A collection of fifteen dark tales, Gruesome Faces Ghastly Places brings together three South Dakota-based horror authors in one exclusive collection. Ride along on a nightmarish road trip to Nowhere in Doug Murano's "Pavement Ends." Witness a bizarre Old West exorcism in Adrian Ludens' "Ghost Soup." And tour a carnival freak show that is more than it seems in C.W. LaSart's "To Each His Own Hell." These tales and a dozen more are sure to thrill any reader of horror and supernatural suspense fiction. "In the very best way, this collection...reminds me of the classic "Hitchcock Presents" paperbacks: The horror here initially seems familiar and then takes twists and turns, zigs, zags, and deadfalls into new and ultra-disturbing places. South Dakota will not likely add this title as a guidebook, but if you like traveling with fear as a companion, you'll want this collection of G and G." -Mort Castle, Bram Stoker Award-winning author and editor. "These three voices, brought together here like a chorus, are part of the cutting edge of modern horror. Go ahead and turn the page. I dare you. But I will warn you. You're gonna get sliced up. And you'll love it while you bleed. They're that good." -Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author

Gruesome Faces, Ghastly Places: A collection of horror stories by South Dakota authors

Literature & Fiction

Ludens, Adrian

Murano, Doug

LaSart, C. W.

Genre Fiction

Slanted Mansion Books

What happens when idyllic small-towns, and the simple folk who inhabit them, collide with inexplicable evil borne of a vast and uncaring cosmos? Imagine a series of stories set in a golden era of American life, where worldly troubles are regarded from a distance, if at all. Hear the buzz of playing cards clipped in children’s spokes echo down quiet lanes. Smell the faint aroma of rich tobacco smoke from an old man’s pipe on a shady boulevard. Listen to the gossip of small towns where everyone knows everyone’s business. Or do they? Sometimes, deadly secrets lurk out in the barn. Sometimes, unimaginable evil awaits us in the root cellar. Sometimes, we fall under the sway of the Shadows Over Main Street. Contains stories and poems by: Gary Braunbeck, Nick Mamatas, Josh Malerman, Mary SanGiovanni, Tim Curran, Rena Mason, Lucy A. Snyder, Stephanie Wytovich, Kevin Lucia, Chesya Burke, Brian Hodge, James Chambers, Aaron Polson, T. Fox Dunham, Richard Thomas, Adrian Ludens, Cameron Suey, Lisa Morton, Jay Wilburn, and John Sunseri. Foreword by Ramsey Campbell. Cover art by Luke Spooner. Interior illustrations from Paul Carrick, Vincent Chong, John Coulthart, Galen Dara and HagCult.

Shadows Over Main Street: An Anthology of Small-Town Lovecraftian Terror

Mamatas, Nick

Thomas, Richard

Chambers, James

Polson, Aaron

Dunham, T. Fox

Suey, Cameron

Morton, Lisa.

Cutting Block Books

ASININE ASSASSINS (The Smart Rhino 'Assassins' Series)

Bauer, Chris

Hudson, Rick

Tucher, Albert

Smith, J. Gregory

Burge, Weldon

Dorr, James

Zeigler, Martin

Markowitz, Jeff

Hilton. Matt

Short Stories & Anthologies

Smart Rhino Publications

Corporate Cthulhu: Lovecraftian Tales of Bureaucratic Nightmare

YOUR CALL TO CTHULHU IS IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE HOLD. Of all bureaucracies, corporations are the most powerful, seeming to have a life and will of their own. Privately held with multi-national reach, seemingly bottomless resources, and armies of lawyers jealously guarding trade secrets, corporations fiercely resist any attempt to change or regulate them. Anything and everything is justified by the bottom line. Who needs a Cthulhu Cult when you've got Cthulhu, Inc.? Into this insidious world are thrust our heroes - the curious, the puzzled, and the frustrated. Defying authority, seeking answers they'd be better off not knowing, the secrets they discover threaten their sanity and their lives. Will they become the next whistleblower media hero? Or the next no-call-no-show their coworkers promptly forget? Remember: it's nothing personal - just business. Including twenty-five tales from writers including DJ Tyrer, Peter Rawlik, David Tallerman, Gordon Linzner, Adrian Ludens, and many more!

Rawlik, Peter

Tallerman, David

Dicken, Evan

Tyrer, DJ

Linzner, Gordon

Millard, Adam

Fischer, Todd H. C.

Stasheff, Edward J

Todd, Darren

Pickman's Press

YOUR CALL TO CTHULHU IS IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE HOLD. Red tape. Catch-22s. Circular chains of command. Whether you're a customer or co-worker, bureaucracies drive us all insane. Even management is just a cog in a vast machine. Information, items, and even people get lost in the system, never gone but never found. No one seems to notice the insanity surrounding them... or if they do, they keep it to themselves. After all, those who notice and call attention to it tend to disappear, leaving nothing behind but an empty desk and whispered rumors in the break room. If ever there was a place for a cosmic horror to hide, grow, and thrive, it's deep within the archives of a huge, old bureaucracy. But of all bureaucracies, corporations are the most powerful, seeming to have a life and will of their own. They're privately held with a multi-national reach, seemingly bottomless resources, and armies of lawyers jealously guarding their trade secrets. Corporate culture fiercely resists any attempt to change or regulate it, and anything and everything is justified by the bottom line. Who needs a Cthulhu Cult when you've got Cthulhu, Inc.? Into this insidious world are thrust our heroes—the curious, the puzzled, and the frustrated. Defying authority, seeking answers they'd be better off not knowing, the secrets they discover threaten their sanity and their lives. Will they become the next whistleblower media hero? Or the next no-call / no-show their coworkers promptly forget? Just remember: it's nothing personal—it's just business. This book contains twenty-five tales of bureaucratic insanity, including: DEATH PLEDGE by Jeff Deck WELCOME TO THE R’LYEH CORPORATION by James Pratt SHADOW CHARTS by Marcus Johnston CASUAL FRIDAY by Todd H. C. Fischer THE GOD UNDER THE CHURCH by David Tallerman REFUSAL by DJ Tyrer DAGON-TEC by Adam Millard ESOTERIC INSURANCE, INC. by Evan Dicken &amp; Adrian Ludens CAREER ZOMBIE by John Taloni BOEDROMION NOUMENIA by Andrew Scott INCORPORATION by Max D. Stanton THE LOPONINE EXPLOITATION by John M. Campbell FESTIVAL PREPARATIONS by Justin Bailey MARYANNE’S EQUATIONS by Harry Pauff WHOLESOME LABOR by Sam Rent LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR by Wile E. Young TINDALOS, INC. by Charlie Allison CLEAN UP AISLE FOUR by Josh Storey FORCED LABOR by Peter Rawlik THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN in the Close by Ethan Gibney IT CAME FROM I.T. by Gordon Linzner RETRACTION by Marie Michaels FACILITIES MANAGEMENT AT DAGOCORP HQ by L Chan NO DOVES COME FROM RAVEN EGGS by Mark Oxbrow APOTHEOSIS by Darren Todd

Stasheff Literary Enterprises

Nineteen tales of horror, mystery, supernatural suspense, and the weird West. A horde of insects invade one unfortunate man's stomach and make it their home, a blind woman guards a cavern full of Civil War-era zombies, and a troubled teen digs up her father's corpse, hoping to get some closure. Visit a macabre secret museum where taxidermy and classic literature combine, discover the lengths one desperate mortuary assistant will go to for love, and learn why Jack McCall really killed Wild Bill Hickcok. "Adrian Ludens...will scare the hell outta you in Bedtime Stories for Carrion Beetles. I highly recommend anything Ludens writes!" -Ty Schwamberger (The Fields, Deep Dark Woods). "Understated, wistful, and somewhat sad. Bedtime Stories for Carrion Beetles was a creepy pleasant surprise, and I am looking forward to seeing more of his work. -K. H. Vaughan, Hellnotes

Bedtime Stories for Carrion Beetles

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

A talent-filled horror anthology featuring 50+ time national and international bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson of Dune, Star Wars, and X-Files fame! This anthology introduces his new venture, Dan Shambles Zombie P.I. Introduction by Kevin J Anderson Introducing Dan Shamble, Zombie PI Private detectives can be persistent fellows—even more so when they are the walking dead. Dan Chambeaux, affectionately (or not) called “Dan Shamble,” puts the P.I. back in R.I.P. A zombie, but still a gumshoe, Dan is back from the dead and back on the case, solving tough (or just strange) mysteries in the Unnatural Quarter. His partner Robin is a bleeding-heart human lawyer who wants to make sure the newly awakened monsters aren’t downtrodden by outdated laws, and he has a ghost for an office manager, who is also a former girlfriend (but “former” in the sense that she’s no longer alive, not that she’s no longer his girlfriend), and a rough-around-the-edges cop who is his BHF (Best Human Friend). Dan Shamble has plenty of cases, not least of which is figuring out who killed him, and who killed his girlfriend. There have been a lot of undead or unnatural detectives in fiction and film—vampire detectives, succubus detectives, demon detectives, ghost detectives, werewolf detectives, skeleton detectives. Heck, there have even been zombie detectives before (Tim Waggoner’s Nekropolis series comes immediately to mind, or Treat Williams in the 1980s film Dead Heat). But why is that a drawback? I mean, there have been any number of human detectives, too! It’s the story that counts. Zombies are relentless, and “dead guy private eye” seemed like a good idea that lent itself to plenty of humor, some of it quite unfortunate. (Being a corpse and a PI leaves Dan to open to very poor-taste jokes, such as being called a “stiff dick.”) I wanted the Dan Shamble series to be laugh-out-loud funny, a fast and entertaining read, and once I started exploring the world of the Unnatural Quarter, the cases suggested themselves, one outrageous situation after another: A mummy who is suing to be emancipated from the museum because he’s a person, dammit, not a piece of property; a skittish vampire who thinks somebody is trying to kill him because he sees wooden stakes everywhere; a witch seeking restitution after an incantation from a spellbook went horribly wrong and turned her sister into a fat sow, so she is suing the publisher for not running a “spell check”; an investigation into Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals—purveyors of toiletries, perfumes, soaps, and lotions that cater to monsters—because one batch of their special vampire shampoo was accidentally contaminated with garlic oil, which made all the vampires’ hair fall out. Yes, I had a lot of fun writing the series. I am a prolific writer with many bestsellers, best known for my doorstop-sized science fiction or fantasy epics, but I have never limited myself only to SF/F. My first novel, Resurrection, Inc., was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award given by the Horror Writers Association (it was a Gothic horror, science fiction, murder mystery), and I’ve written thrillers with Dean Koontz, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Doug Beason. If you are looking for more Dan Shambles stories, you can find them on Amazon. "Slimy Underbelly" “Stakeout at the Vampire Circus,” “Road Kill,” “Naughty &amp; Nice” (a zombie Christmas story, of course), “Role Model,” “Beware of Dog,” “The Writing on the Wall,” and now “Locked Room.”

In Shambles (A Scarlett Nightmare)

Anderson, Kevin J.

Morgan, Druscilla

Shimek, Michael

Booth, Cynthia

Olson, Kenneth

West, Donna Marie

Stegora, David

Schill, M. M.

Lipp, Kerry G. S.

In his fourth collection of dark fiction, Adrian Ludens takes readers on a series of macabre misadventures into the past, present, and future. Eighteen newly-collected stories from the author of Ant Farm Necropolis and When Bedbugs Bite.

Cobwebs: Tales of Dread & Disquiet

Welcome to the Campfire.Did you ever go camping as a kid and sit around the fire at night listening to scary stories? Creepy Campfire Quarterly features horror fiction from some of the most talented writers across the globe. Dark, disturbing, dramatic, or just down right creepy, these stories will entertain you. And perhaps the next time you are around a campfire, you’ll find yourself recounting a few of these haunting tales…Featuring works from the newest crop of modern horror writers: Adrian Ludens,Melanie Cole,Eric I. Dean,Aaron Wright,Daniel Blokh,Joe Nazare,Phil Slattery,Caitlin Marceau,W. E. Mitchell,Michael Siciliano,Lawrence Buentello,Gregory L. Norris,Ken MacGregor,Mark Silcox,Tonia Thompson,Franklyn Searight,Marc Sorondo,Brandon Crilly

Creepy Campfire Quarterly: Issue #3

Wright, Aaron

Cole, Melanie

Marceau, Caitlin

Dean, Eric I.

Blokh, Daniel

Nazare, Joe

Slattery, Phil

Mitchell, W. E.

Siciliano, Michael

The first volume of a new journal of weird/horror fiction. Featuring fiction from Jason A Wyckoff, Lucy A Snyder, Betty Rocksteady, Michael Kelly, C C Adams, Tim Jeffreys, Terence Hannum, Andrew Wilmot, Adrian Ludens, Matt Thompson, Alana I Capria, J Daniel Stone, and Jordan Kurella. Non-fiction from Jose Cruz and James Newman. An interview with filmmaker Philip Gelatt. Interior art by Lee Harrington, Christian Weiland, and Matt Andrew. Cover painting by Matt Tisdale. Edited by Benjamin Holesapple.

Turn to Ash, Volume 1

Snyder, Lucy A.

Rocksteady, Betty

Thompson, Matt

Wyckoff, Jason A.

Jeffreys, Tim

Adams, C.C.

Wilmot, Andrew

Holesapple, Benjamin

Hannum, Terence

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