Jeff Strand

A scavenger hunt takes a sinister turn in the third novel in the Eek! series, tales to scare you silly!The competition just got scary.In the small town of Farlow, mysterious advertisements appear for a summer scavenger hunt. Twelve-year-old Maggie and her friends can't wait. They have their team, and more than bragging rights, they want that huge cash prize.On the big day, a strange man welcomes everybody to the game. The first items are ridiculously easy ("An egg? Seriously?"), but they quickly grow more difficult. Even a little scary. Okay, a lot scary. When the game moves to the cemetery, nobody wants to play anymore. Except now it's too late to quit…

A scavenger hunt takes a sinister turn in the third novel in the Eek series, tales to scare you silly The competition just got scary.In the small town of Farlow, mysterious advertisements appear for a summer scavenger hunt. Twelve-year-old Maggie and her friends can't wait. They have their team, and more than bragging rights, they want that huge cash prize.On the big day, a strange man welcomes everybody to the game. The first items are ridiculously easy ("An egg? Seriously?"), but they quickly grow more difficult. Even a little scary. Okay, a lot scary. When the game moves to the cemetery, nobody wants to play anymore. Except now it's too late to quit...

When the scratching starts on the tent, a backyard camping trip turns terrifying for three friends. Prepare to be scared silly in this creepy middle-grade novel for fans of R.L. Stine, Dan Poblocki, and Mary Downing Hahn.Chloe, Avery, and Madison can't wait to spend the night camping in the backyard. Smores! Spooky stories! Trading secrets! It's going to be awesome. Sure, Elijah the kid next door keeps trying to prank them, but it's all in good fun. Who doesn't like a little scare after the sun has set and the moonlight casts creepy shadows everywhere?Then the scratching starts on the tent fabric. The girls think it must be Elijah again, but there's no one outside. As the scratching gets more insistent, the girls may need to start asking WHAT is making that noise rather than WHO. Can they make it through the night?

When the scratching starts on the tent, a backyard camping trip turns terrifying for three friends. Prepare to be scared silly in this creepy middle-grade novel for fans of R.L. Stine, Dan Poblocki, and Mary Downing Hahn.Chloe, Avery, and Madison can't wait to spend the night camping in the backyard. Smores Spooky stories Trading secrets It's going to be awesome. Sure, Elijah the kid next door keeps trying to prank them, but it's all in good fun. Who doesn't like a little scare after the sun has set and the moonlight casts creepy shadows everywhere?Then the scratching starts on the tent fabric. The girls think it must be Elijah again, but there's no one outside. As the scratching gets more insistent, the girls may need to start asking WHAT is making that noise rather than WHO. Can they make it through the night?

“She glanced over her shoulder. Had the scarecrow moved? It stood there, smile stitched on its face, but now it felt like a smirk.”Prepare to be scared silly in this creepy middle-grade novel! Twins seek medical help in a remote village after their father is in a canoeing accident...only to discover the scarecrow that stands watch in town may have a stronger hold over the residents than expected. Perfect for fans of R.L. Stine, Dan Poblocki, and Mary Downing Hahn.Twins Oliver and Trisha love going on adventures with their dad. Canoeing and camping on the Champion River will be their best trip yet! But when they capsize in rapids, their father is knocked unconscious. Alone and without cell phone reception, their only choice is to continue down river for help.Hours of paddling brings them to an old dock, and a narrow path leads them to a small village. The townspeople are kind and helpful, but strangely focused on the giant scarecrow in the village square. “He watches over us,” the twins are told in whispers. “He keeps us safe.”An old woman warns the twins not to spend the night in the village. Not if they ever want to leave. But with the sun soon to set and their father not well enough to be moved, how can they escape? More importantly, can they survive?

"She glanced over her shoulder. Had the scarecrow moved? It stood there, smile stitched on its face, but now it felt like a smirk."Prepare to be scared silly in this creepy middle-grade novel Twins seek medical help in a remote village after their father is in a canoeing accident...only to discover the scarecrow that stands watch in town may have a stronger hold over the residents than expected. Perfect for fans of R.L. Stine, Dan Poblocki, and Mary Downing Hahn.Twins Oliver and Trisha love going on adventures with their dad. Canoeing and camping on the Champion River will be their best trip yet But when they capsize in rapids, their father is knocked unconscious. Alone and without cell phone reception, their only choice is to continue down river for help.Hours of paddling brings them to an old dock, and a narrow path leads them to a small village. The townspeople are kind and helpful, but strangely focused on the giant scarecrow in the village square. "He watches over us," the twins are told in whispers. "He keeps us safe."An old woman warns the twins not to spend the night in the village. Not if they ever want to leave. But with the sun soon to set and their father not well enough to be moved, how can they escape? More importantly, can they survive?

UFOs Bigfoot Communists The government has swiftly dealt with many a crisis... But can it survive the diabolical ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES? After a series of bizarre and increasingly horrific attacks from pulpy, red, seeded fruit, Mason Dixon finds himself leading a "crack" team of specialists to save the planet. But will they be quick enough to save everyone? To save you? You can't run You can't swim There's nowhere to hide THE KILLER TOMATOES ARE EVERYWHERE

ALONG COMES SCARY Tune in, turn on, and drop in to the rock & roll rabbit hole Along Comes Scary is set in an alternate spooky '60s where vampires play screaming guitars, hellbound hotrodders start a new trend on AM radio, and there are groupies who will do anything for a piece of their favorite band. Stories include Papa's Got a Brand-New Body Bag, Hell-A Woman, and She's Got a Ticket to Die. 10 stories by Staci Layne Wilson, Jeff Strand, Darren Gordon Smith, Marco Mannone, Renee Mallett, and Shane Bitterling. PRAISE FOR THE ROCK & ROLL NIGHTMARES SERIES Short Stories set in the '60s, '70s, and '80s Rock & Roll Nightmares has all the sex, drugs, and broken dreams you can handle without going to rehab, plus musical fun facts interwoven throughout stories that are written by folks who know their music-and clearly love it. (Killer Queens Podcast) Whether you're a Metallica devotee or a Monkees disciple, you're bound to be shocked by something in these books... but if you can't laugh at the idea of pitting Phil Specter against Richard Ramirez in a fight to the death at the Cecil Hotel, then you're not invited to the afterparty (Classic Rock Memories) Perfect for fans of Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things and The Dirt-you will be laughing, grossed out, and scared to death all at once. (On Deck Book Review) The anti-Summer of Love The bands are still crazy after all these years, thanks to the twisted minds behind Rock & Roll Nightmares. Find out how the '27 Club' really got started, discover why writing lyrics on a Ouija board is a bad idea, and if you think disco is dead you ain't seen nothing yet. (Sucking in the '70s Radio, Detroit, MI)

Jaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families with lighthearted slapstick antics, but people think of clowns as terrifying, nightmarish creatures who hide in closets or under beds. When Jaunty, along with his fellow performers Guffaw, Wagon, Reginald The Pleasant Clown, and Bluehead are fired from the circus, they're told that the world just doesn't like clowns anymore.Still, clowns have to eat. And since these clowns don't eat children, to make ends meet they're eventually forced to take a job in a popular haunted attraction, the Mountain of Terror. Instead of charming entertainers, they're now scary clowns. A zombie clown. A demon clown. A creepy doll clown. But the town is about to discover something more frightening than clowns. Because on opening night, millions of oversized spiders emerge from a cave and begin their deadly invasion... From Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Jeff Strand comes an insane mix of shameless silliness and grisly creepy-crawly horror. Clowns Vs. Spiders. Who will win?

A collection of five macabre tales from Bram Stoker Award-nominee Jeff Strand.STALKING YOU NOW - The reprehensible man in the restaurant doesn't know that somebody at another table is watching him. Somebody filled with hatred. Somebody waiting for him to be alone. Somebody with duct tape and a gun. It's a night for vengeance. And a hell of a lot more.AN APOCALYPSE OF OUR OWN - Missy and Kevin are friends. Just friends. But now people are leaking blood from their eyeballs and turning into homicidal oozing mutants. Fortunately, Kevin has access to an underground shelter, but now they're trapped down there. Can the Friend Zone survive the end of the world?FAINT OF HEART - Rebecca's husband doesn't return from his weekend camping trip. And when somebody shows up at the house, it's not him. At gunpoint, Rebecca learns what has happened. Two men have kidnapped Gary. He went through a weekend of pure hell. They'll give him back to her, but first, Rebecca has to relive his entire experience, step by horrific step...and survive...KUTTER - Charlie Stanlon is a serial killer. A ghastly, vicious sociopath who chains women to a table in his basement and tortures them to death. He has no friends. He has no family. He despises his co-workers. His only pleasure in life is to cause pain and terror. Until the day he finds an adorable Boston Terrier and takes it home...FACIAL - Greg has just killed the man he hired to kill one of his wife's many lovers. He's now got a dead body in his office. Carlton, Greg's brother, desperately needs a dead body. It's kind of related to the lion corpse that he found in his basement. This is the normal part of the story...

A novel of terror from the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of PRESSURE. A serial kidnapper is preying upon women. He abducts them, then locks them in one of the cages dangling from the ceiling in a soundproofed basement. There, he sits quietly and just watches them, returning night after night, hoping he'll be in the room at the moment his beautiful captives finally starve to death.Charlene and Gertie have become fast friends at the restaurant where they work. But Charlene is concerned when she hears how her co-worker spends her evenings: Gertie's cousin is one of the missing, and Gertie wanders the city streets where many of the abductions took place, using herself as bait with a high-voltage stun gun in her pocket. Charlene reluctantly offers to trail her in a car, just in case she does lure the kidnapper and things go wrong.Unfortunately, the women find themselves the source of unwanted fame. And now they're on the radar of a very, very dangerous man...

From the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR and WOLF HUNT comes another action-packed over-the-top creature feature Rusty Moss has raised his niece Mia since she was a baby. Now that she's almost eighteen, he's worried that the life he's given her-living off the grid in a cabin deep in the woods-is holding her back from her full potential. But that angst gets pushed aside when the undead forest animals arrive.At first it's just a squirrel-shockingly violent and almost impossible to kill. Followed by a grizzly bear, also aggressive and resilient, even when point-blank shotgun blasts to the face are involved. Now the cabin is surrounded by all manner of zombie creatures. They have no way to call for help. The truck that could take them to safety is three miles away, stuck in the mud. But Rusty and Mia have their courage. They have their wits. And, most importantly, they have an axe and a fully fueled chainsaw...

Frank knows that he's creepy. There's nothing he can do about it. His creepiness--along with the fact that his father once killed eleven people in an office shooting-has kept him from ever having a girlfriend. When he finally works up the nerve to ask Abigail out on a date, after buying flowers from her every day for the past three months, he's sure she'll say no. Maybe she'll even recoil or spit in his face. But she accepts his invitation. He's sure it must be a cruel prank. It's not. These two kind-hearted but weird souls have found each other, and Frank thinks his life is about to change for the better.But this is not a love story. This is a tale of revenge and madness. From the author of PRESSURE, BLISTER, and SICK HOUSE comes Jeff Strand's darkest novel yet. "BRING HER BACK is like a Jack Ketchum novel packed with dark humor." - Michael McBride, author of SUBHUMAN

At any given moment, the human body contains millions of parasites. This is the story of just one. A really, really nasty one. Benjamin Wilson was having a lousy month even before the stomach pains began. He was about to turn forty. One of his students had been shot while on a homicidal meat cleaver rampage. And shortly after the funeral, Benjamin didn't feel so good... Now everything is changing. His body is being affected in some very unpleasant ways. His personality is developing a few "quirks." But the biggest change is that he has a bunch of evil and/or psychotic people trying to hunt him down to acquire the parasite. His only hope is Julie, a gorgeous bounty hunter who may or may not have Benjamin's best interests in mind, and who may or may not be competent enough to help him anyway. Jeff Strand, author of Dead Clown Barbecue, Wolf Hunt, and Blister, delivers his most outrageous adventure yet--an over-the-top mix of gruesome body horror and a wacky road trip comedy.

A new hilarious novel from the author of The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever and Stranger Things Have Happened.Rod’s life doesn’t suck. If you ask him, it’s pretty awesome. He may not be popular, but he and his best friends play in a band that has a standing gig. Yeah, it’s Monday night and they don’t get paid, but they can turn the volume up as loud as they want. And Rod’s girlfriend is hot, smart, and believes in their band—believes in Rod. Aside from a winning lottery ticket, what more could he ask for?Answer: A different cousin. When Rod’s scheming, two-faced cousin Blake moves in for the semester, Rod tries to keep calm. Blake seems to have everyone else fooled with good manners and suave smile, except Rod knows better. Blake is taking over his room, taking over his band, taking over his life! But Rod’s not about to give up without a fight. Game on. May the best prankster win…

"This book would be a good stepping stone for those readers who enjoy the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series."-School Library ConnectionJeff Strand's signature humor returns in this tale of magic, illusions, and self-discovery. Harry Houdini. Penn and Teller. David Copperfield. Marcus Millian the Third. Okay, so Marcus isn't a famous magician. He may not even be a great magician. But his great-grandfather, the once-legendary and long-retired Zachary the Stupendous, insists Marcus has true talent. And when Grandpa Zachary boasts that he and Marcus are working on an illusion that will shock, stun, and astonish, Marcus wishes he could make himself disappear. The problem? Marcus also has stage fright-in spades. It's one thing to perform elaborate card tricks in front of his best friend, Kimberly, but it's an entirely different feat to perform in front of an audience. Then Grandpa Zachary dies in his sleep. To uphold his great-grandfather's honor, the show must go on. It would take a true sorcerer to pull off the trick Marcus has planned. But maybe he's the next best thing...

Evan Portin is at a sad, scary place in his life. While taking a long walk to compose himself and figure out where to go from here, he encounters a young woman being mugged in a park.When he tries to intervene, he discovers that she doesn't need his help. At all. Her name is Harriett. She is very, very good at defending herself. Everything she owns is in a large backpack. She's never seen a cell phone. She's never been in a car. She's never really ventured into the outside world. And she says she's traveling across the country to slay a Cyclops.She's crazy, right? Evan is not in the habit of hanging out with delusional women he's just met. On the other hand, it can't hurt to offer her a ride out of town. And maybe this insane journey is exactly what he needs...A brand new novel from the four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of BLISTER, DWELLER, and WOLF HUNT. "Jeff Strand is a masterful storyteller. His writing is always fresh, compelling, funny, frightening, and inventive." -Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of Patient Zero, Rot & Ruin and Mars One.

"Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, the 19 stories in this new best-of annual anthology feature episodes of graphic gore and violence-including torture, dismemberment, self-mutilation, and home abortion-that are designed to push buttons as well as boundaries...strictly for hardcore horror fans."-Publishers Weekly"...glutted with graphic scenes of torture, dismemberment, evisceration..." - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (on Volume 2)Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of extreme stories, the hardcore stuff that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos, the transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). We staked out our territory and nailed this to the wall to guide us: YEAR'S BEST HARDEST HORRORNot your mama's best-of horror annual.This stuff comes from the edge of the abyss, stories you read at your own riskbecause you feel the abyss looking right back into youthrough the tainted lens of each twisted tale.Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect. Some of these quieter tales offer the reader some time to recover from the more disturbing ones preceding.Most of the stories collected here are from small and specialty press anthologies, with a few from periodicals, like the prestigious Splatterpunk Zine in the UK and Thuglit here in the US. Bizarro is also represented with a couple of tales from the unlikely anthology Blood For You: A Literary Tribute To GG Allin from Weirdpunk Books. (If you're not familiar with the late GG Allin, you can find snippets from some of his outrageous and obscene punk shows online, which will increase your appreciation of those two tales.)So for now, forget about that neighbor you suspect is a serial killer, don't worry about the drunk driver that could take you out on your next trip to the store, push those troubling news stories to the back of your mind and immerse yourself in the imaginary horrors at hand.But don't be surprised if you sense something dark staring back at you from between the lines. That is to be expected when you enter these forbidding realms. With any luck, you may find something useful to help you survive the approaching Apocalypse.TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction: The Year That Was"Worth the Having" by Michael Paul Gonzalez"Awakening" by Jeff Strand"Readings Off The Charts" by Adam Cesare"Reborn" by The Behrg"What's Worst" by David James Keaton"Dead End" by Kristopher Triana"What You Wish For" by Lilith Morgan"King Shits" by Charles Austin Muir"Cleanup On Aisle 3" by Adam Howe"Bath Salt Fetus" by Jorge Palacios"Bored With Brutality" by MP Johnson"Exposed" by Monica J. O'Rourke"Eleanor" by Jason Parent"The Scavengers" by Tony Knighton"The Most Important Miracle" by Scott Emerson"Hungry For Control" by Clare de Lune"Clarissa" by Robert Essig & Jack Bantry"Where The Sun Don't Shine" by Pete Kahle"Blackbird Lullaby" by George Cotronis