First Contact Horror

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

When CIA Special Operations officer Major Jim Carter is sent to the town of Serene, Texas, he's still grieving for Agent Cathy Abbey, who was not only a fellow agent—but the woman he loved. And the woman he chose to shoot rather than let Al-Shabaab insurgents abduct her. A decision that haunts him. When Carter arrives in Serene, it's to discover that all one hundred and twenty-one citizens of the town have been murdered by insectoid creatures assumed to be extraterrestrials. None of the authorities know how the aliens arrived on Earth or what their intentions are.

Across America a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families. Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common.

Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over. She's wrong. A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate and is ignoring all incoming transmissions. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen. For all the dangers of the mission, it's the shot at redemption she always longed for.

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.

In the deepest, darkest depths of space, the stars are cold, malevolent eyes looking across a vast graveyard of the unknown, the unnameable, and the undead. Here the planets are tombs and the moons haunted catacombs. And here are extraterrestrial nightmares beyond imagining. There is no benevolent first contact. No utopian worlds. Only alien horrors.

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....

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.

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.

Michael Kanuckel's story creeped me out from the start. It has moments that combine classic VHS movies like McQueen's The Blob and some from John Carpenters The Thing. It does this with minimal characters and locations and uses its uniquely crafted story to conjure up images straight from nightmares. The characters are drawn so well that they are real. Their (and your own) fear becomes truly and horrifically tangible. When you enter this desolate nightmare, it leaves you wanting more. It has one of the best cliff-hangers I have read.

In book 5 of the Colony Ship Warren series, Beth and Allen find themselves trapped in a vacant place surrounded by deserts. Yet they soon realize that they cannot sit idly by while the Colony Ship Warren is threatened. They risk a dangerous trek to escape and find some assistance. Yet in the vast recesses of the Warren, there awaits horrors which Beth and Allen cannot imagine. What will happen if Beth and Allen encounter one of those horrors?

It's supposed to be a simple job, a look-see operation to make sure something terrible hasn't happened. The leader is prone to fits of violence, and there are rumors of previous human rights abuses. Only, when they arrive, the ship is...empty. The question is - where did everybody go? Armed only with riot gear, they explore the ship, intent on discovering the truth about what's happened on The Ark. What they find will be more nightmarish than anything they've seen before. Indeed, it's worse than anything they could imagine.

After years of hiding in plain sight, the alien race known as the Taus are finally ready to get off this planet. But before they do, they need one thing first. Carl. No one could have imagined the true intentions of the Facebook event “Storm Area 51” or the dire consequences that would befall all those that came seeking answers beyond the gates.

Millions of threads so thin as to be invisible, so vaporous as to be ductile, drift through the classroom, emitting a chill and leaving a sense of unease. Hidden deep in their cloaks, the Blue Lights analyze the odors that cling to the individual cells of every child, from the top of each little head to the bottom of their ticklish feet and every dark secret place in between, from their gathering brains to their blood-soaked spleens. One girl feels dizzy; one boy throws up.