Dark Fantasy Short Stories

Long ago, powerful sorcerers stole the power of a god. Only the courage and sacrifice of great heroes stopped them from conquering the known world. They thought it was over. But the god who was robbed so long ago remained. He swore that long after the heroes were dead, when his power returned, he would have his vengeance on all of humanity. Now, the time of his prophecy is at hand. A band of elite desert warriors crosses the sea, hoping faith and courage will be enough to turn aside the coming apocalypse. Their leader, Prelate Yazid Valerian, seeks the mythical city of sorcerers.

Listen to the latest issue of Savage Realms Monthly and fill up on stalwart heroes doing battle with the forces of evil in this epic collection of short sword and sorcery fiction. This month brings you an exciting crop of stories; Robert Price brings us a new Thongor tale, the talented Matthew X. Gomez delivers another swashbuckling adventure, and Richard L. Rubin is here with a new mercenary mission. Don't miss the latest issue of Savage Realms!

In this magic inspired short tale, Anthony struggles with family drama as ancient magical forces and traditions resurface. Before long, the ignorant and overwhelmed lad finds himself at the mercy of a pair of sorcerer bounty-hunters. Will Anthony finally get the acceptance that he desperately seeks from his parents? Or will he chart his own path and see the different personalities in his life for who they are?

The sequel to the best-selling Zombie, Ohio, this explosive supernatural thriller from Scott Kenemore tells the story of three Chicagoans who have been thrown together by a bizarre, interconnected series of events during the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak in the Midwest's largest city. A partnership is crafted between a pastor from Chicago's rough South Side, an intrepid newspaper reporter, and a young female musician, all of whom are fighting for survival as they struggle to protect themselves and their communities in a city overrun with the walking dead.

> Berserker is a stand-alone short story, framed as a missing chapter from Paternus, the urban fantasy, mythic fiction novel, by Dyrk Ashton. It tells of the time when one of the characters finally met his father, many centuries ago.

Spiders. Magic. Horror. Guts. Sisters Skylar and Mia drive deep into the countryside to clean up their dead father's house. Little do they know that they've been followed. Listen to this story for the spider shaman magic. Remember this story in flashes during the night. Better buy some bug spray.

Created as an homage to the 1980 classic horror anthology, Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley, this collection contains 12 original novelettes showcasing today’s top horror talent. Dark Stars features all-new stories from award-winning authors and up-and-coming voices like Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Usman T. Malik, Caroline Kepnes, and Alma Katsu, with seasoned author John F.D. Taff at the helm. An afterword from original Dark Forces contributor Ramsey Campbell is a poignant finale to this bone-chilling collection.

Discover six stories sharing one impactful message in this fantasy collection.

Janell making phone calls to demonic lovers in front of her husband is just the beginning. The horrors hit home for two young men telling ghost stories while driving through the thickest fog of the year. An aging hunter summons the spirit of the Bavarian wilderness as his abilities and will begin to fade. A teacher opens his mouth to instruct his students - and finds himself speaking in the voice of his newly deceased mentor. A young woman, pregnant out of wedlock in the late 1950s, is "sent away" only to find her new home harbors strange secrets.

In this modern day fantasy short story, Shojosh paints a world of seers, sprinters and normals, humans with different or no abilities, who live alongside a world of bountiful creatures, on several of earth’s dimensions. Beneath the façade of your typical coming of age story is an atypical coming together of several mystical forces. Lana and her family are secluded from the rest of Pink Coral, a tiny town that now assumes the worst of the seldom seen and rather odd characters within the Mackenzie compound. But how groundless is the townsfolk’s fear? What evil approaches Pink Coral?

In Dark Property, a woman carries a dying baby across a desert waste, moving toward a fortress harboring a mysterious resurrection cult. Menaced by scavengers, she nevertheless begins to suspect that the reality within the fortress may be even more unsettling than the blasted environment outside. In Contagion and Other Stories, Evenson takes his audiences into a world that is at once apocalyptic, dark, observant, and grotesque without ever dipping into static genre conventions.

A secret society of immortals lives within the human world. Kane is one of them, a Sensor who experiences emotional energy through touch. But despite his good looks and easygoing personality, Kane lives a solitary life. Unlike other Sensors, he is unnaturally hypersensitive. Fate throws a curveball when a woman's life is placed in Kane's hands. He is suddenly faced with making a choice, and each comes with a consequence that will wreck him forever. Time is not on his side.

There is a secret in the house of Ikari, a doll that can walk and talk made of porcelain and gold. She fulfills many roles, one for each family member. Will she manage to keep the family whole?

Unsightly and awkward, Aoife Finnegan has never been successful in love, only in attracting the indifference or hostility of every man she’s ever met. After partaking in an experiment, she finds her luck has drastically changed - but while on an exotic cruise for singles, she may find her stark reversal in fortune is actually the rudest curse of all.

No communication. Limited power. An unbreakable will to survive. A violent blast of solar magnetic radiation plunges much of Earth into darkness. From the decaying orbit of the powerless ISS to a devolving Southeast Texas neighborhood and a secret doomsday bunker buried deep underneath the Colorado Rockies, The SpaceMan Chronicles tells the story of a stranded astronaut, his family and friends on the ground, and a shadowy conspiracy to rebuild the world in the shape of a new society.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

When the mighty and cruel must be brought low, it's the killers and the schemers who emerge from the shadows. As plans twist and change, and our protagonists are foiled and beaten, one thing remains true: no matter the cost, the king must fall.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

This is a collection of six short stories from the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes the following stories: "Slimes and Misty Wieners", "Great Balls on Fire", "Your Anus Is a Gas Giant", "Clear and Present Ranger", "The Mimic's Chest", and "Styxian Stoners May Break My Boners".

Sympathy with the sea, with the weird, and with monsters fills the stories of Imperfect Commentaries. Ruthanna Emrys' collection offers listeners feminist and #ownvoices Neo-Lovecraftian fiction, anthropological science fiction, and fantasies of belonging, plus miscellaneous deleted scenes, poems, and secret story origins. Listeners familiar with her novels (Winter Tide and Deep Roots) will see the first appearance of Aphra Marsh, an Innsmouth survivor, still recovering from her losses and making a life for herself in late-1940s San Francisco.