Inside Writing HORROR

Chris is a writer of prose novels, magazine short stories, video and tabletop games and audio dramas. Together with Bram Stoker’s Great-Grand nephew Dacre Stoker, he has created the StokerVerse franchise. He has written the sequel to Dracula which will be released by Scar comics later this year. He has also created a science fiction universe with Babylon 5 actress Claudia Christian. This is coming to fruition in a series of games, novels and comic books. In addition to this he has worked on Doctor Who, Star Wars and most recently the Terminator franchise. Chris has been given the Reggie Bannister award for excellence in Horror writing and is nominated for a similar award in science fiction. He has greatly enjoyed the experience of working with Jeff and Dan, this is his first foray into the world of Lovecraftian poetry

The word-of-mouth BookTok hit about a supervisor at a top-secret government facility running experiments on human beings. He’s always been able to tell himself it’s for the greater good—until the day his work follows him home.“Inventive, scary, wholly entertaining, and deeply thought-provoking . . . T. J. Payne is the real deal.”—Jose Molina, writer/producer on The Vampire Diaries, Sleepy Hollow, and FireflyJoe works for an organization known only as “The Company.” He cannot speak about what he does in public. He and his employees live in a constant state of paranoia that The Company is listening to their phones and watching their search histories. Why? Because on the bottom floor of the facility, rows of padded cells keep a group of humans in a constant state of extreme sensory deprivation. With their minds awake but their senses unable to ground themselves, they have gone insane, oscillating between vegetative states and fits of violent rage.These experiments have a purpose, though—when the minds of these inmates transcend their physical selves, they’re able to “intercept” the sights and senses of anyone in the world. The process, however, is painful. Torturous.Joe likes to think that his work, helping the government track down bad guys, makes the world a better place. He has no regrets. Until the day when his ex-wife dies by suicide. He learns that a woman who looks very much like one of Joe’s inmates had been haunting her. After his ex-wife’s death, Joe’s daughter Riley comes to live with him. And then she begins to have visions of the woman too...Has Joe somehow played a role in turning the government’s most sinister weapon against his own daughter? And, most important of all: how far will he go to save her?

He failed to catch the killer. Now, he’ll rewrite reality to save his daughter.Jericho "Echo" Keane is a broken man. Disgraced from the SFPD and living in self-imposed exile in a shipping container, he is tortured by the memory of the Mission Street Killer who murdered his thirteen-year-old daughter, Olivia. Driven by failure and consuming guilt, Echo's only reason for getting out of bed is the slim chance he might not let the morning win.But one desperate encounter at a grief meeting changes everything. A gaunt stranger offers Echo the impossible: a chance to manipulate the "Mandela Effect" and bring back his daughter. This is no dream—it's a brutal reality where time can be "rewound" and consequences altered.Teaming up with Michelle Vale, a mother whose own daughter was the killer's first victim, Echo throws himself into a temporal war. He finds himself hunted by shadowy military-trained mercenaries hired by the ruthless E-Skinz corporation. To protect the new timeline and save the girls, Echo must become the rogue operator he never was.A mind-binding supernatural horror thriller that asks how far you would go to save the ones you love, even if it means dying a villain in the process. Find out the answer today and read into the night!

Love survived death—now it has to survive the apocalypse.On the second anniversary of her boyfriend's death, Cozy Coleman, a rising star in a world where necromancy is mainstream, boards DeathCon, a horror-themed convention cruise where she and her two best friends—the Scream Teens—are hired as headline necro-tainment.When a brutal she-wolf attack kills Cozy, she awakens reanimated, caught between life and something far darker. Her resurrection reveals an extinction-level virus beneath the Pacific—one that could turn the Hawaiian Islands into ground zero for an undead apocalypse.As the ship locks down, a covert military unit arrives to contain the outbreak, led by a hardened operative Cozy recognizes instantly: the boyfriend she's been mourning isn't dead, but deep undercover. Furious at the lie yet still madly in love, Cozy is forced to fight alongside him as the ship descends into chaos.With ravenous creatures overrunning DeathCon and time running out, Cozy must confront what she's becoming—and decide whether love, trust, and her dangerous power are enough to stop the end of everything.

Six men. One night. A ravenous evil. No way out.Lost in a remote wilderness, a group of old friends trapped in a relentless blizzard are stalked and hunted by a pack of predators like no other. In one bloody and horrific night, in a dark forest of ice and snow, beneath an unforgiving full moon, the brutal fight for their lives against the elements and the evil, ravenous horde stalking them has begun…Winter bites…As the night unfolds and comes alive all around them, their fight for survival begins, and the realization of what they’re dealing with drives them deeper into the dark, frozen forest, deeper into themselves, their longstanding relationships, and the lengths they’re willing to go to survive not just for themselves, but each other. For any chance at survival, they must fight their way through miles of dark forest and treacherous frozen land, all the while being pursued and hunted by an enormous pack of predators that until then they have always believed lived only in folklore and fantasy. When they uncover the true nature of what’s happening, and the rituals and history behind those hunting them, it’s nearly too late to stop what has already been put in motion. What has existed in the shadows dating back centuries is not only defending their territory and secret way of life, but their literal hunting grounds.PACK ANIMALS (similar to Gifune’s highly-successful novel of island terror, SAVAGES) is an homage to the survival horror novels of the ’70s and ’80s, and the exploitation films and drive-in movies of the same era. Classic survival horror, with a folk horror twist and a new take on a timeless archetype, it’s also a story of friendship and heartache among a group of middle-aged friends, a blend that makes it perfect for fans of such modern horror masterpieces like DOG SOLDIERS and THE DESCENT

Chris McAuley writes prose novels, magazine short stories, video and tabletop games, and audio dramas. Together with Bram Stoker’s Great-Grand nephew Dacre Stoker, he has created the StokerVerse franchise. He has penned the sequel to Dracula, which will be released by Scar Comics later this year. He also collaborated with Babylon 5 actress Claudia Christian to create a science fiction universe currently being fleshed out and coming along nicely as a series of games, novels, and comic books. In addition to this, Chris has worked on Doctor Who, Star Wars, and, most recently, the Terminator franchise.Accolades:Chris has earned the Reggie Bannister Award for excellence in Horror writing and is nominated for a similar science-fiction award. CMP will publish Blood & Verse – the collaboration with Jeff Oliver and Dan Verkys. This is his first foray into the world of Lovecraftian poetry.Other Credits Include:– Dracula The Return: Cult of the White Worm. This is the only official comic book sequel to Bram’s Stoker’s Dracula, co-written by Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker.– Dracula: Dark Reign: A video game set in the StokerVerse franchise (co-owned by Chris McAuley and Dacre Stoker). Play Jonathan Harker as he escapes Castle Dracula and beyond the pages of Bram Stoker’s original novel-Star Trek: Encounters: Chris has worked with the legendary Star Trek actor Walter Koenig to craft an original story set in the Star Trek universe for Paramount’s Star Trek Encounters Magazine.– Dark Legacies: A comic book series co-created with Sci-Fi legend Claudia Christian (Babylon 5). Illustrated by 2000AD / Preacher / The Boys comic book artist, the Legendary Glenn Fabry.– Doctor Who: Chris has contributed stories in recent Doctor Who annuals and anthology books. He has also written audio dramas set in Doctor Who and now writes for The Doctor Who Magazine. Current series showrunner Russell T. Davis has recently congratulated him for his work.– The Terminator: Chris has written for the official Terminator and Terminator 2 RPGs. His stories are now considered canon in the universe by the franchise owners Studio Canal. He is also currently working on another ‘top secret’ Terminator project!Classic Monsters Audio Range: Chris has written several horror audios featuring classic monsters such as Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera, and the Wolfman and published by BBV, best known for their ‘Worlds of Doctor Who’ range.The StokerVerse RPG: A Tabletop RPG set in the massively successful world of the StokerVerse. It’s a gothic horror franchise based in Bram Stoker’s universe, co-owned and created by Chris and Dacre Stoker. This was published by Nightfall Games and illustrated by 2000AD / Warhammer legendary artist Clint Langley.Three Musketeers Vs. Cthulhu: Set in the Renaissance era and featuring Lovecraft’s famous monsters, this is a novel, comic book, and now Tabletop RPG series. Published by Chaosium Games – one of the largest role-playing game companies in the world – who also own the ‘Call of Cthulhu’ game rangeMan O War: Working with the legendary William Shatner, this comic book adventure boldly takes readers to Mars, where a wealthy industrialist attempts to unravel a conspiracy threatening to take down the Earth’s government.Along with all of this, Chris is a regular contributor to prestigious magazines and anthologies such as Lovecraftinia, Madame Grey’s Book of Horror, Schlock, Doctor Who: Cosmic Masque, Phantasmagoria, Time and Space Magazine and has also edited several books in the horror and science fiction genre.