Showing results by author "Kevin Candela" in All Categories

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

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.

It's the late 1970s and city league softball - and partying - reign supreme. Talented Jo Jo Van Dyne and company struggle to right themselves from a winless first season, in part by renaming themselves the Streakers because their first year team name, the Hard Machine, hadn't exactly brought them any kind of luck. This time around, though, the early twenties team has high hopes. This is a year where, they all truly believe, anything can happen. And who knows...maybe it will.

In search of the ferocious truth, some would call trying to channel the spirit of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson a fool’s errand. But these are desperate times. So settle in for this trilogy of uppers, downers, screamers, laughers from John Bruni (Tales of Questionable Taste), Kent Hill (Hercules with a Shotgun) and Kevin Candela (Weedeaters: The Complete Acropalypse) as they bring you just what the doctor ordered.

In the seventh Super SF Double Feature the theme is rocks. Yep. But not "plain old" rocks--one is the mysterious ice-filled planetoid Ceres in the Asteroid Belt, while the other is a palm-sized blue pyramid that's home to a primeval terror that feeds on human fear and death. "Chthonos" details the harrowing journey of a devoted "astrohydrology" expert as she seeks to uncover what's behind the mantle-penetrating water wells of Ceres experiencing repeating series of flow interruptions that almost seemed to be some kind of coded communication.

The world teeters on the edge of catastrophe in the sixth and final saga in the Krakenstein series. But this time it’s not because of some nightmarish new city-smashing horror arriving on the scene. No, it’s our species on the attack. Well, a handful of humans, anyway. Fanatic extremists, Generals Blakemoor and Dilack, have taken over the United States’ military forces who in turn had stepped in to run the country after the devastating strike on Washington by Vampulon, the extraterrestrial horror.

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.

The ghosts were there the day it opened for business. The Leeward Hotel is a mirror. From the moment its first stone was laid, it has reflected the mysteries of the restless and the restless Atlantic Ocean over which it looms atop a stark cliff in Cornwall, with guests frequently seeing the highly eccentric owners walking around the halls while they were supposedly locked in their private haven upstairs.

You won’t find the place on any map. It’s somewhere else, hidden away in a wondrous parallel reality of mystery, awe, and terror. This both is and isn’t the “Old West”. They share the same stark and unforgiving terrain and exist in the same timeframe, primarily the 1800s. But there the similarities cease. In Spirit County, for example, death is often not the end, but the beginning. Sometimes even the middle. Mythological creatures prove real...and deadly. Towns can disappear by daylight and return with the setting sun.

John Bruni, Kevin Candela, and Kent Hill reteam for a second adventure, roaring down the Hunter S. Thompson highway to Gonzo nirvana. Following the success of the trio's The Doctor Is...In!, this group of humble seekers reignites Thompson's joint and takes you to places real and otherwise...as per the Doctor's orders. This second amazing tribute to the man who epitomized rebelliousness seeks once again to bring Hunter back from the grave for yet another wild adventure while fearing and loathing in the dissection of the American dream.

Stepping up the horror considerably from previous installments in the Krakenstein saga, this fifth tale, and the second in the The Next Regeneration trilogy, sees the return of first trilogy heroes Jeremiah Savage, Key Sharlayne, and even Key's brilliant scientist half-sister, Dr. Deanna Sharlayne, who have just been evicted from the ancient facility that is Emerald Island by its hardly cordial creators.

With great power comes great responsibility. And on modern day Earth, if great power doesn’t play nice with greater powers it gets something else too: Deadly persecution. After all, the stakes are no less than absolute control of every living being on the planet. Roman Novato and Chalice Rayne can communicate telepathically, sense imminent danger, and more now, but when those accidentally inherited talents are set against shape-shifting alien assassins, invisible drones, devastating particle beam satellites, and the world’s hidden ruling elite the game isn’t exactly fair.

Aurora Hayes is probably the most agreeable and least judgmental of the Roads Unlimited driving team, but even she has her limits. When something that sure looks like the scary bipedal "myth" called the chupacabra races in out of the darkness in North Texas and jumps aboard her rig, Aurora finds herself stuck with the edgy, bug-eyed little monster on a long haul across the South to Florida. But dealing with the freakish creature, which appears to have no language and seems determined to stay with the truck, is just the warm-up: The thing's master arrives.

Just like their new home of Sunder Creek, set in the shadow of Blood Ridge, young Ronnie Carpenter and her shy ward Essa Hale harbor strange secrets. In fact, their arrival seems to bring the town’s dark and unspoken terror to light, as it affects Essa in mysterious ways. Soon, inexplicable events all point to an ancient legend being all too real. What does the dreaded ilé nagí, the fiery spirit of the woods, want with the girl? Ronnie must find out before it’s too late.

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.

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.

On far distant Gavelin, Leks and Quinara - scrappy human survivors of a demonic plague that has all but wiped out their civilization - race against time in a perilous journey to the perceived safety of the cradle of their society: the great coastal city of Amaline on the Sandarine Sea. Along the way, they meet horrifying carnivorous mud monsters, sentient human-hunting thunderstorms and an outcast bio-alchemist with a warped sense of humor whose bizarre menagerie features a panther-like beast made of living metal.

The sixth "drive-in double feature" in the Super SF Double Feature series spotlights alien invasion in both directions - coming and going - with two thrilling tales of science-fiction culture shock.

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.

The big squidheaded guy who's not Cthulhu is back - and this time, it's really, really personal, because the monster who's out to destroy him is his own brother! Twenty years after Krakenstein and Magenti saved humanity from itself, the giant monster battles are still going on. Towering "bug lady" Magenti may have disappeared of late, but Krakey is still patrolling the world. Tailed by the Moray 2 stealth sub, which is captained by none other than longtime Krakenstein "human friend" Shea Sanders, the titan isn't able to stop the latest problem by himself.