In book 3 of the Warlock Holmes series, there’s a character—Violet Hunter—who is an obvious link for tie-in stories by whoever wants to write one. So, when they asked me for a
macabre, Halloween-worthy short story, she was an obvious choice. Thus…

Holy fire-farting Hell Hounds.

Pet lover and animal activist Pepper Peterson has a secret. She inherited the caretaker position of the notorious Hell Hounds from her deceased aunt. Every year on Halloween she opens the gates to hell and sets them free to mark the souls of the damned. Only this year she lost the magic whistle to call them home and the massive black beasts run amok causing mischief in the town.

Ottar Jones holds the position of senior boss man at L.A.M.P.S. (Legends and Myths Police Squad) secret government agency. Ottar appalls Pepper. He’s the most barbaric man she’s ever met, but she can’t stop thinking about the sexy brute. When he finally chooses to show up to repair her dinosaur statue, it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

Ottar’s calendar has been packed full of mythical beasts to capture. Upon return to Haber Cove for his friend River’s wedding he has to contend with the crazy but hot vegan’s dinosaur, but a surprise awaits him. Haber Cove is infested with flesh-eating, ankle-biting Jack-a-lopes, and a pack of large black Hell Hounds. Will all hell break loose when he finds who let the dogs out? Or will Pepper turn out to be the one woman who can tame the savage Aussie hunter?

A new anthology bringing together five great new and established writers to explore the world of Mary Shelley’s all-time classic, Frankenstein

“My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.”

Victor Frankenstein was the first to unlock the key to life, but he would not be the last. Through two centuries of scientific enquiry and relentless advancement, five more minds found the secret, and five more creatures were made. Five more stories ended in tragedy.

From the 1840s to the modern day, from the race to publish the first anatomy to the desperate search for weapons to win the Second World War, telling the stories of the creatures that never were.

As a child, rare and unusual animals, especially cryptid creatures, always fascinated Carter Wilde. 

Now that he’s an eccentric billionaire and runs the largest conglomerate of high-tech companies all over the world, he can finally achieve his wildest dream of building the most incredible theme park ever conceived on the planet…CRYPTID ZOO. 

Even though there have been apparent problems with the project, Wilde still decides to send some of his marketing employees and their families on a forced vacation to assess the theme park in preparation for Opening Day

. 
Nick Wells and his family are some of those chosen and are about to embark on what will become the most terror-filled weekend of their lives—praying they survive. 

STEP RIGHT UP AND GET YOUR FREE PASS… 
TO CRYPTID ZOO 

Live.
Die.
Or become one of the Undead.

News reports speak of mass panic and violence spreading across the globe. Negligent leaders hide behind misinformation. But in an age of paranoia and suspicion, who can say what is true anymore? Struggling to survive against a sweeping epidemic that has engulfed the planet, survivors will have to make hard choices in a world that no longer makes sense.

Genre: YA Horror/Paranormal/Fantasy

The dead are easy to talk to. Live people, not so much.

Charlie Sulliven thinks she knows all the secrets of the dead. Raised in a funeral home, she’s the reluctant “Ghoul Girl,” her reputation tied to a disastrous Halloween party. But navigating her life as a high school sophomore is an anxiety-inducing puzzle to her. She haunts the funeral home with her parents, emo older brother, Garth, their pistol-packing Gramma, and the glass-eyeball-devouring dachshund, Lothar.

Chewed human bodies are appearing in her parents’ morgue…and disappearing in the middle of the night. The bodies seem tied to a local legend, Catfish Bob, who has resurfaced in the muddy Milburn river near Charlie’s small town. When one of Charlie’s classmates, Amanda, awakens in the cooler as a flesh-eating ghoul, Charlie must protect her newfound friend and step up to unravel the mystery…and try to avoid becoming lunch meat for the dead.

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Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig.

It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview — to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right?

I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they… offered me the job?

It turns out this place isn't a bar. It's a guild. And the three cocky guys I drenched with a margarita during my trial? Yeah, they were mages. Either I'm exactly the kind of takes-no-shit bartender this guild needs, or there's a good reason no one else wants to work here.

So what's a broke girl to do? Take the job, of course — with a pay raise.

Note: The three mages are definitely sexy, but this series isn't a reverse harem. It's 100% fun, sassy, fast-paced urban fantasy.

WHAT HAS LONG PINK FINGERS AND SMELLS LIKE ROTTING FLESH?
It is a slime-covered fungus known for its pinkish red tentacles and pungent odor. It is indigenous to Australia but has spread to North America. Its Latin name is Clathrus Archeri, also known as Octopus Stinkhorn. Most people call it The Devil’s Fingers . . .
 
I DON’T KNOW BUT IT’S GROWING ON YOUR NECK. 
Deep in the woods of Washington, botanist Autumn Winters stumbles onto a field of the luridly colored fungi. Two of her fellow campers make the mistake of touching it. Now it’s growing on them. Fleshy gelatinous pods. Sprouting from their skin. Feeding on their blood . . .
 
AND IT’S STILL GROWING.
Autumn watches in horror as her friends are transformed into monstrosities—grotesque, human-fungal hybrids as contagious and deadly as any virus. Autumn knows she must destroy these mutations before they return to civilization. But if there’s one thing that spreads faster than fear, 
it’s The Devil’s Fingers . . .

It's easy to see where Clathrus archer would be the influence for Hunter Shea's horror The Devil's Fingers. Native to New Zealand and Australia, the original land of Nope, the fungus looks like an alien hatching or the shrimp cocktail fingers a la Beetlejuice. I can't imagine what the first to happen upon it might have thought. Well...I guess we can considering they named it The Devil's Fingers. Watch it "hatch" here. 

Hunter Shea creates a new nightmare for us in the third installment of his One Size Eats All novellas. Continuing the classic us against nature battle cry sung by the previous novellas Jurassic Florida and Rattus New Yorkus, The Devil's Fingers makes for a worthy addition and adversary.

When a group of hikers stumbles onto the hatching grounds of mutated fungal Devil's Fingers, their struggle for survival begins. This is no symbiotic relationship. As each of the friends fall victim to the highly communicable fungus, their friendship is put to the test under the physical and mental duress.

If you are looking for grotesque, hopeless horror with a last man standing body count, The Devil's Fingers is for you. Shea pulls no punches with this graphic, gory good time. Cringeworthy, yet incredibly fun, this novella wastes no time getting under your skin.  

About the Author

Hunter Shea is the author of over 20 books, with a specialization in cryptozoological horror that includes The Jersey Devil, The Dover Demon, Loch Ness Revenge and many others. His novel, The Montauk Monster, was named one of the best reads of the summer by Publishers Weekly. A trip to the International Cryptozoology Museum will find several of his cryptid books among the fascinating displays. Living in a true haunted house inspired his Jessica Backman: Death in the Afterlife series (Forest of Shadows, Sinister Entity and Island of the Forbidden). In 2011, he was selected to be a part of the launch of Samhain Publishing’s new horror line alongside legendary author Ramsey Campbell. When he’s not writing thrillers and horror, he also spins tall tales for middle grade readers on Amazon’s highly regarded Rapids reading app.
An avid podcaster, he can be seen and heard on Monster Men, one of the longest running video horror podcasts in the world, and Final Guys, focusing on weekly movie and book reviews. His nostalgic column about the magic of 80s horror, Video Visions, is featured monthly at Cemetery Dance Online. You can find his short stories in a number of anthologies, including Chopping Block Party, The Body Horror Book and Fearful Fathoms II.

A lifetime New Yorker, Hunter is supported by his loving wife and two beautiful daughters. When he’s not studying up on cryptozoology, he’s an avid explorer of the unknown, having spent a night alone on the Queen Mary, searching for the Warren’s famous White Lady of the Union Cemetery and other mysterious places. 
You can follow his travails at www.huntershea.com. 

Keeping Charleston—and the world—safe from supernatural threats one cursed object at a time!

Cassidy Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read the history of objects by touching them and along with her business partners Teag, who is a Weaver witch and Sorren, a 600-year-old vampire, they get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from supernatural threats. 

When zombies rise in Charleston cemeteries, dead men fall from the sky, and the whole city succumbs to the “grouch flu,” Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren suspect a vengeful dark witch who is gunning for Teag and planning to unleash an ancient horror. Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren—and all their supernatural allies—will need magic, cunning, and the help of a Viking demi-goddess to survive the battle with a malicious witch and an ancient Norse warlock to keep Charleston—and the whole East Coast—from becoming the prey of the Master of the Hunt.

More secrets. More lies. I’m going to die. 

She wanted a car for her sixteenth birthday, not magical powers… Candy McGregor is a teenager living in Sequim Falls, a small East Coast town, where the McGregors own just about everything. While her grandmother grooms her to run the family business—a pharmaceutical empire—Candy dreams of a life where she’s known as more than just a last name. When the monthly family dinner turns into a horror show, Candy discovers the McGregors aren’t so much blessed as they are cursed. At midnight on her sixteenth birthday, Candy inherits both the ability to do magic and the destiny to become a wolf on the next full moon. There is hope of a life that doesn’t require being chained up once a month. If Candy can undo the original spell that created the curse, she can rid the world of werewolves and remain a witch. But there’s one really big problem. Not everyone hates being a wolf. With the next full moon looming, Candy must take on forces that will do anything to stop her. Will she break the curse or surrender to life as a monster?