Dead Things

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

What would you do if you saw a woman who really looks like you in your dream murder someone? What would you do if you know that it is not you but when you woke up the dead body is already under your bed but there is no evidence or even a single sign of murder? What would you do if you heard voices and saw scenes that made you insane? And what would you do if you’re the only one who came back from the dead after the bus accident? Find out the life of Irish Stephen who came back from the dead after the bus that she was riding together with her friends, colleagues and boyfriend fell off a cliff that made it totally wreck. People call her “Lazarus” and “Lucky” for returning back from the dead but for her it is a curse because after an accident she knows that there is something wrong with her. She starts seeing things, seeing people that she doesn't know, and hearing voices that she thought is just an effect of the accident. Only her friend Devon understands her and helps her by consulting his friend named, Luna, who knows about spiritual awakenings who told Irish to empty her heart from hatred because of what happened to her in the past of losing someone she loved and her life. When she starts discovering what is happening to her; it is more than what she expected because it is all connected to her dreams and to her visions. The voices that she hears and the things that she sees are all connected to her. Find out how it happened and how Irish became a living dead. Here in MORTEM from one of the best story-teller; I.B.LOYOLA

My father died of esophageal cancer. For the final two years of his life, he could barely swallow anything. By the time he passed, he was nothing but skin and bones. The first New Year after his death, he came to my mother in a dream. "I'm starving," he said. "I just want to taste the thick-cut steak you used to make." My mother believed it without question. That very day, she pan-seared a large platter of steak and carried it to his grave. The next morning, she suffered a sudden heart attack and died on the spot. Devastated, I handled my mother's funeral together with my husband. That same night, my husband dreamed of my father as well. "Chester," he said, "I haven't eaten in so long. I want your pâté, served with some strong liquor." When my husband woke up, he bought the finest liver pâté, opened a bottle of single-malt whiskey, and went straight to the grave. However, not long after returning home, he collapsed from acute liver failure. He was rushed to the ICU and died three days later. I was on the brink of collapse myself. I left my daughter in the care of a close friend while I tried to handle the endless wave of tragedy. That evening, my daughter never came home from school. I searched everywhere, and finally, on the road to the cemetery, I found her. She was clutching a bowl of spicy stew, several grilled sausages floating in the broth. "Mom," she said, "Grandpa and I used to eat this all the time. I dreamed he said he was hungry." I finally lost it. I knocked the bowl from her hands and carried her home. That night, my father appeared in my dream once more. "I suffered so much while alive," he said. "Have some pity on me. "New Year's is coming. I want to come home for a meal. Make sure you cook fish." I woke in terror. Holding my daughter, I sat before the three framed portraits for two full days without eating or drinking. On New Year's morning, I realized she was no longer breathing. Clutched tightly in her hand was a packet of spicy dried salmon. I could not believe it. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my mother, her eyes red with worry, said she was going out to buy steak.

Six years after my younger brother and my fiancée passed away, I picked out a grave for myself. Before my final visit to their graves, my mother suddenly said, “Miles, you don’t have to go this year. The truth is that they never died.” I was startled for a moment before the two of them walked right out of my brother’s room. My brother, Sean, put on a teasing smile as he draped an arm around the woman beside him. “I won the bet! I told you my brother would never figure it out. “Who’s going to be on top tonight, huh, Vera?” My so-called late fiancée, who used to cry whenever she saw me suffer even the slightest grievance, looked at me with open disdain. “He’s just too stupid. We’ve been living next door this entire time, yet he never noticed.” It was only then that I realized my mother forbad me from entering Sean's room, not because it would make her grieve her son again, but because it was directly connected to the house next door. I was truly too foolish. Right up until a month before my death, I was still thinking about visiting their graves.

Jason and Annabel discover a horrifying side of themselves after going through abuse and neglect—they can bring death. Courted by a strange, shadowless creature, they find themselves elevated from a position of nothingness to power. They would stop at nothing to prove their loyalty to the creature. Perhaps not even at the risk of their own destruction... That is, until they discover other purposes and find themselves entangled in love's meddlesome tentacles.

She trusted him with the end of the world. He left her for dead in it. When the zombie apocalypse hits, Maya Rodriguez already knows who she's going to survive with — and who she's going to survive for. What she doesn't know is that her boyfriend has other plans. Ones that don't include her. Abandoned, alone, and furious in a world that has just ended, Maya finds herself with an unlikely companion: LUS, a rogue AI life coach who is equal parts infuriating and inexplicably useful, and who may know more about how the outbreak started than he's letting on. Surviving the apocalypse turns out to be the easy part. Because the world Maya's navigating isn't just full of the undead. It's full of engineered soldiers — wolves in human skin, built by the same government programme that unleashed the virus. It's full of men who want to protect her, want to use her, want to earn her, and want to be forgiven by her. And it's full of one specific slow burn she has categorically refused to name. She's not the woman she was before the world ended. She's considerably more dangerous. ***A post-apocalyptic romance about survival, betrayal, rogue AI, and the specific problem of falling in love when everything is already on fire.