The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia

 

Release date: October 13, 2023

Subgenre: Horror

 

About The Horror at Pleasant Brook:

 

This Halloween… 

A malevolent, creeping horror invades a small, isolated town nestled deep in the Adirondacks.
It cares nothing for this town’s secrets, prejudices, or flaws. Its only desires are to consume everything in its path and spread, until nothing else remains.

A small group of people stand in its way. They are the leftovers, the ignored, the excluded, and the dismissed. However, as the evil grows, they prove to be the only ones strong enough to stand and fight.

But how can they prevail against this power? It is ancient, pitiless, and unstoppable.

It is the horror at Pleasant Brook.

This horror novel is perfect for fans of Charles L. Grant, Stephen King, and Robert R. McCammon, as well as horror fiction, creeping dread, small town mystery, and suspense horror.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

 

Excerpt:

 

October 31st, 2020

Pleasant Brook

Adirondack Park, New York

7:45 PM

 

1.

 

Lisa Owen knew what she had to do. As she paced back and forth through the kitchen, smartphone ringing against her ear, headache pulsing in her temples, she understood it was finally time to accept the inevitable. Time to stop delaying what she’d put into motion. The shadows in the corners of the room stretched along the walls, whispering promises she could no longer ignore. Whispering that their time had come.

 Still, she wanted to give Robert one last chance. To answer his phone. To be her lifeline, so she didn’t have to...

“Hi, you've reached Robert Owen, Lifestyles Editor for The Poughkeepsie Journal. Please leave a message...”

She slapped the kitchen counter open-handed, savoring the sting in her flesh. She hit redial. One more chance. Just one more.

It rang two times, clicked, and then: “...Lifestyles Editor for The Poughkeepsie Journal...”

Rather than slap the counter again, Lisa hugged herself with one arm and pressed redial with her thumb. She thought just once more as she glanced around the kitchen, then out into the den. Despite the bright lights blazing in both rooms, the shadows swelled in the corners. Whispering promises to her. Things they’d give her if she’d only let them in.

She closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek.

“Not yet,” she mumbled. “Not yet.”

She opened her eyes and clenched the smartphone tight. Her gaze darted back and forth from kitchen to den. She peered into the corners, daring the shadows to crawl towards her. They quivered, but for now, remained still.

She shivered again and clutched the smartphone tighter. Telling herself she didn’t need the darkness and what it offered because everything was fine.

Just fine.

But that wasn't true, was it?

Things weren’t fine. Not after years of a barren womb. Years of miscarriages. Years of growing distance between her and Robert, pushing them farther and farther apart until they weren’t even husband and wife anymore. Now they were nothing more than roommates. Cohabitants living under the same roof and moving around each other mechanically, every day both locked in a distant dream of how things used to be before she’d failed to produce the children Robert so desperately wanted. Before he'd given up on her.

Before the parade of other women.  

Things weren't fine.

Nothing was fine.

At all.

She hated her life and everything it had become. Loathed it in a furious but quiet way, with every fiber of her being. She’d even come to hate what she’d once loved. The art surrounding her where she worked at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica. She wanted to smash hundred-year-old vases to pieces. Slash decades-old paintings into ribbons.

In fact, the only thing good about her job as the Art Curator was how it had given her access to something which could take it all away. Something which could let the shadows in and cover everything and make her forget, if only she had the courage to make it happen...

 

Amazon

 

About Kevin Lucia: 

Kevin Lucia is the eBook and trade paperback editor at Cemetery Dance Publications. His short fiction has been published in many venues, most notably with Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, David Morell, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, and Robert McCammon.

 

Never Wake: An Anthology of Dream Horror, edited by Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer

 

Release date: September 8, 2023

Subgenre: Horror anthology

About Never Wake: An Anthology of Dream Horror:

 

Where do we go when we dream?

Since the beginning of time, people have argued the meaning of dreams. Are they symbolic visions that hold great meaning and personal significance? Are they portals into other worlds? Or are they just a series of random events our mind shows us when we fall asleep? Whatever the case, this much is true - the mind can be a scary place to venture, even for a few hours.
 
NEVER WAKE is an anthology of dream horror, bringing you several mind-bending tales of nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoria from some of the hottest talent in horror fiction. But don’t worry - when you (wake up screaming) flip the last page, just remember to tell yourself, “It was only just a story…”
 
Unless it wasn’t.

Featuring an introduction from Sadie "Mother Horror" Hartmann and stories from Philip Fracassi. Eric LaRocca, Gwendolyn Kiste, Todd Keisling, Kristin Peterson, Laurel Hightower, Lee Murray, Michael Bailey, TJ Cimfel, Angela Liu, Michelle Tang, Jara Nassar, Pedro Iniguez, Joe Koch, Anaea Lay, Steve Rasnic Tem, Cynthia Pelayo, Lyndsay E. Gilbert, and Catherine McCarthy. Edited by Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer. Cover art by Don Noble.

Excerpt:

 

INTRODUCTION

SADIE HARTMANN

My mom had this big dictionary of dream interpretations my sisters and I liked to use. I’ve tried to find it online; I think I would recognize it if I saw the cover. It was so cool! If you had a dream about a dog, you could look up the word dog and then the book would break that down into different kinds of dog dreams. For instance, if the dog was scary and chasing you, that would have a whole different meaning than if the dog in your dream was friendly. And if you were bitten by a dog, that had its own meaning as well. I remember looking that up once and the book suggested that if a dog bit me in my dream, I needed to stay alert because someone close to me could be trying to take control of me or harm me. Clearly a warning about my parents ruining my life by disciplining me for no reason!

I went through a weird season of my life where I was having these horrible nightmares about my teeth falling out. They were so realistic. It wasn’t like I would just open my mouth and all my teeth just tumbled out; that wouldn’t be as bad. In my dream, my teeth were loosening; wiggling, one by one. One tooth would fall out and I would just be beside myself and then, soon after, another tooth would start loosening. The anxiety and fear I felt were so intense, I would wake up and immediately start checking my teeth to see if they were loose. Dream interpretations claim this kind of dream could indicate that you’re going through some significant life changes or difficult loss. At the time of those dreams, this felt accurate.

I mean, who knows if there is any validity to these interpretations? Regardless, our brains are manufacturing vivid stories while we sleep and it’s entirely possible there could be hidden messages in these stories that would prove to be useful to our waking life if we could somehow unlock the code. The code to the “...bad videos in my head.” In this book, Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer have curated an anthology of dream horror, nightmares, hallucinations, and
phantasmagoria.
Experimental sleep studies.
Dream journals.
Lucid dreaming.
A memory box.
A future where people visit “pillow cafés” and “pop pills to dream for days.”
Strange persistent dreams coincide with a couple’s growing penchant for violence. Some of these stories are ethereal and dreamy—nightmarish fairytales.
Others are cold, calculating, and cruel.
A particularly memorable story begins with, “Six months following his death I began having my father’s dreams.”
One story gave me a nightmare about a doll that rattles when you shake it. You’ll have to read all these gems to find out which one it was and what was inside the doll.

 

Amazon

About the Editors:

Kenneth W. Cain is an author of horror and dark fiction, and a Splatterpunk Award nominated freelance editor. To date, he has had over one hundred short stories and thirteen novels/novellas, as well as a handful each of nonfiction pieces, books for children, and poems released by many great publishers such as Crystal Lake Publishing, JournalStone, and Cemetery Gates Media. He has also edited eight anthologies, with two more coming in 2023. He lives in Chester County PA with his family and two furbabies, Butterbean and Bodhi. His full publishing history is available on his website at kennethwcain.com

 

 

Tim Meyer dwells in a dark cave near the Jersey Shore. He’s the author of more than fifteen novels, including Malignant Summer, The Switch House, Dead Daughters, Limbs, and many other titles. When he's not working on the next book, he's usually hanging out with his

wife and son, shooting around on the basketball court, playing video games, or messing with a new screenplay. He bleeds coffee and IPAs. You can learn more about his books at timmeyerwrites.com.