JOHN L. FRENCH ~ is a crime scene supervisor with the Baltimore Police Department Crime Laboratory. In 1992 he began writing crime fiction, basing his stories on his experiences on the streets of what some have called one of the most dangerous cities in the country. His books include THE DEVIL OF HARBOR CITY, SOULS ON FIRE, PAST SINS and the upcoming HERE THERE BE MONSTERS. He is the editor of BAD COP, NO DONUT which features tales of police behaving badly.

SIMON MCCAFFERY ~ is former magazine editor who sold his soul to high-tech corporate America, living with my wife, Angela, and three amazing children in the Tulsa, Okla., area. He has been writing and selling fiction since 1990, and owes his love of zombies, science fiction, and things that go bump in the day and night to his father, James McCaffery, who taught him to read at an early age and gave him a box of paperback books when he was eleven, Something Wicked This Way Comesamong them.

LEE CLARK ZUMPE ~ discovered long ago that using the written word to spin yarns and evoke emotions is both a challenging and a rewarding enterprise. The author's zeal for writing led him to college after several misspent years where he recently earned a Bachelor's Degree in Professional and Technical Writing. In his spare time, Lee is an avid reader of speculative fiction, and a confessed bibliomaniac with an ever-expanding private library. Since his first sale to Nocturnal Lyricin 1992, more than 200 of Lee's short stories and poems have been published in magazines and anthologies in North America, England, and Australia. Most recently, his work appeared in the pages of Wicked Hollow, Lunatic Chameleon, and Voicings from the High Country. Look for Lee in upcoming issues of Star*Line, Weird Tales, and Mythic Delirium. In January 2003, Anxiety Publicationspublished Lee's first chapbook of poetry titled An Invisible Shimmer. Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife, artist Tracey Potter Zumpe, and four feline muses purportedly descended from the cats of Ulthar. Visit Lee's website at: http://blindside.net/leeclarkzumpe/.

ERIK T. JOHNSON ~ Erik T. Johnson lives in New York with his wife, son, and a little dog too. His stories have appeared in Underworlds Magazine, New York Stories, Trunk Stories, Sein und Werden, Saucytooth's Webthology, and the Midnighters Club anthology, among other places. More of his writing is forthcoming in Electric Velocipede, New Horizons, Morpheus Tales, Black Ink Horror, Golden Visions, Dead But Dreaming 2, The Zombie Chronicles Volume One, and Best New Zombie Tales Volume Three. His website is www.eriktjohnson.net.

JOE MCKINNEY ~ Joe McKinney is the San Antonio-based author of numerous horror, crime and science fiction novels. His longer works include the four part Dead World series, made up of Dead City, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters and The Zombie King; the science fiction disaster tale, Quarantined, which was nominated for the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a novel, 2009; and the crime novel, Dodging Bullets. His upcoming releases include the horror novels Lost Girl of the Lake, The Red Empire, The Charge and St. Rage. Joe has also worked as an editor, along with Michelle McCrary, on the zombie-themed anthology Dead Set, and with Mark Onspaugh on the abandoned building-themed anthology The Forsaken. His short stories and novellas have been published in more than thirty publications and anthologies. In his day job, Joe McKinney is a sergeant with the San Antonio Police Department, where he helps to run the city's 911 Dispatch Center. Before promoting to sergeant, Joe worked as a homicide detective and as a disaster mitigation specialist. Many of his stories, regardless of genre, feature a strong police procedural element based on his fifteen years of law enforcement experience. A regular guest at regional writing conventions, Joe currently lives and works in a small town north of San Antonio with his wife and children.

GREGORY MILLER ~ Gregory Miller was born in State College, Pennsylvania in 1978. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in a number of national publications. His first novel, Big Cicadas, was published in 2003 and his first collection of poetry, Four Autumns, in 2005. In October 2009, a collection of short stories, Scaring the Crows: 21 Tales for Noon or Midnight, was published by StoneGarden.net Publishing, and received positive reviews from authors such as Piers Anthony and Brad Strickland. Ray Bradbury recently wrote, "Gregory Miller is a fresh new talent with a great future." He recently edited the Static Movement anthology, Don't Tread On Me: Tales of Revenge and Retribution. A high school English teacher, he currently lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and two young sons.

WILLIAM T. VANDEMARK ~ William T. Vandemark writes speculative fiction. He can be found wandering the backroads of America in a pickup truck. He chases storms, photographs weathervanes, and prospects for fulgurites. When wanderlust ebbs, he resides in San Antonio or Seattle, depending on weather and inclination. Currently, he serves as editor of the Science Fiction Writers of America blog.

JOHN CLAUDE SMITH ~ has written fiction as himself and under the pseudonym, John Kiel Alexander. He's also written over 1000 music reviews as JC Smith. His short fiction has appeared in over twenty magazines, ezines and anthologies, including The Corpse Magazine, From The Asylum (!), Lenox Ave, Darkness Rising 2005 and THWN Presents: Voices in a Dark Future. He recently completed a novel of the surreal, his first; a second novel is already in progress.

MICHAEL STONE ~ was born in 1966 in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Since losing most of his eyesight to Usher Syndrome, he has retreated from your world to travel the dark corners of inner space. To put it more prosaically, he daydreams a lot.

NANCY KILPATRICK ~ Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published 18 novels, 200 short stories and 1 non-fiction book. Her genres are mainly horror and dark fantasy. Currently she is editing her twelfth anthology Danse Macabre---Close Encounters with the Reaper, and her next completed anthology Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead will be released August 2011 (both for Edge SF&F Publishing). She's published several zombie stories and is working on a zombie novel. www.nancykilpatrick.com

TONIA BROWN ~ is the author of Lucky Stiff and lives in NC with her husband of many years. She shares her home with a brood of moody cats, and her likeness with an identical twin sister. She likes coffee and fudgesicles, though not always together.

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Preview of:

JAMES ROY DALEY'S - TERROR TOWN

~~~~ PROLOGUE: CLOVEN ROCK

The people that lived in Cloven Rock considered the town's final Monday a beautiful one, like most of the days in the recent weeks. The sun was shining; the air was clean and warm. Flowers bloomed and birds sat among the branches singing songs only birds could understand. Dogs chased master's Frisbees and people said hello to strangers, not to suggest that thousands of tourists roamed the beachfront or the area that passed as the downtown core. That wasn't the case; there were only a few. If you asked one of the locals why things were this way, the answer would be simple: Cloven Rock was an inclusive town, an uncomplicated town, a town that didn't encourage a vacationer crowd even though sightseers would have flocked to it religiously. Many residents thought the town was special and they were right. It wasspecial. It wasn't a small place trying to be a big place. It was a town without civic uncertainty.