Showing results by author "Jon Athan" in All Categories

Vanessa Ramirez, a 28-year-old employee at a beauty salon, wants to leave Mexico for greener pastures in the United States with her children, 10-year-old Lucía and 5-year-old Joaquín. With cartel violence spilling closer and closer to her doorstep every day, she seeks the help of the local coyotes—people smugglers—but is unable to afford the rising fees for their services. So, she reluctantly turns to Mexico’s criminal underworld to fund her escape and finds herself intertwined with the cartels she was so desperate to avoid.

While attempting to abduct a teenager from her home, sadistic serial killer Victor Brooks meets his match: ten 9mm bullets. In a puddle of his own blood, sprawled across a stranger’s kitchen floor, Victor’s life begins to flash before his very eyes. He sees the living and the dead, peace and carnage, friends and foes, success and disappointment, love and hatred. He sees a life defined by rage, suffering, and despair. The light at the end of Victor's tunnel is red—red with blood. Jon Athan, the author of "The Groomer" and "Are Your Parents Home?

While walking through the woods, a group of boys—Daniel Burke, Gavin Graves, and brothers Connor and Tyler Parker—discover an abandoned body.

Shawn Scott has the perfect life—a rewarding career, a nice house, a loving wife with a healthy baby on the way. But after running into an old acquaintance—a strange man named Aiden Anderson—his life is thrown into a terrifying tailspin. Aiden knows Shawn’s darkest secrets. And he wants to punish Shawn for his history of ruthless bullying by playing a special "game". Shawn must complete five challenges reflecting the bullying of their past, each one more disturbing than the last. If he fails or quits, his worst secrets will be revealed to the world—secrets with the power to ruin his life.

Max Baker, a 31-year-old accountant, finds himself in a desperate situation after killing a prostitute in his hotel room. ‘I lost control of myself,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t get the thought out of my head!’ Panicking and unable to dispose of the evidence by himself, he calls on his long-time friend John Kasper for help. Kasper is horrified and hesitant to help at first, but he can’t abandon his friend during his time of need. Max’s family and future are at stake. Together, they devise and execute one plan after another, hopelessly trying to hide Max’s crime...

Zoe Doyle, an 18-year-old girl saving up for college and her first car, is working the night shift by herself at a secluded gas station for the first time. Her hopes for a normal night quickly diminish as she meets the local creeps, but she perseveres. Then she hears a news bulletin on a radio: A suspected serial killer undergoing a psychiatric evaluation has escaped from a nearby mental institution. Alone and afraid, her imagination runs wild. Is he coming here? Did I already see him? Is he watching me now? - she thinks. Unbeknownst to her, she’s correct.

After he catches her looking through his phone and sabotaging their birth control, Lorenzo Garcia breaks up with his girlfriend, Emily Hawkins. But Emily can’t move on. Heartbroken but determined, she plans on getting him back by any means necessary. She’ll destroy his life to help him rebuild it, ruin his relationships and eliminate the competition to keep him for herself, and if all else fails, she has a plan to keep him with her forever....

Cindy Moore, a morbidly obese woman with serious self-esteem issues, has struggled to lose weight for years. Hours of exercise and a nutritious but inconsistent diet have only led to disappointment and depression. On the verge of giving up on everything, her life takes a drastic turn when she discovers a ‘miracle’ diet pill that allows her to lose weight without dieting or exercising. The pills, however, come with disturbing side effects, including dangerous changes to her body, mind, and appetite.

While her parents attend a work party, eighteen-year-old Ella Romero is left in charge of her two siblings—thirteen-year-old Nicholas and eight-year-old Arianna—at their secluded lake house. In her usual fashion, Ella invites her friends to hang out while her parents are away, too. It was supposed to be an easy, quiet, normal night.

Twenty-year-old Angelina Navarro returns to her hometown of Goldbrush, Nevada—a remote village in the desert with a small but friendly community—after years away at a boarding school. She expects arguments with her mother after failing to return home immediately after graduating, but she is determined to get her thirteen-year-old brother, Gilbert, out of that dead-end town. Although she has an urge to give up and run off again at the first sign of conflict, Angelina decides to stay at the local lodge until she can resolve her issues with her family.

While patrolling the streets of Las Vegas, Franco Ferraro, a beat cop, is called to a disturbance at the Platinum Palace—a recently opened resort on the Strip. Responding to the call, he discovers the hotel staff has lost control of the resort’s command center. He hears reports of guests screaming in their rooms and clowns wandering the hotel’s halls. Then he hears gunfire and an explosion outside.

Bradley Anderson, known as Dr. Sadist, is a master of torture and a veteran director of snuff films at Deep Red Pictures - a studio owned by a sadistic entrepreneur, Mr. Snuff. He is paid handsomely for his work, he owns an expensive, secluded home, and he lives with a loving family. The problem? He loves his family, and he can’t stop his once-buried conscience from reawakening.

At Camp Blaze—a camp with a history of violent tragedy—a group of counselors are stalked and slaughtered by a masked killer. However, due to the missing bodies, the murders are treated as disappearances. ‘Perhaps they’ve ran off to elope,’ the authorities suggest. But, as the disappearances continue to mount, Regina Park—the head counselor—begins to suspect foul play and she fears the killer may be closer than they think...

Clayton Carter and Chastity Harrison embark on a gruesome killing spree across Southern California, always staying one step ahead of the authorities while slaughtering their victims. Homicide Detective Harvey Skinner, frustrated by his failure to catch them, decides to use an unconventional method to punish Clayton and Chastity. He releases a notorious serial killer from death row and sends him to hunt and torture Clayton and Chastity in a brutal game of cat-and-mouse.

Neglected by his wife and haunted by his past, Scoot McDonald, a taxi driver, succumbs to his sex addiction and visits a brothel. He awakens the next morning in his taxi in an abandoned multistory parking garage, aching all over and bleeding internally. He tries to bury and forget his secrets, but he soon finds himself blackmailed into working for Vincent Luciano, the leader of a local crime syndicate. He refuses at first, but the truth concerning his night at the brothel turns out to be much more sinister than he had imagined...

After a prank lands him in serious trouble, Malcolm Hernandez, a 16-year-old boy, is shipped off to live with his grandparents while his mother attempts to save him from expulsion and criminal charges. Malcolm believes the stay will be easy - a vacation with milk and cookies and tales from the past. His hopes, however, are shattered when he bumps heads with his grandfather, Ronald O'Donnell - a stern, violent man with a sinister past. Ronald plans on disciplining his grandson in order to "save" him from himself. He is not afraid of abusing him, either.

While traveling through West Virginia on a camping trip, the Bakers and the Riveras - two close-knit families - have the misfortune of running into a peculiar hitchhiker. After ditching the hitchhiker, the families set up camp and begin their vacation. However, they soon find themselves stalked by a group of feral, cannibalistic people lurking in the woods.

Nestor Castle—a bestselling, award-winning extreme horror author—has the perfect life, having transitioned from indie darling to mainstream success. Although he dislikes the limelight, he finds comfort cooped up in his lake house with his loving wife and healthy daughter. However, after announcing his next book—a departure from the horror genre—he finds himself targeted by a disgruntled fan who calls himself ‘Butterfly.’

A cold case turns blood-hot when the butchered remains of a mobster are discovered in a gory crime scene resembling the murder of a veteran detective. Chase Hauger, a homicide detective diagnosed with terminal cancer, suspects the Enigma Killer—a serial killer known for using elaborate traps to "teach" and torture his victims—has returned after years of dormancy. Chase sets out to bring the Enigma Killer to justice and avenge his slain friend, but he quickly finds himself caught in a web of lies and a storm of bloodshed. Can he catch the killer before death catches up to him?

On their way to Las Vegas for a pair of bachelor and bachelorette parties, Colton and Lacey run into some car trouble. They find shelter at Motel Ace, located in Middle-of-Nowhere, Nevada. They’re welcomed by a quiet clerk and they meet a cast of interesting travelers. They expect a quiet, romantic night at a dingy motel as they wait for the mechanic. Then they hear the screaming in the other rooms. Then they see the clowns outside. In the blink of an eye, a peaceful night transforms into a battle for survival and a motel becomes a bloody battleground.