Since 2010, Crossroad Press has had the privilege of bringing out-of-print horror back in digital format for a number of authors including, but not limited to, Ronald Kelly, Bill Crider (Jack MacLane), Rick Hautala, Charles L. Grant, Brian Hodge, Elizabeth Massie, Joseph A. Citro, Melanie and Steve Tem, Thomas Tessier, and many, many others. Since their original digital publication, formatting standards have changed, and they were out-of-date. With the new Macabre Ink Resurrected Horrors series, these books are being updated to the newest styles and formatting, with their covers updated with the series ribbon for easy identification. The first wave features ten classic horror novels from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Subsequent waves will each feature at least five titles, with a planned release of one wave every couple of months. Here are the ten novels in wave one of the Macabre Ink Resurrected Horrors series:
A graveyard feast beneath the summer moon …
The rural town of Old Hickory. Tennessee was a quiet, picturesque community … until the O’Sheas came to town.
Becoming the new proprietors of the town’s only funeral parlor, with the help of their charming patriarch, Square McManus, the Irish family was wholeheartedly accepted by the local townfolk. The thing began to happen. Strange things … horrible, unspeakable things … in the dead of night.
The sighting of wolfish beasts congregating around an open grave in the town cemetery. Frightening changes in several of Old Hickory’s less desirable residents. And the brutal murder and devouring of a varsity football player in the wooded wilderness outside of town. Soon, what was once concealed in shadow and secrecy was now starkly revealed, in all its ravenous fury, by the silvery light of the full moon.
As the residents of Old Hickory, as well as the local police, begin to fall victim to an unknown evil, four individuals—the town nerd, a high school jock, a widowed gunsmith, and a mysterious transient from a distant shore—find themselves facing what could possibly be a hellish lycanthrope from ancient Ireland … the legendary Arget Bethir … the Silver Beast.
SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT THEY ARE SINGING SONGS OF DEATH…
Colin Ross, twice thwarted in love, once abandoned, quit the mainland for Haven’s End, a wounded soul on an idyllic island, seeking to heal his life.
But instead of peace, he is hurled into chaos. Some dark and ancient hatred, some evil force, is unleashed, wreaking vengeance on the islanders, mangling the living and mutilating the dead.
And, as the piercing songs rise to met the roaring wind, Colin Ross, against his will, is sucked into the raging storm.
Lucas dreams it every night: the rockshow, flashy, ear-pounding, chaotic. The frothed-up mob that storms the stage. The death of his daughter Kristen, trampled in a sudden surge of tribal frenzy. In Lucas Ellington’s eyes, the audience is blameless. His child was murdered by the main event — Whip Hand, the ultimate party band.
The arena disaster in which Kristen was killed causes Whip Hand to disband, but the individual musicians are still out there, alive and kicking.
Not for long.
Whip Hand’s lead singer, Gabriel Stannard, has established a successful solo career, but knows how fickle his public is. He has to do something — and soon — to retain his position as the baddest, meanest, most dangerous rockstar of all time. And he knows that Lucas is saving him for last in his campaign of revenge. Each man targets the other in a vendetta of honor versus glory.
The Kill Riff traffics not only in the dark side of rock music and media exploitation, but explores what vengeance does to the avenger, in hard-ass 4/4 time.
THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF CATS CRAZED WITH BLOODLUST
A giant Doberman pinscher—the most vicious and deadly of killer dogs—lay in a bloody heap, its unseeing eyes still glazed with astonished terror.
A young dropout on an acid trip smiled at the animals that were ripping his flesh from his bones—until he realized that this was really happening.
What was left of a kindly old lady lay beside the shattered saucer of milk she had intended to put on the ground.
A powerfully built rapist in the midst of his outrage felt the claws on his back—and his lust turned to gibbering agony.
All over the vast city it was happening and no one seemed able to stop them—the police, the army, the scientist. And cat after cat was infected by the ferocious fever that for the first time made them the masters of man…
THE CATS
Etchison’s fiction is justly famous for its creepy ambiance, and explores the terrain mapped out by Philip K. Dick, Thomas Harris, and any number of black and white horror movies. This is his legendary first collection, carefully corrected by the author for this new edition. The title story won both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award in 1982, the first time a single work received both major awards. Contents include 15 ground-breaking stories and an introduction by Ramsey Campbell.
Eight-year-old Evan Laine is afraid. He’d lost a finger in a car accident, but now it is slowly growing back. There are other changes, too. Changes he can’t hide from his mom. And dreams. Dreams from which he wakes, screaming. They are after him… the beautiful redheaded woman, and the drooling boy/man. They want him to change. They are making him change, shaping him into something just like them.
Bonnie Laine knew there was something wrong with her son. She’d seen the skin sloughing off his belly in long, wet sheets. She’d heard his screams in the night. And now she’d seen them. The followers, hunting her son. They want Evan for something, something too terrible to imagine. But Bonnie will do anything to save her son. Even if it means joining forces with a murderous man who may be far more dangerous than the creatures pursuing them.
November, 1694. Rachel Parsons, an accused witch, is hanged at the Gallows Tree in Summerfield, Maine. Before she dies, she curses all who live on her land. Her words end with the creak of the rope as the ladder is pulled out from under her.
Autumn, 1963. A retarded boy is chased into the old, abandoned mill. But it is one of his tormentors who ends up at the bottom of a shaft.
Summer, 1994. Brian Fraser has heard the stories about the old mill. They say it’s haunted, filled with the whisperings of long ago…including something that his own father won’t talk about. But Brian is drawn to the mill. Drawn to an evil so hideous, so apocalyptic it threatens one’s sanity…
Some people in Maywell, New Jersey, commute to New York. Some are working on a lab project that will change the world—if it is allowed to succeed.
And some people are witches.
Amanda Walker is not a witch—yet. She’s an artist, looking for work—unaware that someone has a desperate need for her, a dark plan that may require Amanda to enter death itself.
If she is allowed to live long enough to make the choice.
Amanda’s tale is far stranger than she knows. It is ancient beyond memory. In times of great change it must be relived, in all its fear and hope, its wisdom and its passion.
One of those times is now.
Fran’s daughter, Mick, couldn’t understand why her mother kept Tarot cards in the bottom of her closet. Had she once used the cards? It didn’t seem like something her mom would do. But there they were, in a beautifully carved box.
The cards felt special to Mick; she learned how to use them and was soon reading her friends’ minds, predicting their futures. But this was no ordinary deck of Tarot cards. By spreading the cards in different ways, Mick could control the future. Then bizarre things happened to her enemies—accidents. Mick began to change, to wear weird clothes, to spend time at the old Montagna place. It wasn’t long before people began to understand what was happening in their town. Once they did, they would go looking for Mick McGee …
Cary Connoway had heard rumors of a mysterious Cult of Death even before he arrived in San Mario, but nothing could have prepared him for the unspeakable evil that stalked him now. He had come to the primitive Caribbean island for rest and instead found love in the arms of Juana, a beautiful island girl.
Now in the jungle they both faced a relentless, oncoming horror that only the awesome power of voodoo could have raised and only the power of voodoo could stop.
