Showing results by author "Kevin Candela" in All Categories

In this wildly imaginative and bullet-fast tale of advanced warrior legions eager to escape their banishment in a parallel dimension, an unlikely band of heroic women, bold and reckless enough to stand in their way, are humanity’s only hope against an impending incursion by a highly advanced army of invisible, disc-riding warriors.

A Year in the Borderlands writer Kevin Candela's wild second excursion into alternate realities includes 17 tales, twelve of which have appeared in previously released anthologies and are collected here for the first time. These short stories combine with five never before released works, including the novella It's Only Funny if You Laugh, to produce a wide-ranging panoramic view of the worlds and realities that exist beyond our own. Playing With Reality is another vividly detailed page in the Atlas of the Unknown.

In 1972, the Red Bozos were the friendliest faces in frenetic Midlands Amusement Park. Flash forward four and a half decades: Midlands is a ghost park. Closed long ago and nearly forgotten, even by the locals, it sits shrouded in undergrowth and hill-topping forest surrounded by upscale new homes. Ringed with a decaying fence, hidden from sight, it presents a huge temptation to a group of bored, thrill-seeking youths who are about to learn that terror is, in fact, immortal.

Gray, leaden clouds blot out the sky, a cold wind chills your bones, and a frantic whispering is heard among the trees. What is happening? There is no need to ask, for you already know the truth: The terror of Trick-or-Treat Thrillers Best Paranormal has returned for yet another year.... Whether it is a monster from your worst nightmares, an ancient evil that should not still live, a mysterious entity hiding near your home, or even your own demonic family members waiting to pounce, our authors know what frightens you.

Erno the vole is on a mission to beat the Gardener's brilliant series of tomato garden defenses. He may be the greatest vole thief and acrobat in...well...at least the neighborhood - but that doesn't mean he's up for the challenges ahead. He'll need all his wits, wisdom, strength, and stamina if he wants to take a bite out of those luscious pink-orange tomatoes tonight.

It’s that time of year again. In the shadows, otherworldly creatures lurk, under the gravestones, the dead begin to rise, and in that old house down the lane, ghosts rattle their chains. For once more, Trick or Treat Thrillers brings you our pick of the best Indie-paranormal short stories for 2020! Before you begin listening to our selection of 13 stories, however, we recommend you first check under your bed, in your closet, and outside of your window. You never know what may be coming your way.

In Vapor, a man trying to collect his thoughts turns at the sound of screams to see other patrons dissolving right in front of his eyes. He makes a panicked escape, but that's only the beginning of his problems - because he's a witness to what happened, and that can't be allowed. Then in Chiller, an uneasy alliance of corporate-minded "pioneers" and scientists come across something impossible: a spot under the ice with a temperature reading of close to 200 degrees below zero. Tense debate ensues...until the anomaly vanishes. But it's not gone, it just moved.

Working on the High-Altitude Atmospheric and Light Observatory research platform 16 miles above Earth's surface , Crystal Calhoun is used to an alien form of existence. But when she dreams through the waking eyes of a shipboard peer, the game changes, and when she learns that the same thing is happening to others, her paranoia kicks in and she seeks to understand what's happening. The problem is that even the people running the entire operation don't have a clue, and what's worse is that they're more confused and worried than she is. Crystal becomes determined to get to the truth.

Months have passed, the trail has grown cold, and ZC has all but given up when out of the blue, a back road diversion leads him to the mystical, but apparently not mythical Bizarre - a place where all kinds of beings want all kinds of things...and barter and gamble to get them. He's about to meet some utterly strange new friends, including a dogman named Ekos, a human-like woman with a nest of serpents for a head, and a gigantic bat-dragon that doesn't like being referred to as either.

In Ghost in the Sky, the first installment in the Bob the Interdimensional Trucker series, Sam Gage has picked up an enigmatic motorist whose mere presence, it seems, is making Gage hear the sound of a small propeller-driven passenger airplane...or maybe even a crop duster. But whatever is really making the sound, which his rider can't hear, is not only keeping pace with Gage's truck at an impossibly slow speed for airplane flight - it's also invisible.

A seven percent grasp of the infinite. The universe may be limitless, but our senses are not. Just as the human eye sees but a small percentage of the cosmic wave spectrum, in the same way, most of us are only able to perceive a similar sliver of what we brazenly term “reality”, even with the use of all five of our scientifically acknowledged senses. This month-by-month account of people-supernatural relations spans its own sci-fi/fantasy/horror/comedy spectrum, touring the weird side of the cosmos while leaving the passengers comfy and unscathed in their listening chairs.

Take a freakishly harrowing journey with an ordinary person who comes to realize that his nightmares have manifested as a power of sorts...though his "gift" is anything but welcome as it stalks and murders at will. The powers of the mind and the campfire scare stories of childhood merge in Tickles: A Little Bedtime Horror Story, creating a monstrous darkness

In these two "inspired by actual accounts" but still entirely fictional tales, a pair of challengers of the unknown go one on one with two of the world's most famous mysterious legends. In "Beneath Still Waters", a lake-dwelling giant creature draws a devoted paranormal investigator into a staggering encounter that goes far beyond a blurry photo of something with a long neck and humps passing by a Loch Ness excursion boat.

Picture an Oz straight out of pulp detective fiction, one featuring a trio of hilariously overcompensating heroes: the No Longer Cowardly Lion, the Too Much Heart Tin Man and the Brainy If Still Not Wise Scarecrow. Put them on the trail of a mystery so twisted and deep that they're in way over their heads before they've even set foot outside the Wizard's palace.

Gigantic centipedes born of genetic engineering and experimental pesticides and fertilizers storm a small farming community, running down and devouring everything on two legs, in this exciting new tale of suburban terror and mayhem.

Time Weathers didn’t so much mind the car breakdown...just another hassle, albeit at an extremely inconvenient locale. But now reality itself is threatening to do the same, and she’s not quite as adaptable to that. Time was just minding her own business, ambling along on an old road under the blistering Nevada sun, hoping for the kind of road rescue help you aren’t typically going to find in the middle of the desert anyway, when the disconnected phone in the dusty booth outside the dilapidated gas station she was passing began to ring.

From the writer of Ghost Hunter, Little Women with Big Guns, and Krakenstein vs. Koalatron comes an unforgettable excursion into the depths of the unknown. Loaded end to end with chills, this terrifying narrative is loosely based on accounts of encounters with the legendary Pukwudgie, a cryptozoological "myth" originating in Massachusetts' mysterious Bridgewater Triangle.

The Red Bozos were the friendliest faces in frenetic Midlands Amusement Park. Security personnel, yes, but they were more than that, for lost children seeing one of those garish outfits and the sympathetic smile on the painted face atop it knew they would soon be reunited with their parents.

One thing a sneak thief needs is ambition, and Sal and Gazel certainly don't come up short there. Sure, they're mainly just ripping off low profile places like out of the way frontier museums...but they have big plans.

Here collected for the first time are the thrilling and hopefully hilarious tales of the world's most embarrassed superhero. "Everyman" Race Harleson just wanted to do his guard shift and pick up his check - so the cosmos decided he'd get to be special, giving him Superman-like powers including strength, flight, and virtual invulnerability...so long as he's completely naked while he fights crime and saves the world.