Showing results by author "Steve Vernon" in All Categories

There are superheroes, and then there is Captain Nothing - ready to crack knuckles and break heads - no matter what the cost. Here are five truly unforgettable stories - three of them never seen or heard before - plus a behind-the-scenes afterword and a sneak preview of Apocalypse Nothing, Steve Vernon's upcoming Captain Nothing novella.

Some stories tiptoe up and whisper in your ear - all sweetness and gumdrops and happy-ever-after-after-there-you-go. Then, there are the weird ones. We're talking talking-chickens, blue plague spam monkeys, tug boats of unbridled and fetid fecundity, tulwar-swinging cab drivers, malls that maul you, gnawing on screwdrivers and jig-lining elder gods coming at you faster than a ride-on mow-down massacre mower shopping cart caravan. This is a collection for the seriously messed up minds of all you listeners who have grown tired of the trite detritus of day-to-day storytelling.

So you think you know all about superheroes? Those guys in the capes and the lightly starched spandex speedoes? Leaping tall buildings and always getting the girl? You don't know nothing. Join Steve Vernon, Nova Scotia's hardest working horror writer, as he takes you into the world of Captain Nothing. It's a world without hope, a world that is as cold and dark as a landlord's heart, three days after the rent is due. It's a world that could give the Batman a case of the squirming night fears.

Burt was certain that if he hadn't hit King Kong with Darth Vader's head, he would not have fallen into that Citadel Hill time-traveling toilet. He wouldn't have met and been shot by the one-armed ghost, and he would not have found himself in the wrong place at the wrong freaking time. A Blurt in Time is a YA time-travel horror story that grown-ups will want to hear when the kids aren't looking.

Here it is. The whole entire story of the Book of Genesis as told to you by the world's oldest storyteller, Uncle Bob. If you think you know the truth behind the Bible Stories you really ought to pick up a copy of this book. If you are one of those folks who thinks that it is bad manners to giggle a little in church - well, you might want to take a good listen to the sample before you go throwing down any of your hard-earned money. This isn't exactly a solemn retelling of the Bible. In fact, I guarantee a giggle or two along the way. The fact is this is the story of the Book of Genesis as retold by a country gentleman who read the Bible a couple of times and is doing his level best to retell it in his own words.

You can smell that long-dying aroma of Autumn in the air. Kids are talking trick or treat and the leaves are already screaming at you in red and yellow and deep golden rust as they prepare for one final parachute down into the dirt. The tombstones are talking amongst themselves and winter is hiding just around the corner. It is the time of the year when people draw around the wood stove and the campfire and whisper stories of death and omens and ghosts and things that don't even have a name.

Nobody really knew how long the old Funnel mansion had stood empty, waiting up there high on Carpenter's Hill like a child's forgotten lunch box, any more than anybody knew just how long that old cat had squatted in behind the screen of the front porch window. Three young boys are about to find out just exactly what the dark and horrifying secret is behind that cat. Only two of them will survive.

The story of a young farmer, a wishing ring, and a fairy named Queen Maab. This is old school fairytale telling at its very finest.

"Leave Luther's body right where we flung him," Bates said. "You aren't burying him today." After Sally Mae Webster phoned me up to tell me that my Korean War buddy Luther Webster had been shot and killed by the Bates brothers, I knew that I wasn't going to stop until I had righted that wrong. I wondered just how many graves I was going to have to dig today.

Everything that you have read about Bigfoot is a lie. Everything that you have heard about Bigfoot is the truth! Enjoy three stories from the files of The Creep Squad - that pack of cryptids, legends, and nondescript rumors who fight crime and misjustice anywhere that you aren't looking. What if all the stories were true? What if Bigfoot really did exist? What if he depended upon people's belief in him for his very existence? What if he needed a job and the only one he was suited for was keeping the other legends in their place?

There is a big old sledding hill not more than two or three good snowballs' worth of distance from our home, just behind Hank Macabee's house. That hill was waiting for me and my brand new toboggan. It's one of those sneak-up kind of hills with a long slow ride down that picks up speed as it goes with a bump-hump at the end that you never see coming. The Christmas tree crashed through Hank Macabee's bay window. The tree stand clattered behind it and bounced with a clank on Hank's half-frozen front lawn. Hank came through the door with a shotgun in hand.

Meet Lady Macbeth - a high school librarian, ex-assassin, and part-time kelpie, whose mother wanted to name her Hemorrhoid at birth. Now she has to take on a Sea Hag - eight legs of Godzilla-ugly poured into a bucket full of meanness - with the help of a one-woman army named Rhonda, a 200-year-old sea captain, and a hunky lighthouse keeper who won't admit that he's dead as well. Kelpie Dreams is a funny, action-packed, shoot-em-up paranormal romance novel for folks who hate romance novels.

Detours are amazing creatures. A detour can cut your existence short or it can lead you down a long road that will linger far into the distant reaches of eternity. These unexpected tangents, which people stumble across nearly every day, will haunt you in a frighteningly familiar fashion. I offer you 18 eerie tales of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and all around strangeness that will take you to the edge of the map and then nudge you just a little bit further.

“I hate cats more than any on the planet,” Grandpa always told us. “A dog you can take hunting and a moose you can shoot, but a cat only gets in the way and barfs on your carpet in the nighttime, most usually in the very spot that you step on first thing in the morning with your bare feet - and then you are left walking around the whole day long smelling of cat-barfed-on-footprints.”

Just imagine you walk into a cheesy old greasy-spoon diner, the kind that ought to hand out antacid along with a napkin, knife, and fork. You ask the waitress for eggs and bacon, and she brings you a plate with live chicken on it. I mean, feathers and beak and the whole bonanza. Just think about a mix of Kafka and O'Henry and you are somewhere close to the mark.

Texas Jack Page, on the eve of his 48th birthday, emptied his last seven cartons of books, placing them volume by volume across his front door - a one-man human cask of Amontillado interring himself inside a shining silver Airstream trailer sized aluminum tomb of tomes.

It started out as a simple drive down a country road. Oh sure, Hillman was thinking about suicide. Oh sure, the dead woman is in his back seat was goading him on. What was the point? Why bother living? Who am I? It turns out Coyote has something to say about that. Coyote...and a troll.

In 1691, the town of Crossfall taught the witch Thessaly how to die. They beat her, they shot her, they hung her--but nothing worked. When they finally tried to bury her alive Thessaly set the field against them. The first man died as a gust of wind harrowed the meat from his bones. A root,flung like a dirty javelin, cut a second man down. Many more deaths followed. The Preacher Fell impaled the witch upon her very own broom but she dragged him down into the field to wait for three more centuries.

Love is one of those four letter words that some people like to throw around - but sometimes love can be one of the meanest and nastiest games in town. Here are six of the strangest love stories you have ever heard. Find love and memories in the bag of a mysterious 18 wheeler in "Do-Overs and Detours - Somewhere North of Bigfoot". Find out just how bitter love can truly taste in "Hard Soup". Find out why the sea is so darned salty in "The Woman Who Lost Her Tooth While Laughing at the Sea".

Bobby Kaye's life story started and ended with an email, and then the monkey dung hit the fan. We're talking blue plague monkeys, tulwar-swinging cab drivers, a ride-on-mower caravan of unbridled mass consumption, and a moon-infatuated, eight-legged story-telling spider god going toe-to-toe-to-toe-to-toe with the merciless, scud-spear wielding Nigerian spam genie - Prince Wanna-Wanna-Wanna!