Showing results by narrator "Cheryl May" in All Categories

At 7:02 PM on Valentines Day, every phone goes dead. No warning. No signal. No help. This is not a blackout. This is the moment everything breaks. When an EMP hits without warning, the only goal left is finding the person you love.

The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird features twenty-five brand-new stories of disquieting and disturbing "New Weird" horror set in landscapes and communities on the edge of the sea. These unsettling stories de-familiarize the ordinary, evoke dread in the daylight, and haunt like half-remembered nightmares. They are tales of mysticism, psychedelia, outsiders, obsessions, collapsed boundaries, weird sea life, and the total abandonment reason. Welcome to the your stay behind the curtain. Please check your sanity at the door.

When an EMP strike plunges the country into chaos, off-grid homesteader May Bloom must survive a collapsing world and find her missing sister before it's too late. As panic spreads and systems fail, May’s quiet town becomes ground zero for a disaster no one saw coming.

A solar flare wipes out power across the Arctic outpost where Jenna and her team are stationed. Cut off from the world, with the cold closing in and something stalking the perimeter, survival means more than just staying warm. It means facing what's out there.

They sent the kids to the woods to fix them. Then the EMP hit, and the woods became something else entirely. Harmony has eight troubled teenagers, three days of food, and zero contact with the outside world. The rules don't apply anymore. The teens know it. She knows it. And whatever is stalking the edges of their camp knows it too. Survival out here won't come down to supplies. It'll come down to who breaks first.

Power’s gone. Rules are gone. Mercy is gone. Stephanie thought she’d outrun her survivalist roots forever. A mom who built a life of normalcy for her twins, she buried every knot-tying, fire-starting, threat-spotting lesson her father forced on her. Then the grid collapsed. As cities turn into killing fields and armed packs hunt the unprepared, those buried lessons claw their way back. To keep her girls breathing, she must become the predator she once feared most.

In a world engulfed by darkness, the courageous determination of Jennifer Smith shines as the lone beacon of hope in a landscape destroyed by bitter cold and chaos. Stripped of technology, humanity teeters on the brink of collapse. Starvation grips the land as ruthless gangs ascend, engaged in a battle for supremacy in this new, savage world.

29 Brand-New Sci-Fi Horror Stories. The future is now, and it's not what we were promised. The optimistic science fiction of old was wrong. Progress is not linear, technology creates as many problems as it solves, and the concept of a better tomorrow has become an abstraction that is in no way guaranteed. When looking at the future now, we no longer ask what is possible, we wonder how we'll cope. Contained within this anthology are 29 never-before-published works by supremely talented authors.

31 Brand-New Dark Fantasy Horror Stories. Bloody corridors of ancient rock. A castle surrounded by poisonous thorns. A lost temple of traps and corpses. A subaqueous cave at the bottom of a cursed lake. These are the places where secrets are buried, where ancient evils are summoned, where beasts are imprisoned, where the insane lie in wait. These are tombs of darkness and nightmare, where if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back. Heed the warnings of your elders and return from whence you came. Ahead lie monster lairs.

Twenty miles, a blizzard, and the chaos of an EMP stand between Nick Franklin and reuniting with his family. Nick has spent his life preparing for this very moment. Now that the time has arrived to enact his emergency plan, Nick must decide how much of his humanity he will sacrifice to save his family.

After inheriting Cravenhill Manor, Grace Montgomery and her children quickly realize their new home comes with more than just creaky floors and cold drafts. A malevolent spirit known as the Lady haunts the manor’s halls, and she has her sights set on Tommy, Grace’s son. Desperate to protect her family, Grace enlists the help of Emily, a medium, and Michael Merlyn, a powerful exorcist whose snark hides painful secrets.

When an EMP cripples the nation, Charlie is one of the few prepared to survive. What would you risk to save your family? Former United States Department of Defense contractor Charlie Owens resigned from his position with the government to live a life off-grid. After building a cabin on a small island in the Pacific Northwest, the detonation of an EMP sets into motion a series of events that will test Charlie and his family in ways he never imagined.

Calamity James, a reluctant paranormal detective, returns to her hometown for the first time in ten years to attend her aunt’s funeral. When the local sheriff blackmails her into helping with a missing persons case, Cal can’t say no. Using her unique gift, sharp wits, and even sharper tongue, Cal flirts with death to solve the case. In Red River, the dead talk, and Cal is the only person who can hear them.

After a brutal breakup and a dramatic workplace walkout, Lana Lee figures that helping wait tables at her family's restaurant is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead set on finding her a husband. Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead - after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy?

Our Love Will Devour Us is a novel about the bonds of family, the depths of love, and things that hunger in the dark.

An EMP bomb blasts a small town in Pennsylvania back to primitive times. Former Marine Raider Lori, a committed survivalist, finds herself in a race against the coming winter and a growing foreign threat to ensure her family's survival. As society crumbles around her, will Lori's meticulous preparation be sufficient, or will she fall to the encroaching chaos and snow?

An EMP strike shatters the nation. Keith flees biker gangs, his daughter is trapped in mall rubble, and his wife fights through burning streets. Their only hope is Eddie’s off-grid mountain homestead. Survival, family, and chaos collide in this explosive thriller.

When an EMP wipes out the power grid, Caroline Thompson is alone on the family ranch while her husband, Luke, and their son are stranded in Fort Worth as chaos erupts. With no power, no law, and danger at every turn, Caroline must fight her way into the collapsing city to find them. But bringing her family back together is only the beginning. Looters are closing in, determined to take everything Caroline has fought to protect as their ranch turns into a battleground for survival.

When a pulse kills the world’s power, wildlife biologist Lisa is trapped in the mountains with Natasha and her daughter Regan. Electronics fail. Roads turn violent. With no way home, survival means staying hidden, trusting each other, and never returning to the crowds.

After a mysterious blackout shatters society, Samantha and her dog Dean journey through looted cities and treacherous wilds. Haunted by her parents’ deaths and unable to save a wounded survivor, she finds an unlikely ally in Gabriel. As danger closes in, a hidden bunker may be their last chance at hope.