Their marriage on the brink of collapse, David and Sara make one last effort to repair it with a weekend getaway at a cabin at Mount Storm Lake. Sounds like a good plan, right? But that light coming from the direction of the power plant across the lake makes them both uneasy. Oh—did I mention that this is where David’s father killed himself?
Read my new story, “Dead Light Across the Lake,” in Assemble Artifacts #6, available now for Kindle—audio is coming soon! Other stories by authors such as Z. K. Abraham, Cynthia Pelayo, and Wendy N. Wagner. Get it now.
Reviews are coming in for Stephen Mark Rainey’s anthology, Deathrealm: Spirits, in which I’m honored to have my short story “To Fear and To Rage” appear among other stories by all-star writers much more worthy than myself.
And reviews are good! Kirkus Reviews had favorable words for it upon its release a few months ago, calling it “Spine-tingling and sometimes stomach-churning… unflinchingly tense… a solid compilation that will satisfy avid fans of a range of horror subgenres.”
Carson Buckingham, writing for The Horror Review and its associated websites, says, “There is something for everyone here; so whether you enjoy splatter, suspense, or paranormal, you can’t go wrong with Stephen Mark Rainey’s Deathrealm: Spirits. This would be a wonderful Christmas gift for any horror aficionados on your list.”
Both reviewers call out “To Fear and To Rage” specifically. Kirkus says, “[Deathrealm: Spirits] hits its stride in its third offering, Timothy G. Huguenin’s ‘To Fear and To Rage,’ about a father and son whose remote mountain town is slowly overrun by unsettling faceless, eyeless creatures.” Carson is even more positive, listing my story as one of her favorites and claiming, “I had to remind myself to breathe reading this one.”
Christmas is almost here, everybody. So if you’re still trying to find that last-minute gift, follow the advice of these reviewers and grab yourself a copy today. Anybody out there who are already fans, don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Thanks for reading!
It was a warm September evening in High Point, West Virginia, when Silas first saw the Yellow Carousel.
Early September is upon us—summer’s last gasp, anticipation of autumn, maturing sunflowers… And, for a certain retired surface miner and his wife, the Yellow Carousel’s arrival.
Though squash vine borers have decimated my wife’s acorn squashes, zucchinis, and delicatas this year (still holding out hope for a couple of pumpkins that look okay), it’s been a good year for the rest of the garden, including our sunflowers.
Sunflowers are my favorite flowers. I’m big on Russian Mammoths, but we tried some new ones this year to add more color and variety in size. Can’t help smiling whenever I see them. How can those big, bright petals bring a person anything but joy?
Say a giant sunflower-shaped carousel sprouts suddenly in your back yard. Weird, sure. But would you really think it such a bad thing? You can forgive a lonely old guy like Silas if he’s not overly wary when it happens to him. But beauty is often as dangerous as it is alluring.
If you haven’t yet read my story “The Yellow Carousel” (Cosmic Horror Monthly #35, May 2023 – read online for free), September is the perfect time. Take it out on the back porch after work, while the evenings still have a touch of late summer heat. If you have a sunflower garden like me, plop your chair right there among their heavy heads nodding in the breeze. Maybe make yourself a cup of tea to sip as you read, to fight off that chill when the sun goes down behind the pines.
And if something strange appears in your lawn, or in the playground across the street, or your neighbor’s backyard…
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Silas and Emma have settled into a quiet retirement in High Point, West Virginia. There’s nothing so peaceful as a September sunset painting the pines that edge their field. From this magic twilight emerges the Yellow Carousel, as if planted and grown just for Silas. Why shouldn’t he climb its sunflower petals and mount its undulating deer?
Coming in October from Shortwave Publishing, Deathrealm: Spirits is a new horror anthology edited by Stephen Mark Rainey, who in the 80s and 90s brought horror fans the legendary Deathrealm magazine.
Ever since I devoured his debut,Greener Pastures, Michael’s fiction has been a huge influence and a North Star for my own work. There are very few authors I would say this about: when I hear Wehunt has a new book coming out, it’s an automatic buy. I don’t even have to read the synopsis. Not even in Stephen King do I have that much trust.
Wehunt fans (Wehunters?) like myself have been anxious for a new story collection from him for years (which is saying something for me, as generally speaking I don’t read many short story collections). Greener Pastures was published in 2016—not a full decade, but it’s felt like it. But at long last, it’s here, and it was worth the wait. Released this June by Bad Hand Books, The Inconsolables does not disappoint.
Silas and Emma have settled into a quiet retirement in High Point, West Virginia. There’s nothing so peaceful as a September sunset painting the pines that edge their field. From this magic twilight emerges the Yellow Carousel, as if planted and grown just for Silas. Why shouldn’t he climb its sunflower petals and mount its undulating deer?
Join Silas’s and Emma’s encounter in my new short story “The Yellow Carousel,” out now in CHM Magazine #35.
Another one of my stories gets new life breathed into it—listen now to the audio podcast production of “The Station Agent’s Wife, 1927” by our good friends at Tales to Terrify! My story is read by Danielle Hewitt, who also did a great job reading my other story “She Will Come to Brood” for Creepy.
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