Horror Fiction Help XIX

Can you help ID these forgotten horror novels and stories? Thanks in advance!

1. I think it's from the 1980s and it takes place in the country. A young boy begins to receive body parts in the mail and I think the killer ends up being the town doctor? Towards the end, one of the boy's family members goes on a shooting spree and kills most of his family. Maybe there was a grim reaper on the cover?

2. Published between 1980-1983, featured a “butcher cleaver” on the cover that I think is smashing through glass or a window or something. Found!

3. The best description I can give of it is that its set in a semi modern urban environment, a western city, not dystopian of any kind. It follows a couple characters, and the discovery of a creature that follows a victim based on a gifted object, secretly containing a foul smelling scrap of fabric. Its slowly understood that this item and the ‘curse’ of death via this creature can only be passed on by gifting the object to another person and thereby transferring the way the creature tracks you down. Its a pale hunched creature, (I always imagined it looking much like the urban legend of The Rake that circulates the internet every so often, but not inspired by it as I read this novel far before I knew of the legend) and comes for you while you’re asleep, and you are seemingly unable to escape it. The characters discover that the creature travels through the sewers, and is very old and has been around the area for a while. After finding an entrance to the sewer through a cupboard in a house they discover the bodies of all the creatures victims hanging from the ceiling in the creatures lair/home rotting and they realize this is where the scrap of fabric came from.

4. It was a white or cream colored paperback on the slim side and I remember the copy on the front maybe said “more terrifying than Psycho” (definitely something relating it to Psycho)-it looked 60s and like it was definitely written to cash in on the Psycho hype. The picture, I THINK, was almost like a big drawing of a cracked egg with something unidentifiable and ominous seeping out-very odd because it didn’t seem to relate to the plot. I think the lettering was in black or red. The plot centered on a teen (or slightly younger) girl who, in some way, “wasn’t quite right.” I think she was described (unfortunately) as being “slow” in some way, but there was the suggestion that there was more of a calculating mind hidden behind the mask. I remember a sinister and possibly alcoholic mother, and the story began with the girl’s new tutor showing up, a college coed (I think). She was replacing the odd girl’s previous tutor who I think was a college guy (possibly the boyfriend of the new tutor?) and also was mysteriously missing (I bet you can see where this is going). I didn’t get further than about 10 pages in, so don't know much more, but I get the sense I put it down just before a series of people are dispatched in suspicious ways-clearly in some way by this underestimated kid (I remember thinking the plot really paralleled Psycho, with the girl being like a seemingly harmless Norman Bates type, and the story starting with the missing person in her orbit).

5. A book that I owned during the late nineties/early 2000s (I'm thinking 2000s more than the 90's) that was about a woman's husband was murdered in a way where he was badly burned and after , looked like a ' monster '. The woman had bad dreams every night about him and she stopped dressing in ' sexy ' clothing after his death and only wore baggy clothes and his shirts. The villains in the story were an older woman that was a case worker / social worker (?) who liked torturing her female clients and a younger man (he may have been a gang member?). They were in a Satanic cult and had a mother and son type of friendship. I remember clearly one scene where the older woman ties up a young woman in the kitchen and fixes the ice maker to keep dumping ice on her. The pair kidnap the widowed woman for their sacrifice and raising demons (or) the Devil in a mall. The murdered husband , back from the dead, goes to rescue his wife and heads through the sleazy parts of the city / town where he meets a young woman who is blind or a prostitute or both. She falls in love with him but he won't have sex with her because he still loves his wife.

6. It was about a couple struggling to have a child who move to a small town (American setting I think) with a doctor with some unusually high success treatment for conception via IVF methods.The lady becomes pregnant but notices the others Kids turn out weird and disturbing. really violent etc, I remember it was incredibly gratuitous in its violence, gore etc. Other things i vaguely remember are there where lots of twins as a result of the experiments in it and I seem to remember one of the messed up kids killing a crow or eating it or something, and an evil doctor and a monster of sorts providing the sperm.

7. I'm looking for a book that was released maybe 20 years ago. I actually never read it; I didn't have the money to buy it and then when I did I could never remember the title. Anyway, the only things I remember is that it was a horror novel that took place after something snuffed out the sun - everything was in perpetual blackness; and I feel like maybe the author was some sort of martial arts expert. (It's not Lansdale's Drive-In!)

8. A teenage boy dies in an accident, wakes to find his brain and eyes have been removed. Part of his brain gets put into a computer and given to another kid. The computer makes kid suspicious, so he takes it apart and discovers the chunk of brain inside. Slutty teenage girl gets abducted and raped by some pink tentacle machines hooked up to a blue alien dude. Other girls are there and pregnant. Bluish hybrid people run the "prison" and are children of the alien and abducted girls. I swear the cover of the book was a white on black drawing of a house that was screaming or looking angry, with swirls around it. Found!

9. From what I remember it had an eyeball in a Petri dish or something like that on the front cover, the cover was red, it was a collection of short stories, can’t remember if it was adult or teen, doubt it was goosebumps though.. one of the stories was about an old recluse who lives in a shack that was surrounded by thorns, then the recluse disappeared, some kids spurred on by this old legend, decide to visit the shack, but one by one the meet an untimely end in the Thorns. I remember something about spiders that bore the resemblance to the old hermit as well, they may have contributed to the kids' deaths.

Horror Fiction Help XVIII

Hey y'all, it's another installment of Horror Fiction Help! Readers have emailed me their descriptions. Anyone recognize these forgotten horrors? Much appreciated!

1. A slim paperback and the cover was of a man wearing a pig mask and the book had something to do with astral travel. Found! It's:

2. YA thriller/horror from some point in the '90s. I recall this being part of a series, don't think it was from Point Horror as none of the titles on its wiki article jogged my memory but I could be wrong. I do know for sure it wasn't from Fear Street or Nightmare Hall. Cover art was spooky-looking picture of guy on motorcycle, which probably doesn't narrow it down much but plot-wise... Plot concerns girl being haunted by the presence of her jerk biker ex, though he didn't die only moved away, and it was somehow determined the spirit was lingering about because she hadn't emotionally let go of him yet. Found! It's:

3. Paranormal horror novel written around 1981 set in late '50s, small Midwest town. A little girl cursed by a weird pedophile that tried to lure her in his home with candy, but the girl fled and he cursed her under his breath. He said something like “to hell with you The girl was a normal person until she turned (I believe 18) and still a virgin although she was engaged. When her fiancé tried to go too far a malevolent spirit would interrupt in some manner. She broke her engagement and announced to everyone that she wanted to become a nun. She enters a convent and begins her training as a postulate. While she is there strange things and supernatural occurrences began, soon they realized that they are under demonic attack and they request an exorcism on the young woman. One of the scenes that occurred and I remember well is on a thanksgiving day the sisters prepared a large amount of traditional Thanksgiving food. One of the sister was in the process of setting the table and left to get another food dish, She was shocked to see that the food already place on the dining table had changed into feces within a few minutes. A priest was sent to investigate and to do the exorcism on the young woman. Found! It's:

4. Short story about the dawning of an "age of plastic" where a boy wakes up one day and finds that he's completely made of plastic. He rearranges his facial features and then his parents don't recognize him, causing him to go on the run. He eventually comes home to realize his parents are now made of plastic as well and that this apparently is the new norm. I want to say it was in a Hitchcock anthology of sorts, but it was in a book prior to 1987-8. Found! It's "The Plastic Age" in:

5. A young girl abused by her father, younger brother finds out and I think the father kills him and blames the girl who is then institutionalized. The murder weapon is some type of tool like a wrench, cover had a blonde girl holding it. Remember them playing Manhunt near beginning, brother's name Bubba maybe.

Horror Fiction Help XVII

OK horror fiends who can help out here?

1. Sci-fi/horror novel about insect aliens taking over a town, people getting body-horror mutations, place gets quarantined by the government, turns out the aliens are harvesting psychic energy to power their spaceship. Pretty standard for the genre I guess. Must have been from the '80s (maybe early '90s), the cover art showed human faces cracking open with insectoid features emerging, the title was one of those unpronounceable sci-fi words that's all Xs, Ys, and Zs. Found! It's:

2. When I was a kid my grandma had a copy of a paperback that freaked me out enough I threw it behind the basement steps. And then when she caught me I made her throw it away. I remember the cover as being artwork of a dead looking bride soaked from head to toe in blood. (I've thought about it being Carrie and mixing a prom dress and wedding dress up, but I've never found a Carrie paperback that looks like my memory.) This all took place probably around 1988 to 1991.

3. The title I remember as The Secret (I think) and had a silver quasi-swastika on its cover. Found! It's:

Horror Fiction Help XVI

1. Comics series in mid to late '80s, one issue was a about a woman whose husband was a giant wasp-man creature. Cover featured nude woman carried through the air by a giant wasp. Found! It's

2. Three people stuck on an evil, malevolent train that tries to eat the passengers

3. Story about a man who followed people that were abusive to their pets around in I think New York and exacted revenge on them in a typical fashion (he sees a guy kicking his dog in Central Park and breaks into his house or accosts him on the street and wails on him with steel-toed boots). In the end he goes a little over the edge on someone who is using flypaper, breaks into their apartment while they're on vacation and glues the entire floor. Can't remember for sure but I think the plan backfires and he ends up either painting himself into a corner, as it were, or gluing himself to the floor and starving to death. Found! It's "How Would You Like It?" by Lawrence Block from Monsters in Our Midst.

4. Novel about a couple who hired a maid or possibly an au pair, I think there's a baby but not sure, the maid immediately starts trying to psychologically control and also seduce both of them. Husband figures out something is up, one of the key points is him hunting down her references and finding out that her previous employer is horribly burned to invalidism, afraid of the maid, who faked her own reference. Turns out the maid was a witch centuries ago, I think, cursed to something-something till someone loves her. Husband burns down house trying to kill her, is arrested/thrown into an asylum. Novel ends with the maid, reincarnated into a new body, having an interview for another job... Found! It's:

5. Story in which Harry Houdini dies (as the reader understands; he just wonders why he has suddenly woken up back in his childhood home with his beloved "Mutti" [mother]). As the story progresses, it becomes obvious to both Houdini and the reader that "Mutti" is not his mother and that he maybe trapped for all eternity in his own special hell with a thing that looks like his mother but isn't, giving (against his will) fallacious words from the afterworld to people at seances.

6. A vampire novel very much like 'Salem's Lot except set in the '60s after Kennedy was assassinated. I think a reporter comes to the town and finds it overrun with vampires. Head vampire is very handsome and sleeps in a coffin in the basement of a dilapidated old house. He has the power to enter people's dreams in order to control them. Found! It's:

7. Maybe the book came out in 1999 or so. Mostly white cover, close up of a pale white vampire face with mouth wide open showing fangs and blood around lips. Eyes red and yellow I think. Face filled the whole cover, framing the face so that just above the eyes down to just below the mouth were visible. Maybe a Pinnacle book. Found! It's:

Gah, some of these sound so familiar, but are just maddeningly out of reach! All help appreciated.

Horror Fiction Help XV

As Halloween approaches, I'm finishing up a couple novels and hope to have reviews up soon, and I'm also watching 1970s made-for-TV thriller/horror movies on YouTube. Meanwhile, folks are still looking for forgotten horror fiction. Who can help?

1. A late 90's paperback cover, predominantly back but with a large white and red clown leering down at the viewer. I remember the author being obscure to me but he had made it big enough to be in Barnes and Noble. Thought it might be Al Sarrantonio but it's not. If I remember correctly it was either a jester or one of those European whiteface clowns. Anyhow... I bought it and the book sucked and had no scary clowns in it whatsoever. Found! It's:

2. A short story about a botanist who created a plant from an ill or dying boy.  I think the twist of the story was the parents' shocked realization.

3. A Caucasian fellow goes to see an old Indian (Native American) in his tepee to make a deal involving some kind of vengeance demon/spirit--I forget what for--and the Indian was in over his head; the demon came and killed him and took off wreaking havoc in the white guy's life. I think it raped his daughter or threatened her somehow. Anyhow, one of the details that stuck in my memory is that he didn't like his daughter's boyfriend because, for one thing, he was too audacious, i.e. he didn't even try to hide where his fingers were stained from smoking pot. Which he was doing out on a country road alone when the demon got him. Best I remember the cover showed the old Indian conjuring in his tepee and maybe the demon coming up.

4. I was reading a magazine a couple years ago, for the life of me I can not remember which but it had reviews for horror/thrillers, etc.... it described one book's plot, about a snowstorm and a group of people holed up in a roadside truck stop type of thing, and they soon realize there is a sniper outside, and won't let them leave. Found! It's:

5. Any information on a story about an escaped killed called "Mad Maurice."  It was in a kids' horror anthology.  I read it in the 80s but it may have been much older.  There was a bit about branches scratching a window but it really being the killer.  It wasn't really that great, but it is a story I have never forgotten. Found! It's:

6. 1980s Playboy paperback... A rapist gets caught... and nether regions are put in his taped-shut mouth.

Horror Fiction Help XIV

Here are some recent emails I've received from horror fans trying to find forgotten books! Any help much appreciated...

1. A vet gets involved with a black magic group including a man tattooed with the tree of life. UK paperback cover pictured the tattoo.

2. A man imports a hyena for his sick son which escapes and causes havoc in the city....I thought this was Graham Masterton but it does not fit any of his titles. Found!

3. A man who has grown up with magic and becomes of high flyer in a secret society... early on I remember that he goes to Sweden? for a meeting and takes a sauna, later he takes over the former mistress of another cultist.

4. 1970s novel (sci-fi/horror) has to do with some space arachnid. Cover shows a window washer (high up on a skyscraper) coming face to face with some sort of alien spider humanoid thing (presumably from outer space). I'm guessing it's from the late 60s or early 70s, because of when I read it and the sexual content (I got it out of our local library when I was a kid). Found!

5. It was 'satanic horror' but pretty mild. As best I can recall the main protagonist was a man who fell in love with a young woman with a mysterious past. There some lingering threat... something to do with her father and the place she'd grown up. The only solid memory I have is that there is a trunk that holds some key to the mysteries of the past. It isn't until the end of the book that the protagonist manages to open it and know the contents. They reveal that the father and daughter had had an incestuous relationship and that they'd worshiped Satan/devils/demons.  At the end of the book the girl has gone missing, as completion of some pact the father had made (I think). Found!

6. I never read the stories but heard them from a kid in my class at school way back around 1979, so don't know if they are from magazines, pulp comics or just urban legends/folklore.  

The first story may be called 'Night of the Black Weasel' or 'Black Night of the Weasel'. It's about a hiker travelling on foot along an isolated forest road who meets a traveller along the route. The hiker is alarmed to see the traveler has jet black eyes and weasel like features. My memory of what happens next is a little fuzzy but I think it culminates in a chase or fight, resulting in the hiker being decapitated by the demon traveler with an axe or hatchet. The missing hiker's head is eventually found with the hatchet/axe embedded in it and on closer scrutiny the words "beware the night of the black weasel" are found engraved on the blade. Does this ring any bells?  

The second story is set in an amusement park or carnival. A series of gruesome murders takes place inside a dark ride ghost train. Someone or something is beheading the passengers! When the ride is investigated nothing can be found to suggest what could have caused the deaths. Eventually it transpires a deranged circus trapeze artist has been hanging upside down from the rafters of the dark ride interior and dispatching the riders with a sword as their train passes underneath.
8. Trying to remember the author and title of a story I read in the late 70s which still has the best opening line of any short story I have ever encountered: "When Deidra came out of her grave, it was raining outside." Sound familiar to anyone? Its about a teeny-bopper ghoul.

Horror Fiction Help XVIII

These sound familiar to anyone? 

1. From probably 1960s and certainly not newer than 1972ish. The cover art had a pair of women's (I think) shoes and the shoes had scary, moaning faces.

2. Something to do with a nightmare and a haunting. It has three golden monsters on from '91 and it looks like a apple paper back or an Avon but it's not. I think a character's name is little Jack.

3. I thought it was called "Little Angel" or a variant thereof. I remember the cover was an illustration of an innocent-looking little boy, around 10 years old, sitting next to a broken birdcage with feathers and blood all over the place. And he's got this "Who, me?" expression on his face. It was a rip-off of "The Bad Seed," and concerned an evil little psychopath boy, around 10 years old or so, who lived with his parents. His mom spoiled him rotten, but his dad suspected that he might be evil. Of course, nobody believed him. I remember the little boy tries to kill his aunt at one point by throwing her off a cliff, but she's hanging on for dear life and somehow manages to attach herself to the side of the cliff with her belt. And the little boy is bitching that she spanked him for wetting his pants when he was younger, and how much he wants her to die. She survives, but her arm is all bruised and dislocated from hanging onto the cliff for so long. Then his teacher ends up with a broken arm because he bum-rushes her on the playground and knocks her onto a pile of gravel. The dad tries to talk to her about the incident, and ask if she suspects his son, but she thinks the boy is innocent and he's crazy. The dad and the aunt team up to stop the boy, much to the mom's chagrin. But then the mom somehow gets on the boy's bad side and he tries to kill her, too. But the dad somehow stops him, and I think he accidentally kills the boy. At the end, the mom lays dying in the hospital and gives her blessing for the dad to marry the aunt, because she knew all along that they were more well-suited for each other. I used to love reading this trashy pulp novel, but I lost it a long time ago, and I'd love to figure out what it was called, and maybe read it again. Found! It's: 

 
4. The book is set in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane in a very cold region of America where a new doctor is trying a new form of treatment for a particular patient. This patient was guilty of a series of murders of women where he strung them up and basically bled them dry, possibly showering in their blood. He is heavily medicated but the doctor thinks that he can "get through" to him by cutting his medication. The book basically goes through flashbacks showing how the killer developed into what he is and introduces characters and sets up future confrontations between staff and patients. In the end the patients revolt and escape setting up a chase between the main good characters and the main bad characters in a violent snowstorm. As I mentioned, I cannot remember the name of the book but it may have had "Snow" or "Winter"in the title, but I can't say for sure. Found! It's that perennial used paperback I see in virtually every used bookstore I visit but have never read:

5. I read a book in which the one of the main characters in this short story collection, I believe i remember this correctly, fell in love with a sheep. There was another story that involved necrophilia. There was nothing graphic or gross. Instead, it was this amazing depiction of loneliness. I think it took place in big sky country, maybe Nebraska.  Found! It's: 

 

Horror Fiction Help XVII

Anybody recognize any of these half-remembered short stories and novels?

1. The short story I'm looking for was from a compilation of about 10-12 stories.  I remember the cover was mostly black (big surprise there! ha!) with a small amount of line art in either red or white.  I think red, but I often remember colors wrong. Either way, the art was simple and not painting like. Scrawny teenager who grows into a well-built man over the course of a summer while working at a decrepit factory.  The story spoke about the bad vibes from the factory driving the young man's growth and how his newly strong body was somehow built of evil.  It wasn't really very horrific, but I remember liking some of the analogies and how they were worded.

2. I read this paperback in jr or sr high school sometime between 1976 and 1981.  I think the title was The Dark.  I also think the monster was named Harmon Quaid. The dark was darker than usual, and young ladies were disappearing/being murdered. Found! It's the novelization The Dark.

3. This book was paperback and had a beautifully designed cover the way many of these books had from the 1950's to the 1970's. I do not the date,publisher or author. This book was given to me as a birthday present some fifteen years ago in England when I resided there by a friend who is now deceased. I lost it with four thousand other books,half of our library because of the flood waters of Perfect Storm Sandy. Now,I believe the word Pan may have been a part of the title but I'm not sure. The one significant evidence I can offer of the book cover design is that at the top,not necessarily very top,of the design was what appears to be a naked baby but is actually an infant size man,bald with brown hair or black on the sides and back of his head,but the hair was most relevant on the sides. He had two little devil like horns and if I remember correctly he was smiling.

4.  Story unfolds from a father's perspective as he travels to visit his newly married daughter who was always pretty sharp and had some interesting ambitions, I believe they included some radical ideas involving psychology or something and she was pursuing research, had had some interview tapes or something. He finds her to be a completely different person, instead of his inquisitive, challenging daughter in pursuit of truth (she might have had a controversial thesis she was working on), she has become docile and dull, spending time engaged in domestic pursuits and watching daytime soap operas with her husband and inlaws who are equally boring. Turns out there's a mind-control program/ xperiment going on in this small town. They even have a factory that puts certain chemicals in canned foods, etc. and repackages them. Records are kept in the hospital with color codes and I think the police chief and others are in on it. The father discovers this, not sure how it turns out, I think they start trying to chase him down. Found! It's The Homing by Jeffrey Campbell.

5. I remember it being about this girl who is kidnapped. She's in this old abandoned house with this man that isn't a man...he tells her that Santa rearranged is Satan....at one point she is tied to a bed and he sticks spikes under her toe nails? I seem to remember that she escaped...I think....I also remember that in the book she reads a book that ends up being about what happens (happened) to her.

6. When I was a kid, there was a paperback that sat with some other books in a hall closet. It had cover art that scared me so much that I dreaded anytime I had to open the door. I don't know the name of the book, but it was probably 1960s and certainly not newer than 1972ish. The cover art had a pair of women's (I think) shoes and the shoes had scary, moaning faces.

Horror Fiction Help XVI

All right guys: any ideas? Help some people who wanna find these long-forgotten horror stories!

1. The book was a black cloth hard-cover, and appeared to be a treatise or horror essay (not an anthology of stories). If ONLY I could remember the title or the author I'd find it fast enough online, but the only thing that stands out in my mind are parts of two sentences: ". . . frozen wagon wheel ruts" and "trees denuded of leaves . . ."    "The woods were gray with denuded trees, and the frozen wagon ruts in the mud of the road as cold and hard as iron." There was mention of vampires but also mention of werewolves as well. It might have been published in the early 40s or 50s, maybe earlier.

2. Back in the way back (1963-4) my dad gave me an anthology of one page horror stories that were so well written, I still, these many years later, will not eat a can of food sans wrapper--even if it's from my own pantry. There were also two stories about babies--one read as a prisoner escaping his cell, turning the bars, pretending to sleep when the guards came by, only to find its a toddler in his playpen. Found! It's:

3. Story begins when a man of American Indian heritage, living in a cabin in the woods alone, wakes up one morning in early autumn to find that a spider has spun a web across his porch. The man’s Indian heritage leads him to take this event as a sign of an early and harsh winter, and also as a possible omen of something much more dreadful. The man’s misgivings are then amplified into a sense of impending doom by a second incident on the same day: While walking in the woods, he is attacked by a savage, angry rabbit. This latter incident convinces the man that he is going to die that winter, and he does in fact die in the course of the book. I remember that these opening pages set a magnificent sense of dark impending fate in the midst of the bright colors of a beautiful autumn morning.     The only other things I remember about the book is that the latter part is set in a hunting lodge in the deep woods, and that the action culminates in a hunt in which a giant wolf—or maybe werewolf—is killed. The heroine is involved in the hunt, but I think that she might be something akin to a werewolf herself.

4. The book was a collection of stories - three in all, I think, and by the same author - intended for young readers. We read it when we were in third grade, which would have been 1998ish, and it was not a new book. My feeling is that is was published in the '80s or early '90s.  I don't remember much about the appearance of the book other than the fact that it was a paperback, but my sister says it was a dark background with lurid bright colors. She thinks it was a fairground setting with two children cowering in fear, and that there might have been a scary old man involved.   I remember two of the stories in the book with great clarity, which makes it all the more infuriating that I can't identify the book. One story was about two friends, a boy and a girl, who ran afoul of a man at a fairground/carnival who had special pencils that made whatever he drew with them real. Pretty sure he turned someone into a chicken thing (a la Freaks), and he messed with the kids by doing stuff like skipping from the afternoon to the next morning in order to deprive the kids of sleep. The kids ended up sending him to a tropical island somehow, and the story ended with him sending them a letter saying he would be back soon because the island had all the stuff he needed to make more magic pencils. Found! It's:

5. When I was in elementary school there was a 2- or 3-set anthology Horror/Sci Fi if I remember correctly. One of the stories was titled "Wendonai’s Child." Found! It's:"Wendigo's Child" from:

  
6. A man wants revenge against creatures that only come out at night, they killed his wife or lover. He finds them at an amusement park and he is going to blow them up. That is pretty much the sum of my memory regarding this book/story.
 
7. All I remember is on the cover it has a picture of a burnt doll's face. It was about a man who survived the crash and it was the doll he was going to take to his daughter.
 
8. I remember having an anthology back in the late 80's/early 90's. I remember parts of a particular story. The story was about the devil getting to come to earth on a particular Sunday. I believe Sunday may have been in the title. Also there were references/quotes from the kookaburra song. Found! It's from:

Horror Fiction Help XV

OK everybody you know the drill: any ideas about any of these? Numbers 2 and 5 sound maddeningly familiar to me.

1. Back in the way back (1963-4) my dad gave me an anthology of one page horror stories that were so well written, I still, these many years later, will not eat a can of food sans wrapper--even if it's from my own pantry. There were also two stories about babies--one read as a prisoner escaping his cell, turning the bars, pretending to sleep when the guards came by, only to find its a toddler in his playpen.

2. This book or digest actually had short stories in comic-book form but they weren't comics per se.  Two of the stories I do remember went like this and apparently these stories were based on some type of true events.

The first story involved a guy who was caught in a terrible storm.  He found refuge in a dilapidated castle.  It was there that he met a lady who stated that this was her home.  He extended his stay and they fell in love.  Her only condition was that he may never see her either in the daylight or in any sort of light (don't remember which).  They had two kids together.  One day, he broke that promise and saw her for what she was.  Some sort of monster (kind of a cross between a wolf or bear) that walked upright.  Needless to say, she banished him due to his mistake and his kids also were these creatures.

The other story involves a guy who basically wants to get rid of his wife (for whatever reason).  So he takes her into the woods.  Of course, he gets out of there and abandons her leaving her to the wolves who do kill her.  After a period of time, the guy is looking out into the woods from his balcony when he sees the ghost of his wife floating toward him.  Not believing what he sees, he leaves his house to follow said ghost.  She continues to float about 15-20 feet off the ground and leads him into the woods.  The last scene is of him getting attacked by wolves (probably the same ones that attacked her).  In other words, she got her revenge by getting him ambushed.

3. Titles by the same author. All of the were about serial killers who dispatched their victims via a special method (e.g., drowning, suffocation, burning). Each cover depicted a woman's face as she was being murdered by that book's method. For example, the suffocation book's cover sports a screaming woman's face in a bag. The drowning book shows a woman being drowned from underwater. Found! It's the Dean Grant series by Robert Walker. Yikes: 

4.  I'm probably grasping at tentacles here, but on the off chance, but I'm trying to remember a fantasy-horror story or novel that would have been released in the early 1990s (?)- based on the fact that I heard about it in a GALAXY Bookshop [an Australian specialist bookseller] mail newsletter from then, in a special insert devoted to the upcoming output from this particular author (a somewhat famous one I think) - the primary sequence in an excerpt was about a little man, Mr Pix/Puck/Pim(?), arriving outside the door of a main character in a cardboard box like a homunculus. If memory serves the backdrop was of a strange hotel or lodging in some weird town. I don't have much more info than the above, but I've always assumed it was Thomas Ligotti, but I probably have been incorrect. Found! It is Ligotti: "The Bells Will Sound Forever," and it's in Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: Volume 9 (1998).

5. A detective is investigating the murder rape of a young girl. He arrests a man (a dwarf) who confesses that he had done that in a ritual to obtain wings. The detective has no other proofs, so, in order to punish the rapist he torn out of his back the budding wings already growing there. Found! It's "A Fly One" by Steve Sneyd, found in both Whispers III and Year's Best Horror VIII.

 

6. Late 1990s or early 2000s. Set in the forests of the northern U.S., or maybe Canada. Plot ultimately centered on a werewolf, and I think it featured a woman heroine.

Story begins when a man of American Indian heritage, living in a cabin in the woods alone, wakes up one morning in early autumn to find that a spider has spun a web across his porch. The man’s Indian heritage leads him to take this event as a sign of an early and harsh winter, and also as a possible omen of something much more dreadful. The man’s misgivings are then amplified into a sense of impending doom by a second incident on the same day: While walking in the woods, he is attacked by a savage, angry rabbit. This latter incident convinces the man that he is going to die that winter, and he does in fact die in the course of the book. I remember that these opening pages set a magnificent sense of dark impending fate in the midst of the bright colors of a beautiful autumn morning.

The action culminates in a hunt in which a giant wolf—or maybe werewolf—is killed. The heroine is involved in the hunt, but I think that she might be something akin to a werewolf herself.

7. Horror trilogy and the first book is about a Korean vet who becomes a priest. His wife is part of a satanic cult and married him only because she knew he would eventually lead a group against the cult. There are creatures that guard a cave, and if one of these creatures bite you, you turn into them, kind of a Neanderthal monster. Also, if you have sex with any of the cult, you also are turned. The preacher leads the battle against the cult and in the first novel, winds up in a fight (although it is just assumed in the writing) and even though he lost, the devil left a remark about how he was a great adversary. Two sequels followed in which the girlfriend of the preacher gave birth to a child, and also one of the women of the evil cult seduced him in the fight with the devil and she gave birth to a child also. Found! It's William W. Johnstone's early 1980s Devil series from Zebra.

Horror Fiction Help XIV

Okay everybody, you know how it goes, who can help some TMHF readers track down these lost and forgotten horror novels?

1. It's no older than 1993, and I believe it was a paperback. The cover had a very deep blue tint, a haunted looking house in the distance with a log in the foreground, perhaps a felled tree, and above the house was a giant skull with its hands around the house.

2. A large image of a skull filling up the cover with type above it.  A very straight-on and brightly/flatly-lit (not shadowy) shot of a skull, but I think perhaps a skull-headed figure (perhaps from the top of the shoulders on up) wearing clothes (and a hat?) - but with a straight-up skull head, and done in a fairly "realistic" style I think.  After looking online at countless 1970s (not '60s or earlier) paperback covers I'm sure, based on my basic memory of the cover layout + illustration, that it would have been ten years old or less at that time.  Found! It's: 

3.  I think I read it in the late '70s.  It most likely would have been in the horror genre section of the library, since that was my big interest back then. The main character was a young teenage girl, whose mother was dead (possibly had recently died). Her father was devastated by grief, and didn't pay much attention to the girl. As she matured, she bound her breasts down with tape...I assume to try to stay a little girl, and keep from growing up. At the end of the book, she unbound her breasts, let her hair down, dressed as an adult, and went to her father, pretending to be, or possibly believing she was, his dead wife (her own mother). Found! It's:

4.  A fairly well-to-do couple move from the city to a place in the woods (I even think they're renovating the place they buy). The wife is doing research in the area about the mountain folk who have been inbreeding and eventually comes to respect them... but of course there's some sort of menace in the woods. I remember she throws a fit at a high society party, a handsome but shady local laborer, and that she finds safety with the inbreds. Found! It's:

Horror Fiction Help XIII

Before I leave for a week's vacation, I'd like to present another installment of Horror Fiction Help. I've gotten some nice inquiries from folks eager to get their claws upon these vintage paperback horrors... any help much appreciated!

1. Paperback with a pink and black cover, and I think the title had the word "House" in it. There was possibly a devil's tail in the design as well. This was likely in the late 70's, possibly early 80's. Found! It's:

2. A Frankenstein book with a silver cover, first chapter starts off with Frankenstein trying to get a boat ride from the North Pole. Found! This one is:

3. On the cover, I think, was a picture of a scantily glad vaguely trailer trashy woman running and there might have been a trailer in the background. I am pretty sure that most of the books main setting occurred in either a trailer park or some other working class type abode in the present day (1980s/1990s).  One character had a sword. He would go out in his shed/barn and light candles and practice using his sword to put out the candles by swinging at the flames. I think the guy with the sword was supposed to be kind of a down and out loser type. There might have also been someone who had their hand amputated during the course of the story, possibly the dude with the sword?

4. Cover was a dark old gothic-looking house with dark hills and background. Short stories, I think American, horror and suspense, and I seem to remember some story about Amityville but not the haunted house. Stories about dark hills and disappearances too.

5. Early '70s, title something like True Vampire Stories and its cover art featured a vampire with an impossibly elongated head, blood dripping from his tiny mouth, and short, spiky hair with yellow or maybe green skin.  The book purported to feature stories or legends of "real vampires" as accounted by folklore.  I remember one story in particular featured the tale of "The Vurdalak." Found! It's:

6.  Someone was sneaking into people's homes, living in closets, and being so quiet that no one knew he was sneaking around their home. It turns out that there are two "sneakers", who were missing boys, but one was violent and the other was special-needs and non-violent.

7. A fairly slim paperback collection of ghost stories, maybe 10 stories in all. I believe all the stories took place in England or the U.K. There were illustrations in it that were crudely drawn but effective. I think the book was probably older, published in the 60's or early 70's, maybe even as far back as the late 50's. The story I remember best, because it and the accompanying illustration frightened me the most, was about a  female ghost (quite heavyset?) in the basement of a house or a flat, who was doing laundry at a washtub. Her back was turned when the current owner/renter came upon the ghost, and when the ghost turned around, she was a rotting corpse, (pieces of her actually falling off, IIRC). I think, although am not positive, that the ghost had been killed by her husband while in the basement doing laundry. Scared the hell out of me when she turned around and was decomposing, to say the least.

Simply leave any guesses/suggestions/whatevers in the comments, and I'll go through them upon my return late next week. See y'all!