly and carry a sharpened stake. Vampires aren't the only thing that suck.

Crazy Town
Straight jackets are surprisingly comfortable...or so I'm told. This square is for location - asylum, mental hospital, etc.  or just a book that's bat sh!t crazy.

Scooby Dooby Doo
Any book that has an investigator, or just some bumbling kids searching for clues while saying things like Zoinks. 

Afterlife Express
10:15 to Boo Town. Tickets please! Ghostly apparitions, haunted dolls and the house on haunted hill all count in this square.

Monster Mash
It was a graveyard smash. It caught on in a flash. Here's your catch all monster square. 

Up Close & Personal
Pick a book that scares you. 

Eye See You
This one can be literal. Either an eye on the cover, eye(s) or seeing in the title somehow, or body horror for you horror fans.

Witching Hour
Spells, Curses or good old fashioned witchcraft. 

End of the Line
Post-Apocalyptic, natural disaster, or dystopian get you this square.

Bloody Good
Either a red cover, blood on the cover, or splatterpunk

Killer Instincts
Is there a killer on the loose? Then, yes, check this square if you dare.

Cabin in the Woods
This one is for those great abandoned locations, like a cabin in the middle of the woods, or a bunker in the middle of the artic. Home sweet home.

Lost Highway
Count this one if your book has a road trip, hitchhiker, or songs by the Eagles.

I Come in Peace
The truth is out there. It doesn't matter if they are little gray men or plants from outer space. 
Stock up on tin foil and bandaids. You're gonna need then. 

Camp Crystal Lake
Any book with a campground or tent camping. Hockey mask optional. 

Oh, the Humanity
Sometimes the monster is more human than expected. This square is for when the monster is us.

Don't Fear the Reaper
Count this square for any book with Death incarnate or anyone with a scythe.

I had fun creating this challenge and I hope you'll join me! See my books here.

To enter the challenge, just comment below with your name and where you are going to be tracking your challenge! Make sure to tag me on twitter @cats_luv_coffee or #CLCBookBingo if you are keeping track there. 

Be sure to come back when you complete your bingo and enter the rafflecopter. Each horizontal or vertical bingos get you one entry and a blackout gets you five!

Everyone that plays along and gets BINGO, will be entered into a random drawing for a $10 Starbucks card!

Pumpkin spice, FTW! (Just kidding. Pumpkin spice is gross, but hey, you do you.)



a Rafflecopter giveaway




Aliens. They’re everywhere. If you go outside, they’ll kill you. If you try to run, they’ll kill you. Ice cream probably won't ...





Aliens.

They’re everywhere.

If you go outside, they’ll kill you.
If you try to run, they’ll kill you.

Ice cream probably won't help.

On an entirely normal summer day, the sky rips apart and aliens pour from the wound. Black, featureless pods, they are horrifying in their efficiency, killing anything that steps foot outside. Inexplicably, they don’t attack anyone indoors.

No one knows where they came from, what they want and when—or if—they’ll go away. Matt Cutler wanted to spend Sunday with his family. Now, he’s trapped in a tree fort outside his house with his neighbor, Heather Keene, and his little sister Abby.

They can’t go outside.

They’re running out of water.

If dehydration doesn’t kill them, the aliens will.

But Matt thinks he’s figured out a way to save everyone… if the aliens don’t kill him first.

State Road 177 runs along the Suwannee River, between Fargo, Georgia, and the Okefenokee Swamp. Drive that route from east to west, a...



State Road 177 runs along the Suwannee River, between Fargo, Georgia, and the Okefenokee Swamp. Drive that route from east to west, and you’ll cross six bridges. Take it from west to east, and you might find seven.


But you’d better hope not.

Titus and Davina Bell leave their hotel in Fargo for a second honeymoon canoeing the Okefenokee Swamp. But shortly before they reach their destination, they draw up to a halt at the edge of a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car . . .

When, much later, a tow-truck arrives, the driver finds Titus lying in the middle of the road, but Davina is nowhere to be found.

What would you do to pay the bills; to survive, or to just get rich, would you compete against other teams in a quarantined town fi...




What would you do to pay the bills; to survive, or to just get rich, would you compete against other teams in a quarantined town filthy with zombies wanting to bite out your throat?


Emma and Lewis sign up for the race, they need the money to save his life. But they won't just be racing the dead, the surprise blizzard or the other contestants.

Because anger and vengeance know no bounds and like everyone in the blighted town they become pawns in a game of retribution.

The contestants become nothing more than live entertainment to viewers who watch and judge their every move in the town of Prideful as they race each other to arrive alive to a final flag. The team that makes will get airlifted out alive and go back home richer for it, the others walk back to a pittance and if they are not careful. They won't get out at all. 

What does carrion taste like? Andi has to know. The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the s...



What does carrion taste like? Andi has to know. The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the secrets hiding in their banquet of decay. Fascination morphs into an obsessive need to know what the vultures know. Andi turns to Dr. Fawning, but even the therapist cannot help her comprehend the secrets she’s buried beneath anger-induced blackouts.

Her girlfriend, Luna, tries to help Andi battle her inner darkness and infatuation with the vultures. However, the desire to taste dead flesh, to stitch together wings of her own and become one with the flock sends Andi down a twisted, unforgivable path. Once she understands the secrets the vultures conceal, she must decide between abandoning the birds of prey or risk turning her loved ones into nothing more than meals to be devoured.
 

Welcome to the Bloodlust tour, book #2 in Pixie Britton's YA Science Fiction series, Kill or Cure. I have loads of fun stuff for y...


Welcome to the Bloodlust tour, book #2 in Pixie Britton's YA Science Fiction series, Kill or Cure. I have loads of fun stuff for you today! A FREE book, and a chance to win a signed copy of Bloodlust!
Wait, rewind...did I say FREE BOOK? I sure did! Read on!


He could save the world, or destroy it…


The virus that has swept the Earth hasn’t consumed Tommy, yet, but as his hunger for human flesh takes hold, his humanity vanishes behind the bloodlust of an infected. It’s up to seventeen year old Alyx and her friends to find answers. But saving her little brother isn’t their only problem. Lurking in the shadows of Alhena is the formidable General Sinter, hell-bent on capturing the boy with unrivalled superhuman strength for his own personal gains. With limited options, Alyx has no choice but to risk everything to protect him. A choice that she could live to regret


Kill or Cure: Bloodlust is the second book in the Kill or Cure series. Brimming with suspense, romance and heart pumping action!

Nature abhors a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welco...


Nature abhors a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welcoming spirals. Nature remembers deviation; nature does not forgive.

For Harlowe Upton-Jones, life has never been a straight line. Shipped off to live with her paternal grandparents after a mysterious cult killed her mother and father, she has grown up chasing the question behind the curve, becoming part of a tight-knit teen detective agency. But “teen” is a limited time offer, and when her friends start looking for adult professions, it’s up to Harlowe to find them one last case so that they can go out in a blaze of glory.

Welcome to Spindrift House.

The stories and legends surrounding the decrepit property are countless and contradictory, but one thing is clear: there are people willing to pay a great deal to determine the legal ownership of the house. When Harlowe and her friends agree to investigate the mystery behind the manor, they do so on the assumption that they’ll be going down in history as the ones who determined who built Spindrift House—and why. The house has secrets. They have the skills. They have a plan. They have everything they need to solve the mystery.

Everything they need except for time. Because Spindrift House keeps its secrets for a reason, and it has no intention of letting them go.

Nature abhors a straight line.

Here’s where the story bends.

Agent Van of the CIA is sent to an Australian underground military surveillance base called Pine Gap. Agent Van finds himself thrown i...



Agent Van of the CIA is sent to an Australian underground military surveillance base called Pine Gap. Agent Van finds himself thrown in a conspiracy cover-up of an ancient alien race known as species X. Agent Van falls in love with Annika, a mysterious and uncommon woman who displays unusual abilities, leading Van to question her own origin. 

Mystery and horror explode around Agent Van during a cave diving exhibition to search for a lost colleague referred to as Agent One. The only clue for Agent Van and his team is a cryptic message carved on a wall inside the bleak cave that reads “Agent One is gone. No more Agent One.” Terror arrives as the agents are trapped inside the ominous cave. Agent Van soon learns that there is more to Pine Gap than Species X.

"…As for the cops? Trust me when I say this: The police are the last notification you’d ever want to make......




"…As for the cops? Trust me when I say this: The police are the last notification you’d ever want to make...”

Walk Worthy Christian Life Center Pastor Joel Benjamin believes he’s heard God tell him to preach at several Georgia churches. However, he faces trouble on several sides: One, his wife and First Lady Deborah believes he didn’t. Two, he experiences an atmosphere of dread through a series of mysterious visions. And three, both find themselves the victims of cryptic messages from an unknown caller.

Forces of palpable evil align themselves against the Benjamins. Forces that threaten to steal, kill, and destroy their present and future. But the marital acrimony sends them on the verge of breakdowns that create battles for mutual trust, unity, and faith.

Why does God allow bad things to happen to some people? For the Benjamins, maybe God had nothing to do with it. Maybe some choices in the past open the door for the supernatural activity that relentlessly haunts and torments them.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 


Either the Benjamins feed their faith and live or they feed their fear and die. 

Three friends, an empty fuel tank, a desolate dirt road, and a hike through the woods in the middle of a snow storm...


monstrous cartoon teeth covered in bloodThree friends, an empty fuel tank, a desolate dirt road, and a hike through the woods in the middle of a snow storm; what could go wrong?

Only everything.


A mysterious beast stalks Fred and his friends through the snow, forcing them to seek shelter with two strangers in a remote cabin.


And so begins a waiting game. Food dwindles, tempers flare, and survival of the fittest becomes more than just a saying as the beast closes in.

Having won his emancipation after fighting on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution, Salem Hawley is a free man. Only a ...


Having won his emancipation after fighting on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution, Salem Hawley is a free man. Only a handful of years after the end of British rule, Hawley finds himself drawn into a new war unlike anything he has ever seen.

New York City is on the cusp of a new revolution as the science of medicine advances, but procuring bodies for study is still illegal. Bands of resurrectionists are stealing corpses from New York cemeteries, and women of the night are disappearing from the streets, only to meet grisly ends elsewhere.

After a friend’s family is robbed from their graves, Hawley is compelled to fight back against the wave of exhumations plaguing the Black cemetery. Little does he know, the theft of bodies is key to far darker arts being performed by the resurrectionists. If successful, the work of these occultists could spell the end of the fledgling American Experiment… and the world itself.

The Resurrectionists, the first book in the Salem Hawley series, is a novella of historical cosmic horror from the author of Broken Shells and Mass Hysteria.

Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and i...



Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to 
storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and  darker appetites, edited b...


Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order.


It includes original stories by Kathleen Alcalá, Betsy Aoki, Joyce Chng, Katharine Duckett, Anahita Eftekhari, Amelia Gorman, Jasmyne J. Harris, A. R. Henle, Erin Horáková, Kathryn McMahon, H. Pueyo, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Rachael Sterling, Penny Stirling, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and Rem Wigmore, and reprints of stories from Apex, Electric Velocipede, Fantasy, Lightspeed, and Nightmare Magazines by Chikodili Emelumadu, Crystal Lynn Hilbert, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl”
Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones”
Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn”
Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take”
Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”
Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown”

All passengers, please prepare for departure… An employee, a cop, and five prisoners; a prisoner, a stowaw...


All passengers, please prepare for departure…
An employee, a cop, and five prisoners; a prisoner, a stowaway, and a madman.
These are the people waiting at the Lawton bus terminal. Mostly late-night travelers who want nothing more than to get to their destinations, and employees who want nothing more than to get through the graveyard shift.
But when a strange, otherworldly fog rolls in, the night changes to nightmare. Because something hides in the fog. Something powerful. Something strange. Something... inhuman.
Soon, those in the terminal have been cut off from the rest of the world. No phones, no computers. Just ten strangers in the terminal... and The Other.
The Other is the force in the mist. The Other is the thing that has captured them. And The Other wants to play a game.

The rules are simple:
1) The people in the terminal must choose a single person from among them. That person will live. The rest will die.
2) Anyone who attempts to leave the terminal before the final vote will die.
3) The final vote... must be unanimous.
A nightmare. And getting worse, because the best way to make a vote unanimous... is to kill the other voters.
Welcome to the end of the line. Welcome to the Terminal.

Rusty Moss has raised his niece Mia since she was a baby. Now that she's almost eighteen, he's worried that the life he's...


Zombie bear with ribcage showingRusty Moss has raised his niece Mia since she was a baby. Now that she's almost eighteen, he's worried that the life he's given her—living off the grid in a cabin deep in the woods—is holding her back from her full potential. But that angst gets pushed aside when the undead forest animals arrive.

At first, it's just a squirrel—shockingly violent and almost impossible to kill. Followed by a grizzly bear, also aggressive and resilient, even when point-blank shotgun blasts to the face are involved.

Now the cabin is surrounded by all manner of zombie creatures. They have no way to call for help. The truck that could take them to safety is three miles away, stuck in the mud.

But Rusty and Mia have their courage. They have their wits. And, most importantly, they have an axe and a fully fueled chainsaw...

When a traumatized mining foreman is placed under the psychiatric care of Dr. Vincent Armstrong, the doctor thinks...



When a traumatized mining foreman is placed under the psychiatric care of Dr. Vincent Armstrong, the doctor thinks he has started just another shift. But as the victim begins to remember what drove him temporarily insane, Armstrong’s interest becomes personal, and he makes a series of discoveries that threaten to tear apart his carefully constructed scientific view of the world, and show in horrifying clarity that his patient is anything but delusional. 

As Armstrong’s world falls apart, his recovering patient learns that he has not escaped the horrors he encountered underground, and that no place on earth is truly safe from the “Tunnelers.”


Gregory and his little sister Imogen love spending Halloween with their parents. But this year is different. If he pro...

Gregory and his little sister Imogen love spending Halloween with their parents. But this year is different. If he proves he can take care of Imogen all by himself, he’ll finally have the allowance he’s dreamed of. 

That was before the basement door opened on its own. Before the strange door appeared in the basement and Imogen was taken from him by the monster. 

Now everyone in town is blaming him for her disappearance, but no one is listening to his story. Where did the door come from? What was that creature? And most of all, can he find his sister before it’s too late, or will he bury his memories of her along with his parents?



“When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.” Your new favorite monster hunter has arrived! Bubba the Mo...





“When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.”

Your new favorite monster hunter has arrived! Bubba the Monster Hunter has some competition in this horror comedy collection from best-selling author duo Gail Z. & Larry N. Martin!

By day, Mark Wojcik can be found elbow-deep in engine grease, making cars and trucks safe for the highway. By night, he can be found traipsing through the wilds of Pennsylvania, making the world safe for humans. He’s more than just a mechanic, he’s a New Templar Knight. He travels the backroads and byways fighting weresquonks, ningen, selkies, ghosts, and…gnomes? Is that gnome…naked? (sigh).


Season One collects the first four novellas in the Spells, Salt, & Steel series –
Spells, Salt, & Steel
Open Season
Deep Trouble
Close Encounters


Excerpt


When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.
I’d been lying in wait for the ningen to show up, and by the wee hours of the morning, I was tired and cranky and out of coffee. As soon as the sun went down, I pulled in to the Linesville, Pennsylvania, spillway. The tourists were gone, and the concession stand’s gates were closed. Still blows my mind how many people will come look at a bunch of fish. Even if those fish are a boiling, writhing mass of three-foot long, twenty-pound carp that look like something out of a Biblical plague.
I’m Mark Wojcik, mechanic—and monster hunter. I gank things that go bump in the night so that most people never have to know supernatural uglies exist outside of bad horror movies. No one chooses this life; it chooses you, usually in a violent and awful way. In my case, a deer hunt turned into a wendigo hunting us. I survived—barely—but my father, brother, uncle, and cousin didn’t. Neither did the wendigo, when I was done with it.
The carp weren’t my problem. Tourists loved throwing day-old bread into the water to watch the carp roil over each other, mouths gaping. Tonight, they weren’t the only ones with an unnatural interest in big fish.
A corpse-pale creature balanced on the low concrete rim of the spillway catch basin. It stood about five feet tall, slender with long arms, and a body that looked like a giant white tadpole with arms and skinny, short legs. Ningen can get as big as sixty feet, or so the cryptid sites say, but then again, they say that ningen are only found in Japan, so I don’t put much stock in them.
“Koko ni sakana no kao ga kuru,” I called to it, betting that a Japanese monster might understand Japanese. Then again, I’d looked up key phrases on Google Translate, so God only knows what I actually said. “Come here, fish face,” I repeated in English, in case the ningen was bilingual.
The ningen cocked its round head and blinked its solid black eyes. I leaned over the railing and waved my bait at it, a nice piece of salmon I’d paid fifteen bucks for at the supermarket, thinking the creature might want an upgrade.
“That’s it,” I coaxed, dangling the prime wild salmon and giving it a shake. “That’s a good little sekana no neko.” That’s the magic of translation: “fish fucker” sounds classier in a foreign language.
If the ningen felt offended, it didn’t look it, although for all I knew, maybe I’d been descriptive instead of insulting. The ningen raised its head and opened its mouth, scenting the air. It shuffled toward me on its stubby legs, like it had its pants down around its knees. I grinned, keeping the sharpened iron harpoon blade concealed behind my back in my right hand.

At the speed the ningen hop-walked, it might take it ten minutes to get to me, but once I ganked him, I’d be back home relaxing with a nice cold beer.
That’s when the damn thing leapt into the air like a horny salmon going to spawn and grabbed the filet in my hand so hard he pulled me over the fence and into the carp-filled water. I lost the piece of fish, but managed to keep the harpoon. When I fell in, fully-clothed and in my steel-toe boots, I thought I’d sink, but I fell onto the roiling carp that made a moving, lumpy.
net beneath me. They buoyed me along just long enough for me to regain my wits and scramble onto the small stretch of rocky shore between the overflow basin and the wall below the fence. The ningen crouched, eyeing me as it shoved the raw salmon into its mouth, and I got a look at its jagged, sharp teeth—something else the cryptid reports had been less than accurate about. I realized then that the small strip of land around me was covered with fish bones. Those all-black eyes kept staring at me, and although I’d heard long pig tasted like chicken, this jagoff looked like he was wondering how much I’d taste like fish.
It sprang for me, and I rolled, gritting my teeth as the sharp stones and fish bones jabbed through my jacket and jeans. I brought up my harpoon gun and got off a shot. The barbed iron blade hit the ningen in the shoulder instead of the chest like I’d hoped, but it must have hurt like a mother since the thing let out an ungodly howl that would have put any loon to shame.
I yanked on the rope attached to the base of the blade with all my might. The ningen stumbled toward me. Then it grabbed the rope and pulled. And I found myself face down in the water, getting smacked in the head by carp the size of toddlers.
I scrambled back onto the rocky bank. What little I could find about ningen, that was written in English, said it would have less power on land. I yanked the rope again, getting angry now, and the ningen bared its barracuda teeth at me and gave another ear-splitting shriek.
The iron had an effect on it; I could see black veins radiating from where the blade lodged in its shoulder, spreading across the once-perfect white skin. I just didn’t know how long the iron blade would take to kill the creature, or if it would do the job completely. My gun was safe and dry in my truck, since I’d figured going for a forced swim was likely. But I had a couple more tricks up my soggy sleeves.
The ningen closed in on me, and I grabbed a kada, one of those martial arts sickle blades, from a scabbard on my back. I didn’t know if Japanese weapons were extra-lethal on Japanese monsters, but I fully intended to go ninja on its ass for leaving me soggy and freezing and smelling like carp.
“Let’s see you shi’ne, you piece of fish shit,” I muttered. I watched as much anime as my Crunchy Roll subscription could handle, and I’d picked up on a few overused phrases. “Die” seemed like a good one.
Except that the ningen didn’t seem to take it the way I’d intended and jerked me back into the water.
I managed to roll so I got the kada blade between us and swung as hard as I could, sinking the point of the curved blade into its chest where I hoped its heart might be. The black veins from the iron blade had spread across its entire torso, up its fish-belly white neck, and down its overly long arms.
But it wasn’t dead yet, and it came at me again, forcing me to fall backward in the water into another mass of carp. I kicked with my legs to get some distance between myself and the ningen.
The carp weren’t pleased to have me land on them, and one of the fish jumped out of the water and landed in my arms, all thirty pounds of him.
Instinct took over, and I wrapped both arms around the carp’s middle and thrust its powerful tail toward the ningen. The fish wriggled wildly in my grip, its tail slapping back and forth with sharp scales and fins. It knocked the harpoon deeper into the ningen’s chest, as the black lacework of the iron’s poison spread across the rest of its skin.
I got my feet under me and dragged myself onto the shore, still holding a pissed-off carp between me and the monster. The ningen lurched forward, grabbing for me with its long, skeletal arms and clammy, dead white hands. Then it fell over and lay face-down amid the carp, completely covered by the deadly pattern of the iron’s taint running through its veins.
“Tora, tora, tora that, fish fucker,” I muttered. I dropped the carp, and it disappeared into the roiling mass of its companions.
I hauled myself back up on the rocky shore and caught my breath. The night was warm, but that’s a relative statement in this neck of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and I started to shiver. The ningen lay where it fell, and I was just about to pull it out of the water when I saw its body twitch.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I growled, but before I could climb up the wall to get my gun out of the truck, the carp began to thrash. My stomach turned as I realized that the ningen wasn’t moving on its own; its body jerked and moved because dozens of carp were nibbling at its flesh.
In the next moment, the ningen’s form sank lower, pulled down by the fish. The pale body vanished beneath the water, and the fish fought each other to get closer, obscuring it from view. “Hey buddy! No fishing!” I turned and got a face full of flashlight beam, blinding me. The perfect end to a lousy evening would be getting arrested for monstercide. Or in this case, fishing without a license.
“Oh, it’s you, Mark.”
I blinked and recognized a familiar voice. Louie Marino, a guy I’d known since first grade, and one of Linesville’s Finest.
“Not fishing, Louie. Honest. Just business.” Louie’s one of the few area cops who know what I really do. He gets it—mainly because when he had a nasty little infestation of demon-possessed rabid raccoons a few years back, I took care of it for him, no questions asked.

“Keeping busy?” he asked, angling the flashlight so I could see again.
“Always. They pay you enough to be on fish patrol at this hour?”
Louie shrugged. “Workin’ nights this week. Drew the short straw. Just another day in paradise.” He wrinkled his nose. “You stink like carp.”
“I’ve heard of ‘swimming with the fishes,’ just didn’t intend to take it literally,” I replied, wringing out the water from the hem of my flannel shirt.
“Do I want to know?”
I shook my head. “Probably not. If the rangers at the Spillway say anything about their fish count being down, tell them it’s been taken care of.”
Louis grinned, taking in my utterly disreputable condition. “You’re just lucky I was on duty tonight, or you’d be going from the fish tank to the drunk tank.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” I mumbled, although I knew he was right. “Oh, and Louie?” I said as we headed back to our vehicles. “If I were you, I wouldn’t eat any carp out of the lake this season. I think their diet’s been a little…off.”





Spells, Salt, & Steel is a collection of four novellas. Each follows Mark Wojcik (Voy-chick, not Whoa, chick!), mechanic and monster hunter extraordinaire on his nightly escapades tracking down and sometimes not-so-quietly ridding the world of things that go bump in the night. Sure the monster hunter thing has been done before but never so well as this. I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself at the end of the first novella. Why? Because I had forgotten that it was a novella!

Right from the first pages, the authors construct an elaborate world and story to immerse yourself in. With great characters, fun cryptid cases, and plenty of comedic banter, I didn't want Spells, Salt, & Steel to end. Some of the cryptids seemed so far fetched, but a quick google search later... nope, they aren't making this up. (Well, they are, but you know what I mean!) From ghosts to gnomes, shubin to selkies, and trolls to tulpas, there's broad mythology to the creatures that Mark encounters. There's no one size fits all solution, and Mark comes up with some outlandish ones, that's for sure!

As he states, no one gets into hunting for fun and profit; they do it because they've lost people. In Mark's case, he lost his brother, father, uncle, and cousin to a wendigo. You don't survive that without wanting vengeance so he became a hunter. Mark is such a great character. He's fallible but tries to do the right thing. Armed with research from the dark web, "ghost" stories from the locals, and holy water and salt improvised weaponry, Mark is quite creative in his hunting — often finding Plan B only seconds after Plan A fails. I loved his Scooby support team too: couple Blair and Chaira, Louie Marino, police officer, and Father Leo, priest and member of the Occulatum, a secret Vatican organization battling supernatural and demonic activity. Ready with good-natured ribbing and backup, his friends provide intel, assistance and sometimes, alibis.

There were so many humourous situations, and some serious ones that Mark's banter made funny. Here's just a few of the moments that made me giggle:

So here I was loaded up with more weapons than Elmer Fudd in duck season, looking for a carnivorous cryptid in a bottomless swamp. What could possibly go wrong? Fuck-all, that's what.
And another:
Which explained how a grown-ass man like me ended up squatting down behind a cemetery angel in the middle of the night, looking for a two-foot-tall prankster with a helium-high giggle. The fact that this wasn't the worst way I'd ever spent a Saturday night speaks volumes about my life. 

My favorite stories out of the bunch were definitely the gnome in the cemetery quoted above and the tulpa in Wonderama, the abandoned amusement park, but I enjoyed all of them. My least favorite? Probably the UFO. Though I enjoyed that one too so that's saying something.

With plenty of humor, first-rate characters, and even better creatures, Spells, Salt, & Steel was a fun universe to blow a couple of days in. Apparently, multiple story arcs of the author's urban fantasy series intersect, so if you enjoy Spells, Salts, & Steel, check out the Gail Z. Martin's Deadly Curiosities series and her Witchbane and Badlands series, written as Morgan Brice.







Gail Z. Martin discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school. The first story she wrote at age five was about a vampire. Her favorite TV show as a preschooler was Dark Shadows. At age 14, she decided to become a writer. She enjoys attending science fiction/fantasy conventions, Renaissance fairs and living history sites.




Larry N. Martin is the author of the new sci-fi adventure novel Salvage Rat. He is the co-author (with Gail Z. Martin) of the Spells, Salt, and Steel/New Templars series; the Steampunk series Iron & Blood; and a collection of short stories and novellas: The Storm & Fury Adventures set in the Iron & Blood universe. He is also the co-author of the upcoming Wasteland Marshals series and the Joe Mack Cauldron/Secret Council series.
The Martins have three children, a Maltese, and a Golden Retriever.