Hey, you got your sci-fi in my horror...

This probably won’t interest anyone other than me, but I’ve been thinking lately about how much of my work blends my two most-beloved genres:  science fiction and horror.  There is, of course, the time travel element in The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People, and that’s probably the most obvious example.  But below are some of my shorter works that readers may not be familiar with:

Our Last Hope - Published in Zombonauts: Zombies in Space from Library of the Living Dead Press.  A very short tale told from the POV of a maintenance worker aboard a starship  whose sole purpose is to scour the universe for a cure to the zombie pandemic sweeping the world.

The Winter Experiment -  Originally appeared in Macabre Cadaver Magazine and reprinted in Ghosts and Demons from Static Movement.  In this story, an obsessed researcher kidnaps and tortures young women in a desolate, mountaintop cabin as part of an experiment in scientifically documenting the manifestation of the mythical, Japanese snow woman, Yuki-onna.

I Eat The Dead -  Published in The Book of Horror 2 from Living Dead Press.  This tale centers around a machine called a Richter Cone, which captures an expelled soul at the moment of death and extrudes it into a physical form.  This device results in a subculture of the feeder/gainer fetish whose food of choice is the human soul.  The story follows a couple who begin with a tender, if not unique, relationship and follows its deterioration as their fame within this particular community skyrockets.  I really like the concept a lot but, to be perfectly honest, I’ve felt for quite some time that I could have given it a stronger ending.

Mental Man - Published in Corrupts Absolutely? from Damnation Books.  This story follows a PTSD afflicted detective imbued with super powers as he tries to get into the head of the Suburb Slayer, a serial killer who slaughters entire families and leaves taunting messages scrawled in blood.

Losing Control - to be published in Bloody Ghost Stories from Static Movement.  I really like the universe I’ve created in this one.  It’s about a man who works for a covert organization as a metaphysical janitor, of sorts.  The premise is that there are dead spots between dimensions called Cut Scenes where passing souls can sometimes become entangled.  Utilizing a person who’s in a medically induced, persistent vegetative state as an eavesdropping device into the afterlife, our protagonist uses astral projection to help move them along.  When sadistic serial killer Albert Lewis is executed, his soul latches onto one of these Cut Scenes and constructs his own hellish reality.  Passing souls are captured  like flies in a spider web and their belief in their own perceptions integrates them into Lewis’ deranged fantasies.  It’s our narrator’s job to journey into this nightmare world and set things right.  I can almost see myself expanding this one into novel length at some point in the future.

I’ve also got a couple of new ideas kicking around an am thinking once I’m clear of all contractual obligations that I might release a short collection of my scifi/horror creations.  I figure why the hell not?  You see a lot of crossovers in film (think Alien, The Thing, etc);  but in the realm of the printed word there’s a distinct lack of these tales, I think