Cheryl Mullenax

Randy Chandler

GOING GLOBAL 2019. The year certainly made its mark on the world-and more than its share of scars. It also made for a bounty of good horror stories of the extreme kind, the best of which the tales herein serve to illustrate. 2019 was the year Year's Best Hardcore Horror went global. Not by design but because the stories inside just happened to have been written by authors hailing from various parts of the globe. From Australia by way of South Africa, to Italy, Scotland, Norway, Taiwan, North America and India--the common denominator being that their tales come from darkest regions of imagination. TABLE OF CONTENTS GOING GLOBAL: INTRODUCTION by Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax FEAST FOR SMALL PIECES by Hailey Piper GODDESS OF GALLOWS by Kristopher Triana LATE NIGHT INCIDENT AT THE WHITE TRASH MOTEL by Duane Bradley A NEW MOTHER'S GUIDE TO RAISING AN ABOMINATION by Gwendolyn Kiste UPPER CRUST by Michael Paul Gonzalez REDLESS by Annie Neugebauer A TOUCH OF MADNESS by Tim Waggoner PARADISUM VOLUPTATIS by Joanna Koch RADIX MALORUM by Sean Patrick Hazlett LACKERS by Leo X. Roberson WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR? by Rajiv Moté DARJEELING by Syon Das MRSA ME by Alicia Hilton WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE CHILDREN? by David L Tamarin HAVE A HEART by Matthew V. Brockmeyer SWINGS AND SUSPENSIONS by D.A. Xiaolin Spires KIRTI by Alessandro Manzetti THE TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN by DEBORAH SHELDON SCREAMS FOR STARGIRL by Ben Pienaar QUEER WEATHER by Scáth Beorh

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 5

Red Room Press is extremely proud to present its fourth annual anthology featuring this year's hardcore corps of authors with the best extreme horror fiction of 2018 that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos. First up is “Vigil” by Chad Lutzke. Chad takes us into a neighborhood where a steady stream of decayed corpses are exhumed from a neighbor’s cellar. Extreme olfactory horror at its best. Deborah Sheldon went under the knife for the inspiration of “Hair And Teeth,” and the result is a tale of gynaecological body horror likely to terrify women and make most men squeamish. With “Rut Seasons” Brian Hodge makes a return to Year’s-Best pages in a tale as chilling as it is heart-wrenching, inspired by a thousand-mile drive littered with roadkill and some personal tragedies. “Control” by Jeff Parsons introduces us to a meth addict stalking potential victims in Central Park to get money for the next score. Annie Neugebauer is back with “Cilantro,” a Neugebauerian yarn of culinary chaos sure to turn stomachs and cause nightmares. Tim Waggoner likewise returns this year with “Voices Like Barbwire,” an exploratory dig into old wounds and painful memories. Rebecca Rowland’s “Bent” wins the Most Cringe-worthy Story honor with her twisted tale of extreme body horror. Her well-drawn characters seem to come off the page but God forbid they do. Their idea of a pretzel party is truly twisted. Scath Beorh takes Lovecraftian cosmic horror to its next level with “Lord of the Mesa.” Sean Patrick Hazlett’s story “The Godhead Grimoire” possesses dangerous religious overtones and a forbidden bloodthirsty book. “Carnal Bodies” by R.E. Hellinger is a shocking story of baroque horror and demonic necrophilia from Two Dead Queers Present: Guillozine. You’ll have to read this one to believe it. In “Crossroads of Opportunity” Ed Kurtz and doungjai gam take you on a-deal-with-the-devil-at-the-crossroads trip with a son driving his dead mother to an uncertain destination. Trouble is, his mother is a bit of a backseat driver and she just won’t shut up. Seras Nikita’s “Dad’s Famous Preserves” won’t do much for your appetite but it will show you a recipe for disaster when a jungle missionary’s foot infection blossoms into a stomach-churning nightmare. “The Bearded Woman,” brought all the way from Rome, Italy, by the inimitable Alessandro Manzetti. His dystopian future tale takes us for a ride in the Bearded Woman’s circus trailer as she and her dwarf husband bring their marriage to a bloody end. Sara Tantlinger’s “The Devil’s Dreamland” takes us inside the Murder Castle of the infamous H.H. Holmes with her brilliant narrative poem of macabre beauty. Frank Oreto’s “All God’s Creatures Got Reasons” reveals that there are real monsters walking among us, monsters with a savage appetite for young flesh, but they are so skilled at covering their tracks, we never even know they’re there. “The Ugly” by J.R. Park introduces us to a couple of sweet little kids who may have a good reason for torturing and eating cats. It’s a way to keep the Ugly at bay. Or is it? Doug Ford’s “I Have a Confession” takes a coldblooded plunge into sex with a ghost. But what if it’s not a ghost? In “When the Owls Call” Lyman Graves takes us “stealth camping” in a Texas park after hours, where a strange and dangerous gathering is taking place. David Lynch might say, “The owls are not what they seem.” But are they? Jeremy Thompson is back this year with his nefarious pal the Hallowfiend in “Bloodletting and Intrigue On All Hallows’ Eve’.” With a stylistic nod to Ray Bradbury, Jeremy delivers on our promise that something twisted this way comes. Capping it all off, Alicia Hilton serves up “Monkey See, Monkey Do” as a tasty little nightcap (for those with hardcore tastes). Salud! Sleep well. If you can.

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4

2019. The year certainly made its mark on the world—and more than its share of scars. It also made for a bounty of good horror stories of the extreme kind, the best of which the tales herein serve to illustrate. 2019 was the year Year's Best Hardcore Horror went global. Not by design but because the stories inside just happened to have been written by authors hailing from various parts of the globe. From Australia by way of South Africa, to Italy, Scotland, Norway, Taiwan, North America and India--the common denominator being that their tales come from darkest regions of imagination. TABLE OF CONTENTS GOING GLOBAL: INTRODUCTION by Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax FEAST FOR SMALL PIECES by Hailey Piper GODDESS OF GALLOWS by Kristopher Triana LATE NIGHT INCIDENT AT THE WHITE TRASH MOTEL by Duane Bradley A NEW MOTHER’S GUIDE TO RAISING AN ABOMINATION by Gwendolyn Kiste UPPER CRUST by Michael Paul Gonzalez REDLESS by Annie Neugebauer A TOUCH OF MADNESS by Tim Waggoner PARADISUM VOLUPTATIS by Joanna Koch RADIX MALORUM by Sean Patrick Hazlett LACKERS by Leo X. Roberson WHY DO BIRDS SUDDENLY APPEAR? by Rajiv Moté DARJEELING by Syon Das MRSA ME by Alicia Hilton WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE CHILDREN? by David L Tamarin HAVE A HEART by Matthew V. Brockmeyer SWINGS AND SUSPENSIONS by D.A. Xiaolin Spires KIRTI by Alessandro Manzetti THE TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN by DEBORAH SHELDON SCREAMS FOR STARGIRL by Ben Pienaar QUEER WEATHER by Scáth Beorh

WELCOME TO THE MASQUERADE 2020 was a reality horror show. And like most obnoxious entertainment reality shows, this one had its own idiosyncratic rules and penalties. Call it The Big Lockdown. We were forced to go to ground, to hide in our holes. Some went underground and never came back. Uncertainty ruled because the rules kept changing. Were we following the science or the mad scientists? Was the light at the end of the tunnel the fiery mouth of hell? We couldn’t say for sure, so we ventured out for food, booze and sundries like scavengers in a slow-motion apocalypse, keeping our distance from fellow human beings because you never knew who might be carrying that heavy viral load. And everywhere we went, we went behind the mask. So, it became obvious: The theme of our offering of extreme horror tales from 2020 had to be Masquerade. Our masquerading storytellers nevertheless did what they do best. They went deep into the belly of the beast and sent up fictions reflective of these “trying” times. Their stories peel away the masks (or in some cases, the skin) to reveal the inner workings of darkest hearts and minds and deeper fears. TABLE OF CONTENTS The Nipples In Dad’s Tool Box - Ronald Kelly Going Green - Christine Morgan Whiskey To The Wound - Rachel Nussbaum /thestrangethingwebecome - Eric LaRocca Hey Valentine - Amanda Cecelia Lang In Subspace, No One Can Hear You Scream - Hailey Piper The Pogonip Fog - Sean Patrick Hazlett Gunfire And Brimstone - Alicia Hilton The Happiest Man In The World - Matthew Brockmeyer Synaesthete - Melanie Harding-Shaw Full Moon Shindig - Patrick C. Harrison Iii The Drinking-Horn - Christine Morgan Otto Hahn Speaks To The Dead - Octavia Cade All The Stars In Her Eyes - Deborah Sheldon The Village - Matias F. Travieso-Diaz The Smell Of Night In The Basement - Wendy N. Wagner The Saint - Alessandro Manzetti Her Wounded Eyes - Robert Guffey

Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 6

Spanning over twenty years, 20 masters and modern authors of hardcore horror share their most bad-ass stories in this special edition from Comet Press. Many hard to find and out of print, some that were banned, Necro Files covers every imaginable mode of mayhem including serial killers, necrophilia, cannibals, werewolves, zombies, sex fetishes, psychopaths, snuff, occult, and more stories that dial into the dark side of human nature. Contains violence, gore, adult language and sex. EDITORIAL REVIEWS "Necro Files is practically perfect. Every story is an absolute hit...and why not? We're talking John Everson, Bentley Little, Edward Lee, Joe Lansdale and George R.R. Martin, to name a few. All of the stories are dark and disturbing in their own ways, and, well, extreme. This is one anthology that horror fans, not just of the extreme variety, should have in their collections. Highly recommended." --Monster Librarian TABLE OF CONTENTS: George R.R. Martin - Meathouse Man Joe R. Lansdale - Night They Missed the Horror Show Ronald Kelly - Diary Elizabeth Massie - Abed Randy Chandler & t. Winter-Damon - I am He that Liveth and was Dead ... & Have the Keys of Hell & Death Edward Lee - Xipe Ray Garton - Bait Gerard Houarner - Painfreak Wayne Allen Sallee - Lover Doll Charlee Jacob - The Spirit Wolves Brian Hodge - Godflesh John Everson - Every Last Drop Mehitobel Wilson - Blind in the House of the Headsman Monica J. O'Rourke - An Experiment in Human Nature Graham Masterton - The Burgers of Calais Nancy Kilpatrick - Ecstasy Bentley Little - Pop Star in the Ugly Bar Wrath James White - The Sooner They Learn J.F. Gonzalez - Addict

Cheryl Mullenax

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