Man-Made Monsters

Mad Marv

(Crypto-American Press)

Five tales of “man-made monsters”. Man trying to alter nature, create monsters and control humans to become monsters themselves.

In the first story, Overtime, John, an investigative journalist, wakes on a table in a funeral parlour, his eyelids sewn shut. When he does manage to cut the stitches and open his eyes, he discovers that further to his situation, his heart isn’t beating and he has no pulse.

He is dead, and has become a zombie.

John subsequently sets out to find out what happened to him, and why he’s come back from the dead, and what the circumstances he finds himself in are to do with government conspiracies and an unfaithful wife.

In the second tale, Sins of the Mother, Lorraine Adams, is a troubled woman, who’s spent time in jail and a mental institution, and who had an abortion when the was younger. She is haunted by dreams and mysterious phone calls.

Is her aborted child, who may have in fact lived, trying to contact her?

In Hypno-Chrondriac, Lewis Giroux, who takes lots of pills and medications on a daily basis, finds himself unable to afford them anymore. So, he breaks into a pharmacy and steals them. He is caught, but instead of being sent to jail, the pharmaceutical company uses him as a guinea pig to test an experimental pill.

But is this causing him to sleepwalk and go out and commit horrible murders?

In the penultimate story, Narcolepsy, Avery Stiggs is a retired military man whose son disappears. Thinking he’s involved merely in drugs and dealing, he discovers much more, an army of radio-controlled zombies no less!

But will he find his son before he is turned into one of them? And will the pair be able to take on an army of robotic-like undead?

The final tale, Mosquito, concerns an island where a mysterious virus similar to Ebola is rife. What is in the cave? And is the humanitarian organisation at work on the island merely a front for something much more sinister, who are trying to exploit the virus for their own good?

In between the stories are Recipes For Disaster: instructions of how to make monsters of myth and legend, such as golems and mannikins. Although, be warned, don’t try any of these at home, they might just work!

I enjoyed these stories, especially the opener, Overtime, as I have always liked zombie films, and this was a new take, as was Narcolepsy.

But (another warning) you could get paranoid reading these tales, and if you wake up one morning and your eyelids have been sewn shut, you’ll know what’s happened!

The book can be obtained from Crypto-American Press at their website: www.cryptoamerican.com