Dark Comedy Horror Fiction

An American couple travel to a strange, snowy European city to adopt a baby, who they hope will resurrect their failing marriage. This difficult journey leaves the wife, who is struggling with cancer, desperately weak, and her husband worries that her apparent illness will prevent the orphanage from releasing their child. The couple check into the cavernous and eerily deserted Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel where the bar is always open and the restaurant serves 13-course dinners from centuries past.

Clive Menard is just an ordinary guy living an ordinary life. But when a talking spider crawls inside his head, things get a lot less ordinary…and people start dying. Could an itsy-bitsy arachnid be behind the killing spree terrorizing Clive’s community? To evade a sharp detective and find a murderer among friends, Clive must shake the cobwebs loose and piece together the puzzle of his life, all without falling prey to a dark force beyond his comprehension.

Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein. You've lived with the stories your whole life. You've read the tales. You've watched the films. But what if the stories were different? What if the things you read about these monsters were warped and twisted? Here lie stories you may not have heard. Stories both weird and shocking. Bizarre and grotesque. Alternate versions of your favorite classic monsters you've never read and never will again. Featuring 13 stories by Jonathan Moon, The Sisters of Slaughter, Tom Lucas and more!

What would you do if you found out that your family's only source of survival was being infected by demons from the foulest depth of Hell? Call local demon hunters, of course. Marty and Kevin and the Wolf are back for another round of battling evil. This time it’s personal. When the Garcia Family and the city of DenMark are attacked by an ancient race of Draconian devils, our heroes fall right into the lap of action.

Since 1985, more than 500 overweight teenagers have come to Camp Wašíču looking to lose weight, gain self-confidence, and turn their lives around. Phillip McCracken arrives, weighing in at almost 400 pounds; but the baggage he carries from the past affects him much more deeply than the numbers of the scale. When a homicidal maniac hell-bent on revenge attacks, Phillip will be forced to either find the courage to save the people around him or fall victim to his own self-doubt...and possibly a machete.

Most people have regrets. Ask them. They will tell you about the opportunities they missed, the dreams they left behind, and the memories of lost loves, locked away until their journeys end. We have no such luxuries, those of us entangled with the dead. It is our job as exorcists to guide them from this world, and finish their unfinished business, even if it means searching for 300 missing souls. This is a recollection of my first case, from a time when I thought nothing of the shadows beneath my feet.

The deathly silence is about to be broken. She disliked the company of others and death did little to warm her spirit. She had led an independent life and she faced death in much the same way. She was finally alone, finally free from the mindless babble of others, at least that's what she thought. May Elizabeth Trump was the rarest of spirits and she was none too happy about it either. She was a dead medium, a ghost who can speak with the living, and her services were to become in great demand.

A woman wakes up, frightened and alone - with no idea where she is. She's in a room but it's shaking and jumping like it’s alive. Stumbling through a door, she realises she is in a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead. This is the Night Train. A bizarre ride on a terrifying locomotive, heading somewhere into the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead?

Life is hard. Change is difficult. But adjusting to being a ghost? Well, that is just darn near impossible. And Bridget Sway is struggling. It's not just the job, the uniform, the housemates, the rules, the community service. It's everything. And now she's facing a week-long group assessment to evaluate her adjustment.As if that isn't bad enough, some inconsiderate soul has shoved another dead ghost in her locker. Things are looking bleak for Bridget. If she fails the assessment, she'll be "re-educated."

Will's immortal tales often have a higher body count than a teenage slasher flick—and just as many freakish creatures, and author David Bergantino's retrofitting has turned Shakespeare's centuries-old classics into modern-day fright fests! At Globe University, romance is...complicated. Lenore likes Dimitri who likes Mia who likes Xander who, okay, likes Mia, too. When these mismatched couples are paired off for a summer school “parenting” assignment, trouble is clearly on the horizon—even before a spooky, old-fashioned carnival rolls into town.

In the spirit of the shot-on-video horror of the '80s, Meat Photo is a transgressive, absurd horror comedy and the love child of Andersen Prunty and C. V. Hunt. Meat photos are the hottest trend. Everyone has one or is willing to do anything to get one. It’s all anyone can talk about on social media. Grab your meat photo. Wear it like a mask. Join the Great Migration to the local Dollar General.

Tod Donavon (59), Las Madres Police Department, has detected something horribly wrong with his ex-wife, and it just might have something to do with the thrill-kill cult he's investigating. And possibly his frequent blackouts. If only Internal Affairs would quit chewing his ring, he could finally get some work done and maybe even find some of these missing kids. Someone's not doing their job, but if he's left alone to do his, there won't be any work left, nor anyone to do it.

After a terrible prank gone wrong, three young men, Topher, Michael, and Kenneth find themselves at Raleigh's Prep, a juvenile detention center for the delinquent children of the fantastically rich. Basically, juvie for rich kids. The boys think they're going to serve out their time, finish their education, but then, three weeks into their term, they find a mangled body on the practice fields.

Everybody hates their homeowner’s association, and nobody likes a zombie apocalypse. Put the two together, and Withrow Surrett is having a truly craptastic night. Not to mention the fact that he’s got one big secret to keep from the idiots in his home - Withrow is a vampire.

Spring Etienne is a pretty, charming 15-year-old psychopath who will do anything to bring herself out of poverty - including seducing a lonely older man. Hank is indeed a lonely older man - but he is also an incubus who feeds on the dreams of his victims. Together, they form a bizarrely functional, darkly comedic couple. When a murder forces the couple to flee to Hank's homeland in Germany, they are drawn deep into the world of the incubi - a world where Spring fits in very, very well.

Vampires have walked among us for thousands of years. These reanimated corpses survive by draining and consuming the blood of the living, and their threat to humanity cannot be ignored. Throughout the centuries, professors and peasants have offered their own vampire-fighting tips, but these were often old wives' tales, based more on superstition than on fact. Here, for the first time, is a comprehensive vampire-fighting guide for the 21st century.

This is the story of a drug deal gone bad. Having committed the crime of selling a potent poison to a desperate youth, a destitute apothecary must decide how to spend his ill-gained fortune. Resolving to start his career afresh, he flees to the city of Verona to set up a new shop of medicinal healing and alchemical discovery. Plans go awry when he finds himself in the middle of a woeful tragedy he had unwittingly helped to cause.

Reanimate yourself for success with advice on life, love, and work from the undead!

Jaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families with lighthearted slapstick antics, but people think of clowns as terrifying, nightmarish creatures who hide in closets or under beds. When Jaunty, along with his fellow performers, are fired from the circus, they're told that the world just doesn't like clowns anymore. Still, clowns have to eat. And since these clowns don't eat children, to make ends meet they're eventually forced to take a job in a popular haunted attraction, the Mountain of Terror. But millions of oversized spiders are about to invade....

Canadian author James K. Moran's debut collection of dark fiction offers fantasy, sci-fi, and horror shot through with hope and friendship.