About Of Men and Monsters:
In June of 1975, Ryan Baxter's mom moves him and his brother, Matt, to the small seaside town of Bayport, MA to escape their abusive father. For an eleven-year-old, spending lazy days hanging out at the beach and the arcades sounds like a dream.
When he meets Leah and she agrees to be his girlfriend, Ryan is happier than he's been in his young life. Then the "Sea Monkeys" knock-off he bought from the back of a comic book starts to grow...and grow and grow.
As Ryan and Matt struggle with their new lives and new friends, they begin to receive mysterious phone calls. As the sea monster in their house begins to get out of control, the real monster draws nearer to Bayport in the shape of their father.
Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
Excerpt:
“Hey,” I almost-shouted, “I forgot to tell you something.”
“What,” Matt said with a smirk, “you’ve got your own television show?”
I laughed. “No, the sea monkey things…thing.”
“What about it?”
We were almost to the house. “Easier if I show you.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Matt said, awestruck.
I’d made him wait in the hall while I opened the door a crack just to make sure the thing hadn’t escaped. When I opened the door wide enough to let him in, his jaw fell open and his eyes bugged out. “What are you gonna do with it? What if it keeps growing?”
“That reminds me, it’s probably hungry. I’m out of the stuff they sent me. What should I feed it?”
“That thing looks like it will eat anything,” he breathed.
“I’m going to go raid the fridge, I’ll be right back.”
I ran down the stairs and returned a minute later with an assortment of fruits and vegetables and some hot dogs. I noticed Matt had backed up into the hall. I stepped by him and stood near the tub, pondering what to try first. The creature stopped doing its laps around the tub and I swear it was watching me, waiting. I dropped an apple in and the creature was on it before the splash. It used its tentacles to bring it toward its mouth, then its jaws spread and I saw that its teeth had grown in deadly proportion with the rest of it. They were like shark’s teeth, rows and rows of them. Then the apple was gone. I stepped back, glancing nervously at Matt. The creature floated there, waiting.
I took in a shaky breath, watching those tentacles swaying back and forth, so fluid and graceful—
“Ryan!” Matt had a deathtrap on my upper arm.
I shook my head and stepped back. I tossed the rest of the food into the tub. The creature went into a frenzy, grabbing at things with its tentacles—with I noted had some sort of hooked prongs on their underside—then tossing them away to latch onto something else. It stopped with the hot dogs, devouring them savagely, almost gleefully. Matt pulled me into the hall and closed the door.
My heart was doing laps and my entire body was shaking, vibrating. “We have to get rid of that thing,” I said, my voice scratchy and full of dread.
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About Tom Deady:
Tom Deady's first novel, Haven, won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. He has since published several novels, novellas, and a short story collection. Tom has several publications, including the sequel to Eternal Darkness and the first in his YA horror series, The Clearing, coming out in 2021. He has a Master's Degree in English and Creative Writing and is a member of both the Horror Writers Association and the New England Horror Writers Association.
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