The world is filled with misfits. The world is filled with the misunderstood. Enter the shadowy underbelly of society where the outsider is king and learn why the Death Angel visits a small town year after year. Discover how an old collector of clocks holds the keys to Armageddon. Play a deadly nocturnal game called ‘Follow the Leader’ and try your best to stay alive. Visit a church of snake-handlers who insist on introducing a visitor to their god. Learn about a group of scarecrows who reveal their true nature to the farmer that made them.
In this collection of creepy, suspenseful short stories, Jason Brannon leads you into the darkest corners of the world, shows you what lurks there, and leaves you to find your way out, using only your imagination and courage. Read stories like “The Fourth Key” which has appeared in magazines like Post Mortem and been featured at The Untold Podcast (http://www.untoldpodcast.com/home/untold-podcast-12-the-fourth-key) and learn what sorts of doors those old, unfamiliar keys on your keychain might unlock. Journey to a music conservatory in a sleepy, seaside town where an exhausted string quartet finds themselves under seige by a host of oceanic horrors, forcing them to play their instruments in perpetuity or die horribly. Or make a pit stop at a wayward gas station out west and discover what happens to visitors who inquire about the station’s owner, Mother Mary.
If you enjoyed Stephen King’s Night Shift or Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, this collection of horror and dark fantasy is for you.
Table of Contents:
1. Beware the Death Angel
2. The Machinery of Infinity
3. Follow the Leader
4. Running Toward Eden
5. The Fourth Key
6. Mother Mary
7. The Misunderstood
8. Quartet
Praise for Jason Brannon’s writing:
“From his style, you’d think Jason Brannon was the dark double of Ray Bradbury. He cares more about character and realism than most writers I’ve read and his plots flow like well-orchestrated music. Indeed, Brannon’s writing has a classical feel, reminiscent of the best traditional work in the genre, even when he’s going for gut-wrenching terror and torture in-extremis. It takes talent to pull off what Brannon does and he does it oh so well. He’s definitely a writer to watch with both eyes wide open.” — Michael Arnzen, International Horror Guild Award winning author of Grave Markings (Dell Abyss)
“Jason Brannon has long been mentioned in the same breath as Ray Bradbury. It is stories like these that have earned him such praise. Charming, scary and at turns downright horrifying, Five Days on the Banks of the Acheron will have you jumping at shadows. No one spins a horror story like Brannon.” — Kealan-Patrick Burke, editor of Brimstone Turnpike and Taverns of the Dead (Cemetery Dance)
“Biblical prophecies come to life at your local hardware store? What’s not to like? WINDS OF CHANGE is a wild ride and then some — Jason Brannon’s characters live and breathe in every story, and his horrors crawl up your spine like an icy finger in the dead of night. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!”–James Newman, author of Midnight Rain (Leisure Books)
