Showing results by author "Matt Shaw"

It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind. Authors, editors, and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity. The stories here represent the best of them, disturbing tales that dig deep and take you into the dark heart of horror itself, unrelenting and unapologetic.  

A family will do anything to survive after a nuclear attack has left their world in ruins. Actions which even surprise them.

Home truths pave the way for a journey of self-discovery and revenge in the direct sequel to Matt Shaw's Sick Bastards.

It was supposed to be a pleasant evening out; a break from the stress of the hard-working week they had both endured. A bite to eat in one of their favorite restaurants and then, if there was time, a movie at the cinema opposite. It had been - her husband - Sam's choice; an impromptu date. Yet his day had been one cock-up after another. Meetings had gone on longer than they should have, his phone had run out of battery, and every single traffic light seemed to be working against him.

SickEST B*stards continues from the end of SickER B*stards. To understand this short story and wrap up the events of Sick B*stards, you need to listen to the previous two titles.

Something is wrong with Crista's children. Her partner, Matt House, tells her it's nothing to worry about. He says they're probably acting up because they didn't want to move into this new house. But Crista knows her children. She has seen them play up before at various times and this isn't like them. What they're saying, what they're doing...It's not like her children at all....

Moving from school to school is never easy. You're constantly struggling to catch up to the level of the other students. You're forever meeting new friends just to have to leave them and establish new colleagues at the new schools. You always find yourself lost in the never-ending maze of corridors as you battle to get to grips with where everything is.... But it's worse when the more unfriendly students decide to take an instant dislike to you. Tormenting you each day...pushing you to see how long it is before you're going to snap...

From Matt Shaw comes the story of a new breed of serial killer - a stranger who travels the country kidnapping his victims before torturing them and discarding them in a field, dressed up as scarecrows.

Dean and Jess knew the house had a tragic past but it did not stop them from making the move with their young daughters. It was supposed to be a new - and bigger - home with which they could continue to build upon their already established happy memories but as the house's past begins to haunt them they realize it is not the dream they first hoped it to be.

Twelve housemates enter a house as part of a bold, new television show. All they know is they're to have their actions monitored 24 hours a day and compete in a series of tasks with the knowledge that - at the end of the show - one of them will walk away with 100,000 pounds. But all is not as it seems, and the truth - and danger - becomes apparent as soon as the doors lock them in on their first night, and the first of the 12 is murdered....

He understood why she did it. She had lost her own baby - one conceived by the unwanted advances of a sexual predator - and hated thinking of them out there in the cemetery, alone and cold. She had to bring them into the warmth. She had to give them the lives they'd otherwise never live. It was her mission. But with each new doll brought home, her yearning for a living child of her own continued to grow. Yes, he knew why she did it, but even so, he wasn't able to stand by her, and he knew she was going to get a lot worse before she got better.

Mark fears that his wife is cheating on him. Over the past couple of weeks, she has been growing more and more distant and shudders at his very touch. Determined to keep his new marriage afloat, he confronts her only to find the truth of the situation is far more horrific than he could have ever envisioned.

Warning: This is an extreme horror novel. There is gore. There is bad language. There are scenes of a sexual nature. But hidden underneath it all is also a chilling story. Please do not purchase this book if you are easily shocked, disgusted, or offended. This book is not for you. Would you give up your child if a stranger asked? No? What if they offered money? Still no? What if they threatened the rest of your family? Give your child up or lose your entire family in the most horrific way possible.

For Craig, the trip to the cabin was supposed to be a quiet retreat from his hectic city life where he could concentrate on writing his latest novel. For his wife, Susan, and his two kids, Jamie and Ava, it was supposed to be a weekend vacation. For all of them, it became a nightmare.

It was supposed to be a nice family vacation. Their first time out camping. Quality time with the family - more about communicating with each other as opposed to whatever electronic devices got them online. But from the moment they got lost and gave up looking for the camp site, opting to stay in a pretty-looking field deep in the country, things start to go from bad to worse, and soon they find themselves running for their lives.

Karen thought she was married for life but her husband had other ideas. Married for five years and he'd been cheating for three of those. Why? Because Karen wasn't adventurous enough in the bedroom department. He got his kicks elsewhere, from a woman prepared to do anything and everything he fancied. He never meant to fall in love with the other woman, it just happened and - as a result - he had to leave his wife. Karen's friend Emma took her in and it was here - staying on her couch - that Karen was accidentally introduced to a new, seedier world....

Warning: This is an extreme horror novel. There is gore. There is bad language. There are scenes of a sexual nature. But hidden underneath it all is also a chilling story. Please do not purchase....

People laughed at him when he said he wanted to be a movie star, and yet here he was - the biggest night of his life - collecting his Oscar for "Best Actor". Grinning like an idiot, he couldn't even recall the speech he gave to the camera...The camera and a room full of actors, directors, and producers - people who used to look down their nose at him whenever he had a new film coming out (usually an over the top action film with huge explosions and slow-mo gun battles). They're not looking down their nose at him now though.

Robert Nash is unlucky in love. He is so unlucky in love, in fact, that he has never been with another living person. And that's not about to change any time soon when his latest date is far from living.

The follow-up to Matt Shaw's Bite-Size: A Collection of Short Stories. Hear five more previously unpublished short stories from one of Britain's most warped imaginations.