Ronald Kelly – författare

It was a legend in Fear County…a hideous creature—part snake, part earthbound demon—that feasted on the blood of innocent children in the cold black heart of the Tennessee backwoods.But ten-year-old Jeb Sweeny knows the horrible stories are not simply tall-tales, but true. Several children in the town of Pikesville, as well as his girlfriend, Mandy, have been abducted in the dead of night and taken to the Snake-Critter's lair. Jeb knows that no one has ever had the courage to go after the monster and put an end to its raging, bestial hunger.That is, until now.But Evil is well guarded. And for young Jeb, who is about to cross over into the forbidden land of Fear County and unknown territory, passage through the gates of Hell comes with a terrible price.Unbearable and everlasting…FEAR!This special Author's Preferred Edition of Ronald Kelly's magnum opus, Fear, contains the original novel, an introduction by author Brian Keene, a Fear testimonial section, two bonus novellas, and an afterword by the author.

Across the Bloody Mississippi…Following the brutal murder of former Confederate officer, Joshua Wingade, the pursuit for the renegade vampire, Jules Holland, and his hellish followers continues across a war-torn South. The newly resurrected gunfighter, Dead-Eye, accompanied by Louisiana mojo man, Job, find themselves hot on the trail, eager to rescue an abducted child and put an end to the death and destruction the outlaws and the dark witch, Evangeline, have conjured with the aid of Necronomicon and the otherworldly Hole Out of Nowhere.And into the West…Upon setting foot on Missouri soil, Dead-Eye and Job's travels take them into the peaks of the Ozark Mountains, across the Indian Territory, through the swamps of Louisiana, and onto the dusty plains of Texas. Beasts, bayou creatures, and ghostly apparitions hinder their progress along the way, as well as hellish bounty hunters recruited and brought forth from realms beyond the Hole.Will Dead-Eye and Job – along with the demonic steed Brimstone and the silver-shoed mule Balaam – survive to continue their quest into the dark and savage heart of the western territories?Find out inThe Saga of Dead-Eye: Book TwoWerewolves, Swamp Critters, & Hellacious Haints!

Winner of the 2021 Splatterpunk Award for Best CollectionIn the foul and fetid darkness, it awakens.Vile, unstable, brimming with ill intent, like pus on the verge of eruption. Repulsive to gaze upon and even more disturbing to comprehend. It reaches out and discovers that the others—its siblings—have abandoned this cancerous womb long ago. Angry and alone, it thrashes violently…tearing, clawing its way from dormancy into daylight…and onto the dark playground of your bookshelf.Amid these pages, Southern horror master Ronald Kelly has brought together a loathsome assemblage of stories that cut deeply and expose the raw nerves of fright and revulsion. Joining his extreme horror collections, The Sick Stuff and More Sick Stuff, is a third installment of yarns both new and old…Even Sicker Stuff. Combined, they meld and morph, forming The Essential Sick Stuff. Twenty-three abhorrent tales to tantalize and torture the fragile psyche; to cause the stomach to revolt and gooseflesh to crawl as though something, visceral and alive, lurks just beneath the surface...

ALIVE, YET DEAD…The bloody War Between the States and a harrowing confinement in an enemy prison camp had turned Joshua Wingade into a broken man. His nerves and spirit shattered by the barbarity of battle, and demoralized by a cause that his heart secretly despised, Wingade returns home in hope of finding peace and healing.But, upon his arrival, he discovers that Hell had come to call. His beloved wife had been violated and transformed into a horrid bride of the undead, and his only son abducted by a band of diabolical outlaws led by the renegade vampire, Jules Holland. Along for the ride are three demonic henchmen from the fetid bowels of Hades and the dark witch, Evangeline.Aware that he is no match for the gang, Wingade rides across Georgia and Tennessee nonetheless, intent on rescuing his child from imminent disaster. During his journey, he witnesses the horrors and atrocities Holland and his evil confederates have wrought. Eventually, he finds himself at the outlaws' mercy. An instant before death, he makes a final pledge to his stolen son."e;I promise, Daniel! I will come for you!"e;DEAD, YET ALIVE…He awakens to discover that the cold finality of the grave has been thwarted. With the help of the Louisiana mojo man, Job, he has been resurrected. But, the frail and fearful man named Joshua Wingade is forever gone. In his place is the stoic, steel-nerved Dead-Eye with his blind eye aglow and a gun hand as swift and deadly as greased lightning.Together, they vow to pursue the vampire and his minions, and deliver young Daniel from his bondage. However, they know that time is their worst enemy. If Holland and the others make it across the Mississippi River to the Western territories beyond, their vengeance may never come to fruition. For they are entering a new purgatory known as the Devil's Playground… a vast wilderness rife with violence and terrors unleashed from the Hole Out of Nowhere.A place where death and evil are dealt freely, without atonement to anyone… including God himself!

Including the bonus novella "e;Potter's Field"e;SIGHT UNSEENLittle Cindy Ann knew things no one else knew; saw things no one else saw. Ever since she'd nearly died of fever, the gift of second sight had been hers. Only it didn't seem like such a gift when the other children called her a witch and wouldn't play with her. Or when her visions resembled nothing so much as her worst nightmares.DEATH UNDYINGThen her older brother disappeared in the vicinity of the old tobacco barn. And Cindy's visions began to burn with a bloodthirsty relentless hatred. What horrors lay buried in the cold earth of the barn? And how could one innocent little girl hope to fight the terrifying evil - an evil that had taken her brother, and that would now turn on the only witness to its monstrous, merciless crimes...Cindy herself.

It was passed down from generation to generation. The legend of The Dark'Un, the strange beast that roamed Pale Dove Mountain. The dark monster that no one had ever seen — at least not and lived to tell about it — except, so it was said, old Fletcher Brice who lived at the foot of the mountain.No one really believed in The Dark'Un. It was just a story to make a child's flesh crawl.Until Old Man Brice died.Now, the people of Tucker's Mill, Tennessee, would be forced to believe.

As a young girl, Laura Locke ignored the warnings of local superstition and played among the burnt-out ruins of Magnolia; a Tennessee plantation that had been forcibly occupied by the Union Army and then laid to waste during the bloody Battle of Franklin in 1864. She had always thought the ghost stories and tall tales to be untrue… until the night when she witnessed it for herself. High among the blackened columns of the old mansion, upon a balcony with no floor, stood the forlorn specter of Jessica Heller. Rather than fright or horror, Laura had felt empathy for the lost soul, along with a strange kinship. She told herself, then and there, that she would someday own the old house and discover the truth concerning the violent scourge of Magnolia and what had truly become of its lonesome mistress, who had mysteriously vanished without a trace.Years later, as a bestselling author of steamy romance novels, Laura's dream of owning the deserted plantation became a reality. After much construction and remodeling, the old mansion was every bit as majestic as it had been during the prosperous years of the Old South before the devastation of the Civil War. She thought life for her and her husband, Rick, would be peaceful and idyllic. But then strange and disturbing occurrences began to take place. A weeping woman in the garden. A haggard man digging feverishly by the light of a coal oil lantern. The horrifying shadow of a man hanging from the limb of an ancient oak tree. And, worst of all, a malevolent and destructive poltergeist that seemed particularly resentful of her husband's presence.When a world-renowned ghost hunter, a man in search of his ancestral heritage, and two local historians arrive at Magnolia, Laura hopes that the terror that stalks Magnolia will finally be put to rest. Instead, things begin to spiral out of control, leading toward a violent and bloody confrontation that somehow mirrors the deadly events that took place there over a century before.

Unholy Revival!Josiah Craven had been all but forgotten for nearly a hundred years.To his descendants, he was nothing more than an imposing image in an old tintype photograph and the subject of stories told in hushed tones before the fireplace at night. A traveling mountain preacher who had returned from his wanderings and died by mysterious circumstances, buried in an unmarked grave with a wooden stake through his heart. Dudley Craven had heard the tales, but never believed them… until his plow unearthed an ancient coffin in the center of a lonesome mountain pasture.Now Josiah is back and his true nature has been revealed. Hungering for the blood and obedience of his kin, he roams the Appalachian Mountains with only one purpose in mind… to initiate his family into a dark church of the damned.Only a trio of unlikely foes summon the courage to bring Josiah's ungodly mission to an end. An alcoholic carpenter who will do anything to save his wife and children, a timid preacher's wife with a love of horror literature and film, and the knowledge to defeat the undead, and a moonshine-making mountain man who once encountered a similar evil in the dark tunnels beneath the jungles of Vietnam.Together, they will ascend the peak of Craven's Mountain to do battle with Josiah Craven and his congregation of the living dead!

Includes the bonus short story "e;Last of the Chupacabra"e;BLOOD SPORTThey were called diablos hoyos. Vicious black-furred beasts that fought in the pit with the raw fury and savage ferocity of Satan himself. For their owners, they were a lucrative investment. For the people of Sulphur Springs, Texas, they were the best entertainment they'd had in a long while. For Bowie Kane, they were his darkest nightmare come true. He alone recognized the dark and ravenous evil that his Apache ancestors had foretold. But Bowie Kane was an outsider in Sulphur Springs. No one would listen to his warnings. And now it was too late to avert the rampage of carnage and terror unleashed on an unsuspecting town.

He's back!That was the first thought that crossed Cindy Biggs' mind when she heard of the brutal triple-murder in her hometown of Coleman. Yes, the awful crime was nearly identical to the one performed during her hard-scrabble childhood at the time of the Great Depression. And, strangely enough, it had taken place in the same place… the ruins of the old tobacco barn near the edge of Green Creek.But this was 2014, not 1936. Cindy was no longer an innocent nine-year-old child, but an elderly woman who used her gift of second sight to assist the police every now and then. And the man who been mostly responsible for that mass killing in '36, Bully Hanson, had been dead and in the grave for seventy-seven long years.Still she could not shake the overpowering feeling that he was involved in the massacre of three people and that the thirteen year old boy suspected of committing the murders was completely innocent. The only way she could be certain that her suspicions were more due to intuition than senility was to return to Bedloe County. And, with the help of her granddaughter Beth, revisit the most devastating period of her life… and hope that, somehow, someway, the most evil man she had ever known had not slipped the bonds of death and come back to wreak havoc once again…

From the dankness and decay of the Louisiana swamps, to the dust and sweat of Texas, and into the author's own, the mossy gloom of the Tennessee backwoods, as well as the turned earth of its fertile farmland. Creatures lurk within these pages as well. Spiders and gators, things dwelling within jars and the currents of the wind, and the abominations of Hell, let loose to run rampant in the night.

After his family is killed by a pack of rabid wolves, Jefferson Gray survives the horrid disease himself, with the aid of a Cherokee medicine man. But, unfortunately, he can not banish his animosity toward dangerous game, particularly timber wolves.15 years later, he tackles his greatest challenge… a pack of fifty wolves led by the legendary Cripplefoot. Can he survive?

Dark southern horror from a true master: An old man's living fluids reveal a horrible secret from his past…A mentally-unstable woman uses a sexual obsession to take an unwilling hostage…Parasites from within, self-vampirism, and spontaneous decay… all stem from a voodoo curse cast upon the unfortunate survivors of a Louisiana family…This is the sick stuff.

Seven tales of terror that could only beat in the dark, diseased heart of Dixie… - An abandoned furnace stands as a monument to cruelty and torture…as well as a gathering place for old ghosts… - Grandma's culinary gifts of comfort and compassion contain a special ingredient conjured from the very depths of Hell… And much much more!

Previously available on audio cassette from Darkscribe Press, this collection was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992. Dark Dixie collects the following works of southern horror by author Ronald Kelly. This book includes all the stories from the audio book and several more.

Contents:PeacemakerThe BoxcarConsumptionThen Came a WoodsmanOh, Sordid Shame!The Thing at the Side of the RoadWhorehouse HollowThinning the HerdFrom the author:"e;"e;Webster's Dictionary defines the word "e;appetite"e; as:a) any of the instinctive desires necessary to keep up organic life; specifically: the desire to eat, or b) an inherent craving; an insatiable appetite for nourishmentOf course, there are other terms for appetite as well. Craving, coveting, hunger, lust, gluttony, ravenousness, want, yearning, and passion, just to name a few. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, we call it a "e;hankering"e;. Southern folks possess a hankering for a lot of things: gravy & biscuits, sweet tea, pecan pie and homemade ice cream. If you're hanging at the honky-tonk and downing your twelfth beer, you might get a powerful hankering for a hellacious fight or some late-night loving (although most Southern wives refuse to accommodate their men in that area if they stagger home all liquored up).When thinking of appetite, two supernatural beings come instantly to the minds of horror fiction readers; vampires and werewolves. I've explored both in larger bodies of work – my novels, Blood Kin and Undertaker's Moon (Moon of the Werewolf) – and, in a more limited way, several short stories. Those tales of the blood-sucking undead and the beastly lycanthrope are featured here in this collection. Since it is also dedicated to "e;things that go bite in the night"e; these stories also explore other creatures with equally voracious appetites, from man-eating caterpillars to backwoods succubi to monstrous things that lie patiently in wait by the side of the road.So, if you hear something scratching at your front door or lurking in the shadows of your darkened bedroom following the reading of this collection, don't blame me. It's just the dark things that run rampant between dusk and dawn, looking for a little midnight snack."e;