Kirjahaku

A collection of weird, dark stories and millennial anxieties.In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term.A young couple's reunited with their lost son whose favorite fuzzy bear suit connects him to the ghost of a vengeful mama bear while he's alone in the forest.A jaded screenwriter can’t escape the haunted screenplay that’s ruined his career.A man returns to his small hometown, where the people are gone and the trees have taken over.A Slasher and Final Girl brother-sister duo match wits and blades against a sentient, dimension-hopping apocalypse at a never-ending summer camp.From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

A collection of weird, dark stories and millennial anxieties.In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term.A young couple is reunited with their lost son whose favorite fuzzy bear suit connects him to the ghost of a vengeful mama bear while he's alone in the forest.A jaded screenwriter can’t escape the haunted screenplay that’s ruined his career.A man returns to his small hometown, where the people are gone and the trees have taken over.A Slasher and Final Girl brother-sister duo match wits and blades against a sentient, dimension-hopping apocalypse at a never-ending summer camp.From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

Living in a society conditioned to fear him, young Antoine Santiago rides the New York subway and communes with the dead. With a love of history inherited from his late father, the city's storied past is now the only friend to this loner obsessed with a long-forgotten legend about the life and tragic death of a fabled giant ape.Armed with a bargain-basement occult instruction manual and a backpack of bananas, Antoine summons the spirit of the Great Gargantuana-a kaiju-sized primate that haunts the F Train-and vows to reunite her with the only friend she knew before meeting her end on Brooklyn's elevated tracks: Lettie, the feisty daughter of her captor, who's now living as an elderly shut-in.One miraculous evening these three outsiders, shunned by a modern, gentrifying society that barely acknowledges their existence, converge for an alarming and otherworldly adventure of unimaginable monsters, paranormal activity and improbable friendships in this tale of NYC's not-so-hidden magic and the cherished found families forged in the shadow of the Big Apple.REVIEWS FOR GARGANTUANA'S GHOST: "A heart-wrenching tale of old loves and fresh wounds; of what it means to find hope and strength in the dying embers of a life, or the loneliness of youth. A fresh, welcome take on what horror can mean." - Philip Fracassi, author of A Child Alone with Strangers"Gargantuana's Ghost is a delightful surprise, a story unlike any I've read. At turns nostalgic, heartbreaking, tense and terrifying, Patrick Barb has managed to do something completely unique. A treasure." - Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and Below"An urban fantasy grounded in the reality of human cruelty, Gargantuana's Ghost is as unexpected as it is poignant. Barb infuses his unique characters with so much beauty, pain, and hope." - J.A.W. McCarthy, author of Sometimes We're Cruel and Other Stories"With a Kong-sized beating heart at its center, Patrick Barb has created an enchanting story. His deft hand takes us on a journey by way of subway and steamships, through jungles both urban and exotic, to the realms of loss and love." - C.B. Jones, author of The Rules of the Road"With its staccato pacing, alternating perspectives, and brutal earnestness, Gargantuana's Ghost harnesses the rhythms of life in New York City. But more than just a paean to a great city, Patrick Barb has created a work of fantasy that grounds itself, not in spite of, but through its fantastical elements." - Aubrey Sitterson, comics writer on The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling and No One Left to FightProudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the independent home of multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated dark fiction titles.Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive

It's 1999 and Fallen Church, New Hampshire is ready for Y2K. But they never planned for Goodman Pryce.As the new millennium approaches, outcast teen Josey's school video project for history class inadvertently leads to the resurrection of Pryce, a demonic witch-hunter from the 1600s. As he unleashes puritanical Hell on Earth in her small New England town, Josey must rely on her best friend, an ancestor accused of witchcraft, and the mystical powers inside herself to put an end to the Night of the Witch-Hunter once and for all."The modern day Goosebumps for adults." -Horror Obsessive