Showing results by author "Stephen Huff" in All Categories

Deep within the guts of this world, men and women struggle daily to deliver fuel to feed ravenous industry. It is dangerous work. Indeed, this is a story about fire catching in a coal seam buried deep underground, where a dozen lives hang, choking, in the balance. Regardless of color, creed or religion, hard-rock miners work together as one to avoid perishing individually and alone down in the dark where the devil dwells.

Are we alone in the universe? To date, all indications tell us we are the only intelligent form of life currently inhabiting our Milky Way Galaxy. Aliens may survive in government laboratories, but they are naturally difficult to record with any convincing fidelity. Yet yesterday’s far-out conspiracies too often become today’s startling headlines given a bit of unwanted exposure. Pause one moment now to take note of a shadow-bound summons, but beware. Your paranoid shade whispers. Of bright lights on calm nights; of tasks at hand delivered with a foreign understanding and unspeakable ...

Denizens of Watami are more human than human. Though ‘normal’ citizens hysterically fear them as obscene chimeras, the pastoral Nascosi way of life embraces principles of passivity and altruism to selfless - some would say ‘suicidal’ - extremes. When a deviant dictator determines to exploit these deep-seated genocidal animosities for political gain, he finds the peace-loving Nascosi ‘morphs’ to be easy targets and convenient scapegoats in promotion of his sinister designs. Since Nascosi refuse to defend themselves, they will ultimately disappear into the vaporous anonymity of ...

Black eyeliner. Black lashes. Black lips. Black hair. Through it all, peers the white cake face of Darling Girl Jones, orphan. From time to time, she awakens in her academy dorm room to find an ethereal spirit haunting her bed. Never disturbing, always intriguing, such an event is a certain promise of ghoulish adventure and mortal danger. Although today is a special day at her Academy because today is Christmas Eve - and that means all-you-can-eat pancakes with real maple syrup - Darling Girl's holidays are never so easy and a ghost with a serious problem is certain to spoil her fun!

On the verge of a bloody and catastrophic defeat, a lone surviving robot tech risks life and limb to maneuver to the frontlines and activate an army of machines. Though these metallic monsters have failed in the past, this time their success would be utter and complete. Too complete. These machines are harbingers of global apocalypse and genocide. Be careful what you wish for, because not all is fair in love and war.

He was an enigma and a genius. He was perhaps the greatest chess strategist of all time. Unable to relate to his fellow human beings, he relied upon his pieces in rank and file for all his companionship and comfort. Though their friendship is decidedly one-sided, his long-suffering assistant tells how his mad genius would lead the nation out of the most costly and deadly war ever waged between men. The bloodiest conflict in history was in an endless state of stalemate. Only a mad genius could save humankind from itself, but the price for victory might be too high to pay.

A ravaged, remnant human population claims the Earth's dismal daylight hours, while bloodthirsty savages rule the night. One aging warrior struggles to take back the darkness. He fights bloodlust with bloodlust, but his most powerful weapon is a terrible one that might turn on him at any moment. He knows his one-sided war is a fragile thing, because he understands his victory will be decided as a desperate race against time. Yet history leaves him no option but to fight. In a bleak post-apocalyptic future, monster confronts monster for ultimate control of the planet. One man and one beast ...

Like an onion, his plan for her conquest is multi-layered and complex. First, he must educate himself, then he must use that education to accumulate wealth. Finally, he must find a way to enter into her life as an equal. In the meantime, he can always jog alongside her in the park, just another stranger on the trail. In truth, he loved her from first sight and determined to have her despite his poverty and her wealth. Fortunately, he is a very clever young man.

A contemporary incarnation of Janus, the two-faced god, Mordrake is not one man, but two, for he lives with a conjoined, parasitic twin. He is both Adonis and demon, gentleman and lunatic, and he has eyes in the back of his head. He is Mordrake and Mordrake's Whisper, the former a handsome young gentleman of renown and refinement, and the latter a silent, sinister mask fixed to the back of Mordrake's head. Though speechless, the mask of this parasitic twin frowns when its master laughs and it rejoices when Mordrake weeps, while hideous, vile and hateful, it incessantly whispers unspeakable ...

I have never seen so far into anyone’s eyes as I saw into yours that day. Ever green, I had expected to find them. stagnant pools long left to lay, still and tepid. Yet, they were filled to astounding depth with colors I had not hoped to see, and movement that shimmered the deep far beyond my measure, far beyond my reach, lucid as noon shallows, clear as summer seas, verdant in the distance like impossible meadows we never touch, but dream to see. Troubled as they were and unfocused, in them, still and crystalline, reflected me… and my own eyes liquid, reflecting you. There in the ...

One morning on a vacation with this extended family, all bound to watch the patriarch run his first marathon, Mortimer witnesses a terrible crime. In the intervening minutes, a small child’s fate hangs on his capacity to sprint. He will risk everything in his old age to set things straight! He’s no hero. He's retired and has nothing better to do. Run, daddy, run!

He drives a specially modified Snow Cat, shuttling roughnecks to the wildest gas fields on Earth, which are situated along a frozen peninsula in the far northern wastes of Siberia. For decades, he has simultaneously battled the elements and violent bandits, but he must now confront the most difficult test of his life. After a global catastrophe, he is perhaps one of the last men left alive, but he survives with the hope that somehow his young daughter is waiting for him on the far side of the globe. It's the end of the world, but it's not the end of “Lucky Thirteen” or its tenacious ...

And I open my mind, I say what needs to be said, I tell all I am bid tell, omit nothing, for here is your meat, and here your drink; dine in halls with daddy deceit as children seated along a long table, all fidgeting in your chairs, all wishing not to hear what must be heard. And I open my eyes I see what remains to be seen, I relate everything relative, save nothing for myself, I feed you from the cupboards of my mind and grin as you consume, your children's faces all smiles and happy, your eyes wide with wonder. And I open my mouth, I speak of nightfalls to come, warn of depravities yet ...

In a dystopian, apocalyptic future, he is the quintessential survivalist, a heartless loner. The only things that stand between him and death each day are his maxims. He relies on them to manage the violence inherent within a world gone mad, and they are as unforgiving as his soul. Nothing he witnesses or does can bend or break them, until a single unwilling act of kindness alters his philosophy and his outlook with the same stroke of mercy. His maxims keep him alive in a world of harm, no matter the cost or the consequence to those around him. Then she comes along.

Born into a wealthy family, Mercy Worth will enjoy every privilege that unimaginable riches can provide, but she will never know love. Her hair and eyes as dark as a starless night sky, from her first day on the planet she is unnaturally watchful and observant. Her intelligence is alien and terrifying, universally unnerving to all except her legal guardian. A tall, brooding attorney, he will watch over her rise to power with both fear and covetous jealousy as he becomes convinced she is the Biblical Satan. No baby was more beautiful than Mercy, in pink. No toddler was more darling than ...

His heritage long since withered pitifully beneath shadows of boastful legend and shades of neglectful disregard, he will claim the familial patriarchy many years before his dying grandfather can fully prepare him for its dangers and demands. His reign will begin as it must end, with violence and a vast letting of blood. Between these mortal bookends of his life, expect a torrential flood of gore, all of it bound to follow the swell of a first, single drop.

A marauding legion of starving aliens arrive on Earth for a brief but terrifying raid on the planet. For a few unbelievably deadly days they will hunt humankind to fill their larder before they can continue on their indeterminate journey. Though the invaders are impervious to most human defenses, one man finds safety with a household pet! They are many and they are hungry. Human beings are defenseless. You never needed a cat so badly!

She has come to his office to give birth, but she is accursed and he knows it. Fortunately, she has chosen wisely and she can afford the best phy-magician in the country. He will safely deliver the demon inside her, and then he'll help her to determine who would cast such a spell on her in the first place. This is an age of science in magic. A phy-magician must master both trades with equal alacrity.

Dire questions inevitably linger when someone disappears from a troubled marriage… from a troubled life… from the entire world. When Efren Sinclair’s wife takes a permanent vacation from their comfortable existence, all eyes turn to him, accusatory and condemning. Everyone is certain he murdered her. Nobody believes the ‘woman’ calling his children each night before bedtime is Leah Sinclair. Instead, his family and friends suspect her husband has alibied himself with an industrial grade Live-Jack, an artificially intelligent system capable of passing the forensic Turing Test for ...

Football is big business in the United States, but it plays largest in Texas. In Texas, football money is BIG money, and the best players start young. During high school, college scouts come calling, but they're only seeking winners. Nobody likes to lose. Least of all, the most promising sportsman ever to play for Pecan Groves High School. King Charlemagne Ebersol. The booster club and the team coach will stop at nothing to put him on the field. Due to past scandals, the local high school plays under court-ordered supervision. How far will they go to recruit the King of youth football?