We finally come to the end of the Shadow King’s story. We now arrive at the ultimate resolution that sees the fight between Lazarus and Shane explode. This one really plays off the idea of things never always being as they seem. For better or for worse, Shane fills in a lot of blanks with intuition and deduction. But maybe that’s not always enough when dealing with a being like Lazarus who has been around for centuries. We wanted to bring back some familiar faces here, characters we didn’t get...

I’m always amazed by the things children come up with. They will tell the most messed up stories in the sweetest tones you’ve ever heard—pure nightmare fuel wrapped in an innocent bundle. Little girls have introduced me to dolls with the most horrific backstories I’ve ever heard while playing tea party. An eight-year-old I regularly babysat would point at random mundane objects and explain how approaching them would guarantee grizzly deaths. She just works it in between discussions of cotton...

As a child, the concept of appearances being deceiving or untrue seemed to pop up in all the books I read and cartoons I watched. It made sense. We often take situations at face value and do not recognize they are not what they want us to believe. Armed with this knowledge, I grew complacent, arrogant even. I would see one subterfuge and feel like it’s done. Riddle solved. All was good so long as I kept my eye on that one discovered deception. But how about things that do seem off at first...

Let me tell you about a strangely calm night from years ago. It was a new moon, and all my neighbors had gone to bed oddly early. No passing cars, no breeze; even the nocturnal birds were silent. It was so uncharacteristically dark and quiet. Then I woke to something tapping on my window. I’m not completely paranoid, so I reasoned it was some stray wildlife. Ignoring it, I kept my eyes closed and went back to sleep. That’s when I heard the whispers. You see, what made it more intriguing was...

Have you ever had a moment when you realized you needed to get the hell out then and there? That instant you just knew you couldn’t waste a minute more to second-guess yourself? There’s a labyrinth of man-made canals that connects to the ocean near my house. Water visibility is, on good days, maybe a foot. It didn’t exactly look inviting. Still, people go in it. Because, why not? No harm in having a swim, especially on a hot summer’s day, right? I used to think so, too. But I haven’t gone back...

For this story, I wanted to take Shane to the middle of nowhere. And the northern part of Alberta in Canada fit the bill nicely. Here, he has to face the challenge of a remote location and how it affects what a spirit can do when it has a serious bloodlust and the ability to react without repercussions. When delving deeper into the mystery of Lazarus for this book, I was inspired by the idea of a siphonophore—a thing that is one made of many. Something that look like one single entity at first...

“What do you mean we were being stalked?” I remember my HR officer smiling as she asked the question. “We never walk alone. Always in groups. We walk up after dark, yes. We keep to the road, though. Never the hiking trail,” she continued. Our guest wildlife expert nodded. “You were being followed every time.” “Really? None of us ever saw anything.” “You wouldn’t have. Not until it decided if it wanted to kill you or not.” The HR officer stopped smiling. Her face is what I remember most about...

Something I’ve learned through my true crime fixation is that secrets require maintenance. It is easy to get away with something horrific. That’s just a moment in time. BUT… The moment you take your eye off the ball is when things start to fall apart. And some people are unfortunate enough to unwittingly stumble across something dangerous and forced to keep it secret. In this volume of Night Terrors, we see these poor souls catch a glimpse behind the curtain and pay the price. A woman...

I was a weird kid. And it took me a while to accept that the other kids didn’t share my interests. They scoffed at ghosts. They didn’t exhaust their library’s paranormal section. They didn’t chase down stories of myths and the macabre. All those hours gobbling grisly tales in my youth did teach me a few things, though. Perhaps the most important was learning that there are times when you need to walk away. And times when you need to run. Tavern of Terror Volume 3 brings you twelve tales of...

Talk about some big shoes to fill. How do you tackle someone like Shane Ryan in a new and exciting way? For my part, I wanted to try to break new ground while paying homage to the true spirit of Shane. He’s tough, he’s no-nonsense, and he’s not a guy any ghost would want to mess with. So why not make a lot of ghosts mess with him? I’m a huge fan of martial arts movies, and I love the fighting tournament idea. Bloodsport, even Mortal Kombat—these stories were always exciting for me because they...