First Contact Horror

Zilfaquir is having a bad day. Shin-Sho Corporation dispatched his emergency engineering team (EET) to the remote ice planet, Xiao 2, to investigate a communications blackout. The Xiao 2 facility, composed of three subsurface ocean stations, awaits his team below hundreds of meters of ice and kilometers underwater. Upon arrival, he discovers the Xiao 2 facility has experienced an epidemic, leaving most of the station’s personnel either dead or dying. Or transforming. Worse, the stations are in danger of imploding due to sabotage.

We’ve recorded some 400+ stories since 2015 here at HorrorBabble. This collection comprises some of our very favorites. From Blackwood's evocative "The Transfer", through to Smith's terrifying visit to the vaults of Yoh-Vombis, there’s something here to strike fear into the heart of any horror enthusiast....

X doesn’t have a name. He thought he had one—or many—but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X. He’s also not as human as he believes himself to be. But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species.

Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

One month ago, an urban explorer was drawn to an abandoned asylum in the mountains of northern Massachusetts. There he discovered a large specimen jar, containing something organic, unnatural, and possibly alive. Now, he and a group of unsuspecting individuals have discovered one of history's most horrific secrets. Whether they want to be or not, they are caught in the middle of a millennia-old war, and the latest battle is about to begin.

Bent on taking over the earth, the deadly Thone have planted a monstrous device on our planet's surface. Trapped inside is a group of scientists, spies, and innocent bystanders. Part maze, part torture chamber, part laboratory, the house of doors is a test. If its captives survive, the Thone will withdraw from earth and leave us in peace.

Communications specialist Alto’s shift aboard the starship M.G. Yellowjacket turns hellish after waking from a tryst to learn every crewmate has vanished. Worse, a sinister presence has crawled aboard the ship. It’s violent, destructive, and it can reach into your thoughts to make you see and feel what it wants. Anxiety-ridden Alto might be the least-qualified person to face a creature that can hack minds like computers. Only a perilous journey to the ship’s bridge can reunite comms specialist with crew and give them a chance to call for help.

The most shocking, true encounter you will ever listen to...In the summer of 2008, Tom made the move from Wisconsin to Idyllwild, California, where he intended to embrace a change of scenery and a healthier lifestyle, while continuing to grow his successful online business. Shortly after the move, Tom began experiencing strange and grim happenings around his property. He initially presumed that someone was messing with him...that was until he came face to face with something he never thought existed.

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation but which haunts the Signalman. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

I would do anything for my ladies. ANYTHING. And when it turns out their enemies are threatening to end everything I and my new friends care about, I figure it's time to step up. Focusing on my powers and building alliances, we go to take on the hunters, enter the link to our worlds, and kick some major butt. I might just find love along the way.

Nothing much ever happens in Millville, a small, secluded middle-American community - until the day Brad Carter discovers he is unable to leave. It's not just the nearly bankrupt real estate agent who's being held prisoner; every other resident is also being confined within the town's boundaries by an invisible force field that cannot be breached. As local tensions rapidly reach a breaking point, a set of bizarre circumstances leads Brad to the source of their captivity.

After three years of exile from humanity's war against the Kurians, David Valentine returns to battle. The Lifeweavers, Earth's allies in the conflict, have mostly vanished, but those that remain are held captive by an overlord known as the Seattle Kurian. To free them, Valentine must convince the legendary resistance fighter known as Adler to join his cause. But the "Old Man" is something of an overlord himself....

For two years in deep space, the freighter Demeter and a small crew have collected botanical life from other planets. It's a lesson in patience and hell. Mechanics Ensign Raina is ready to jump ship, if only because her abusive ex is also aboard, as well as her overbearing boss. It's only after a foreign biological creature sneaks aboard and wreaks havoc on the ship and crew that Raina must find her grit - and maybe create a gadget or two - to survive...that is, if the crew members don't lose their sanity and turn on each other in the process.

No longer bound to Earth or the Core Sol System, the human race has expanded into the far beyond, seeding itself throughout the final frontier. It has been a time of great expansion, hope, and progress. These remote colonies, some found at the fringes of the Outer Rim, rely on supplies brought to them by deep-space commercial shipping vessels, which transport the needed goods and commodities to keep humanity alive and thriving in the most remote and austere locations.

For Flight Engineer Cynthia Han and her fellow astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 81 has proved as mundane as space travel ever gets. Yes, this would be Cynthia’s final NASA mission, for reasons she has so far kept from the rest of the crew; and yes, the latest billionaire “space tourist” has managed to irritate everyone on board. Still, none of them could have asked for a smoother experience. Until the morning they wake up to silence. All communication with Earth, gone.

Dak Korasa believed he was a galaxy-exploring archaeologist and expert in alien antiquities. But his body is merely a vessel, grown in a laboratory to find and play host to an alien parasite species known as the chok’tal. Possessed by this entity, Dak was granted superhuman abilities as well as the consciousness of the chok’tal’s previous host: special forces soldier Jekra Modri. Now, he’s a Purifier, one of the deadliest predators in the universe. But to survive, Dak must earn “kill points” in combat—or the chok’tal within his body will kill him.

In the tumultuous aftermath of the Qhan of Kil'Dur's assassination by a zealous cult, a devastating alien species descends upon Earth, unleashed by the Qhan's bereaved mate. Amidst this chaos stands Calla Shepherd, an 18-year-old misfit with an unassuming power that holds the key to mankind's salvation.

A catastrophic event forces the crew of an underwater research base to evacuate into cold and dark waters. Cut off and alone from the surface, no help is coming.

Seven thousand meters below the ocean’s surface, the crew of the BathyTech 3 mineral mining facility has found something remarkable: a rock-like sphere of unknown material and origin. For Mo Rees, the discovery calls to his inner explorer and adds color to his dull miner’s life. Even better than the promise of new knowledge is the unexpected connection he forges with Dr. Armin Savage-Hall, leader of the team brought down to study the thing.

Leviathan centipedes. Ravenous wasps. Moon universities. Viscoelastic AI's in the nude. One upstart anthropologist trying to learn echolocation. A tortured weapons dealer dodging exploding flowers. Predator Moons is equal parts horror and wonder. It's Dune meets Pokémon, with a splash of Blade Runner and a touch of Annihilation.