Showing results by author "Stephen Huff" in All Categories

He found a side trail to avoid the bullies of his new neighborhood. It is a lost way through a forgotten cemetery and not even the bravest of his tormentors will walk there. For him, the shortcut is a form of salvation from unwarranted attacks, but for his mother and stepfather it is an excruciating mystery, when through the 'Meadows he goes.

After he follows a wealthy runaway debutante from Boston to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, an American investigator must hire a local guide to lead him into the dense jungles of the Mesoamerican interior in search of her. There, five centuries ago, countless Mayans perished atop the chacmool, their beating hearts ripped from their dying bodies. Soon, the dark stains of these ancient rituals will provide the evidence he seeks, and blood will flow.

Lost in the anonymity of a big city, he dreams of faraway places that languish beneath broad, cloudless skies. He dreams of endless horizons and expansive landscapes. He dreams of Texas – somehow, he will get there, no matter the cost. It’s a long, hot walk.

When too many children go missing in the rivers and bayous coursing through Houston, Texas, one man draws a frightful conclusion. The hunt begins. Because a mysterious fiend comes with the rain, as sleek as shadows and as deadly as a swirling draw. In his wake, heartbreak and unending sorrow.

Though doting parents often teach their children the futility of violence, every rational human being also understands the hypocrisy inherent in such lessons, since life surrounds us with countless examples of practical solutions wrought in savagery. While each act of brutality inevitably debases all humankind, a maladjusted minority also recognize in it a tempting potential to make quick return on a prized reward. Perspective, then, becomes a matter of outcomes. Most of us will experience violence demeaning; few of us will know violence redeeming.

This home has a history as unforgettable as it is undeniable. Stop in for a weekend of mystery and fun. Thrill to the unexplained thumps, taps and footsteps. Marvel at the passing cold in the heat of a southern summer. Is it your imagination? Or is it the Immaculate?

Although all children do not become monsters, all monsters begin as children. Somewhere between the innocence of youth and the corruptions of adulthood, an infection of evil festers. In the aftermath, the progeny of apocalypse will always wonder what might have come from an early cure injected as a timely bullet.

They are the outcast, forgotten, overlooked refuse of the world. Nothing matters to them, and they matter to no-one. He retains a zest for life despite its futility, but she has decided to stop the train and step off. He will watch her go without a word, but she will take his heart with her.

In the distant future of humankind, an unscrupulous government embarks on a program of colonization, sending one moon-sized transport after another careening into the cosmic gulf, each utterly dependent upon the one gone before. Stranded far from home, their starship must rise from the ashes of a terrible conflagration, and he must lead them from beyond the threshold of a fiery grave. Billions of lives depend upon his success.

Wrongfully convicted and long confined in one of the worst prisons in the United States, he is bitter and angry. Despite a million-dollar settlement, his thirst for vengeance cannot be peacefully appeased, and his lust for blood ultimately turns on the sort of crooked prosecutors who ruined his life. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He agrees.

Humankind knows countless destinations, whether of mountain, river, meadow, or lake. Each domain offers a unique experience, and each attracts visitors with common yet specific interests, but the ultimate holiday destination is a sandy beach. Travel there now to wade through a surging surf toward a sanctuary strand, but be warned and beware... both treasure and tragedy beckon from shores of silver seas.

Insomnia is a special kind of torture. Its short-term effects are something everyone experiences from time to time, but its long-term effects are known only to an unfortunate few. After months of restlessness, a chronically sleepless man loses the ability to differentiate between nightmares, daydreams, and reality. Then, while wandering a slumbering city in this dysfunctional condition, he discovers a sinister secret.

During his service as an intern at the SETI Project, Simian Wynwood fatefully records “first contact” with an alien intelligence. Within months, this so-called SETI-Tech seizes control of nearly every aspect of civilization when humankind foolishly opens Simian's Gate. Perversely efficient in the aftermath, an alien-incepted Terminus Signal drives roving clans of homicidal lunatics to exterminate Immune survivors to a last number. During the course of their apocalyptic odyssey, one such band of desperate survivors must form life-and-death bonds strong enough to withstand Simian's Walk. ...

1943. World War II. The U.S. government drafted him out of his life of normalcy and complacency into the life of a United States Marine Corps officer. After intensive training, he would serve during some of the bloodiest assaults of the war. The violent rigors of combat would teach him the rules of long-term survival amid the most lethal fighting in human history. Those who failed to learn these lessons would not return home to their families.

In a utopian future, humanity divides itself into two kinds. The vast majority of citizens represent the first kind, and they are as physically flawless as they are psychologically perfect. Second-kind live apart, confined to the Deviant Compartment. They are the last damaged remnants of a primitive past defined by genetic ambiguity and reproductive anarchy. They are also humanity's last hope.

Matriculating across that stage, nothing betrayed the Texas sand behind his ears, though his stiff, high collar hid a neck roasted red by long hours spent laboring beneath August sunshine. Despite his best intentions, family and friends irrationally perceive this success as betrayal and they shun him when he returns home, the prodigal son made good. Yet his life will ultimately depend upon the true loyalty of these same vital people from his past when his research unearths The McCormick Network.

The plight of the village is desperate and dire. Once protected by a powerful shaman, their savior has grown old and decrepit, perhaps too weak to save them from a violent storm brewing on the horizon. Though dying, one last time he must perform the ritual that appeases the storm. When she comes, the devil.

A global invasion. A ravenous alien enemy. Generations of slaughter. Near the end, only the very young and the very old remain. Extinction looms. Driven to extremities of existence, a dying people conceive a terrifying last-measure plan – the forced conscription of one billion elderly citizens. Violently regenerated to a youthful state, these unwilling warriors will muster as a single army to feed the gristmills of an endless war. For victory or defeat, an entire generation must gamble their last desperate seconds.

He is the worst of the worst; a perverted deviant and an elusive killer who presents himself as an old-fashioned country preacher. She is the distraught widow of a man who successfully embezzled a fortune. With her two young children, she lives amid the dilapidated ruins of a declining estate named Slate Gardens, where rumor insists three million dollars remains hidden. Beguiled by the preacher's psychotic manipulations, the widow takes him into her home as her second husband and a malign father to her vulnerable son and daughter. She longs for companionship and love. He craves only profit.

He's a notorious corporate spy. His last job uncovered a disturbing truth long and deeply buried by the powers-that-be. Though his corporate enemies have kept him imprisoned by endlessly flying him around the world, he is neither forgotten nor alone. Driven to rescue one of their own, a dedicated band of hackers will stop at nothing to free him and expose his prison in the sky.