Terrible Thrills

TERRIBLE THRILLS proves brevity really is the key to effective communication with stories of 3500 words or less. The horrors inside include a late night Halloween attraction that traps half a dozen people in an underground catacomb. Lost in the dark with no way out, one guest treads a dark path into madness and paranoia in a story that combines the atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe with the scares of Stephen King. In "The Son of Man", three friends discover a living, growing creature is forming in the clouds outside one of their houses. And while the whispered words echoing through their heads usually inspire hope in the faithful, this time the friends aren't so sure it doesn't spell their doom. "Plaything" and "Parliament of Jim" take wildly different looks at the question of identity and free will, while "The Stand-In" poses the question "How much does where we come from determine where we're going?" as the narrator tries to track down his birth father, an abusive psychopath out for revenge. In "Working for the Fat Man", an immortal Santa Claus uses the names on his Naughty list to feed his powers, but what happens if he slips up and nabs one of the Nice kids instead? "In the Town of Broken Dreams" watches the town of Yellow Brook, KS as they chase down and execute a mysterious stranger, then live with the consequences of their actions as everyone in town slowly succumbs to the bad luck that follows. TERRIBLE THRILLS is a collection of horror fiction from the man author Kealan Patrick Burke called "one of the suspense genres best kept secrets." PRAISE FOR TERRIBLE THRILLS: "C. Dennis Moore is a writer well worth watching, if for no other reason than to say you were reading him long before he hit the big time, as he is certainly destined to." -- Kealan Patrick Burke, Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, and Vessels "C. Dennis Moore has the unusual ability to connect with readers. I have to wonder why, with his ability to shock with everyday fascination and superb craft, he isn't famous yet across our dark, dark world. But he will be." --Charlee Jacob, Stoker Award-winning author of Dread in the Beast, Wormwood Nights, and Haunter "Author C. Dennis Moore definitely knows his way around a short story. His mastery of the form is especially evident in the two dozen examples comprising his debut collection, Terrible Thrills ... The flash fiction works like a sucker punch to the eye, but the longer stories -- given Moore's economy with words -- allow him to drag us through quite a range of terrors." --Craig Clarke, Craig's Book Club "Moore builds the suspense with an excellent eye for detail as if it's actually happening. I wondered if stories like "Inside" were monsters born of nightmares he's had. A strange, fertile mind indeed." –ePinions "The consistent improvement in his work over the years, as well as his ability to seamlessly shift from the mundane to the surreal, indicate an author worth keeping an eye on." --Garrett Peck, Cemetery Dance Magazine