Ran Cartwright

Welcome to Hell on Earth. It began on a hot August afternoon in Mill Creek Park. That's when the mad slime from the sky infected its first victim. Jamie George was the first - he wouldn't be the last. Soon nightmares are taking over the city. Streets are burning, buildings are crumbling, and cries of horror, pain, and anguish cut through the night. Unspeakable creatures of the shadows prey on all who happen to cross their path. The dead are walking, ready to feast on the living. And behind it all something even more monstrous is lurking. Blood whores. Demons. Ghosts. Vampires. Witches. Zombies. Mutants. The mad. They're all here lurking in the streets and alleys. Do the few citizens who still resist the tide of horrors stand a chance? Welcome to Hell on Earth - welcome to Darktowne.

Deadtown in the '50s. It's one helluva place. You know the kind. If ever there was a slimy misty wet cesspool of a dive on the dark side of forever, the far wrong dark side of the wrong dark side of the tracks, yeah, that's Deadtown. The seediest slimiest sleaziest hellhole slime pit this side of Purgatory. It's a greasy place, dark and dank, with a misty fog that alternates with a misty rain. It never stops. Never. Buildings teeter on the verge of collapse, catering to the dark slimy seedy sleazy side of life with restaurants and bars and nightclubs and whore houses and drug dens. Beyond lay the hinterlands where misshapen horrors chew on the unsuspecting and spit out flesh and bone. Deadtown isn't a town actually, it's a city. Not much of a city, but it's a city. Occasionally you'll find a special nutcase lurking in the side streets and misty wet alleys. The Sleeper was one such special nutcase. Some would say that he was in a class all by himself. They would probably be right...

It was a dastardly kidnap plot. The Dreaded Hooded Frog has kidnapped Princess Linda. We're off on a wild raucous and riotous hilarious ride across the Multiverse with Billy Space Boy and the Astro Dog, Zap. From Dangerous Danny's Spaceside Burger, Bar, and Disco to the Planet Slagheep, follow the adventures of Billy and Zap as they attempt to rescue Princess Linda and bring peace and tranquility back to the Multiverse. And you thought this was just going to be your standard boring Dreaded Hood Frog and Princess formula story... Yeah, right.

Friends stumble upon a strange mysterious bracelet in a local coffee shop that leads them into confrontation with the Great Old Ones. Some die as a result, and one ends up at the great library of the Elder Gods on Celaeno where he meets the man himself...H P Lovecraft. Suddenly, in the end, everything falls into place. The stars are right in their course...

There are two swords long thought to be fable. One is the Zyn Blade, legendary sword of the centuries dead King of Zyntrolm, Ilian Zyn. The other is its more powerful sister sword, the Korlan Sword, both forged by the legendary Venenae sorcerer, Korlan. Shown the location of the Zyn Blade in a vision, King M'lerek Zyn retrieves the sword and decides that if the Zyn Blade exists, so must the Korlan Sword. The young king sets off in quest of the Korlan Sword. Little does he know that dark forces are gathering far to the north in the Gnydron nation of Shokkuhl, forces that will set in motion a time known as The Darkening. So it is written in Vergama's Book of Destiny.

Our Solar System in the 24th Century, iron-fisted Imperial Earth clamps down on the Solar System's Outer Colonies. An insurrection has begun, lead by a mysterious man that no one has ever seen. Imperial Earth doesn't like it. They send an assassin to take out this mystery man...if he can be found. Imperial Earth decides to make an example of the Outer Colonies...you support the insurrection, we will destroy you. They send a huge new battle cruiser to Europa. The cruiser's mission - destroy the Solara 7 terraforming satellite. The rebels get wind of the assault on the Solar 7 satellite. The rebel alliance leadership, sans the mystery man, set out for Europa in a small battle frig, the Imperial Earth assassin in pursuit. There's going to be a big confrontation at Europa. Somewhere nearby the mystery man is lurking, the assassin is certain of it. He'll show himself, and the assassin will be waiting.

THE HOTEL MONTICELLO, a little joint at one of many crossroads in time and space. Those that hang out there are an odd lot - an old woman who plays a sad crying violin; a time traveling gangster blues pianist and his blues singing whore; a gay couple fresh out of the big house; the mysterious young woman who wears a Venetian mask; a writer chased across time and space by her own creations; the two-bit hood come to make a buck at the expense of a well-known politician; and a small assortment of other down on their luck characters. And the occasional demon that shows up from time to time to entertain themselves at the expense of the hotel clientele, inflicting hideous unimaginable pain and horror on each of them until finally, in the end, there's no one left.

The Louisiana Bayou. It's dark in the bayou and there are strange sounds, cries, glowing lights that drift in the mist, and shadows blacker than night. And black pits of tar from which ungodly horrors crawl. Is it the Swamp Witch or something much darker? Is it voodoo or something inhuman? Some folk whisper of such things, but most stay quiet for fear that something may come for them in the night.

It's written in the Kitab al-Azif that when the stars are right, the Great Old Ones shall return. Although the stars are not yet right for their return, they are beginning to stir. A mysterious stranger with unlimited powers and a 400 year old man with a legendary name take it upon themselves to ensure the return is not premature.

A collection of Lovecraftian horror from super volcanoes to the London blitz...

31 tales of horror and dark fantasy, some inspired by Clark Ashton Smith, some inspired by H P Lovecraft, some inspired by dreams and nightmares, some from the dark recesses of my own mind.

GNYDRON... ...is a land that lies parched and barren beneath a brutal and bloated dying sun; a land where horrible beasts climb and crawl and fly and kill. A land of dreams and nightmares, of magic and sorcery; a land where fate and destiny reach out of a fabled past and into a brief, but legendary, future. A land that in 840,000 years will be known as Zothique.

These are a random sampling of my previously published spooky, horror, and fantasy satire tales selected from the following collections - darktowne At the Hotel Monticello Dreams and Nightmares Billy Space Codger and the December Frog