“The Night Zack Willoughby Died” by Tim O’Neal
For centuries, ghostly howls emanated from the old castle on Fir Street. Roughhewn brown stone formed its walls and a circular stained-glass mural dominated the front like the face of a cathedral. A mighty tower jutted above the sidewalk. From their perch on the ramparts, fiendish gargoyles leered out over the neighborhood, guarding the monstrosity that lurked in the tower beneath their clawed stone haunches. A were-woman haunted the castle.
“Ravenous” by J.B. Rockwell
Butter-soft skin sloughed beneath the pressing knife’s edge, its shining blade keen as starlight. Lyceae sliced with practiced movements, every stroke precisely measured, right down to the wrist flick that separated meat from hide. “Lovely, lovely, lovely,” she purred, lapping blood stains from the blade. The flesh in her hands so fresh it quivered, the spigot cored into the skin suit’s donor collecting scarlet nectar she guzzled down. While alone at the center of her chambers, her trussed-up, trembling meal finally expired. Heart drained of all its life-giving fluids, flensed body pending from meat hooks with all its muscles on
“The Blood-Red Lake” by Stephen Kozeniewski
I wake up to the feeling of something tugging on my hand, which is dangling off the bed. That might normally be the start of a crummy spook story, but I assure you this is no crummy spook story and there is no monster under my bed. It is only Marina, my daughter. And while she is holding her rag doll Petunia under one armpit, as is customary for her. I can surmise from the fact that she is attired in her blue and white bathing gown why she is bothering me so early. “Why all atwitter, little apple-of-mine-eye?” I
“Girls Just Want to Eat” by Avra Margariti
Forum becomes forest under fingertips. Here is where the girls walk through underbrush and cyberspace, where they go to debate and upend the rules of nature: the eating and the being eaten. There are tunnels to fall down, if you feel you’re good for nothing, life failing you, turning you living-dead. Girls asking please, I have seen enough of the world this time around. I would like to kindly be eaten to the grave now. These girls have blunt teeth, or broken teeth. Their fingers flit feather-light on the keyboard, almost afraid to be heard.
A Year In Book Covers: 2022
We do a lot of book cover commissions, mainly in the horror genre, and we thought it’d be a good idea to showcase as many as we could that were published in 2022. It doesn’t hurt that some of these covers have made it as Stoker Award Finalists as well! We’ve been lucky to have some of our covers grace books that have won Stoker awards in the past, but I digress. Let’s get started on the first set of covers. Also! A huge thank you to D&T Publishing, JournalStone, Uncomfortably Dark, Fedowar Press, Nictitating Press, Cemetery Gates, Thunderstorm Books,
“A Harrowing Beyond the Furrows” by KT Wagner
A wad of chewed gum secures the crumpled note stuck to the farmhouse door: Georg. Today’s the Summer Solstice parade. Greta yanks the paper down, and the gum breaks into sticky grey strings, wet with saliva. Her breakfast of canned beans threatens to decorate the porch. She frowns at her lab-mix, Shadow. “Not much of a guard dog, are you?” Shadow whines and hides her nose in her paws. In the months since she took possession of her late father’s farm, Greta’s never seen or heard any visitors. She’s miles from nowhere in the middle of the prairies, but food
