Tag: horror

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Dead Park 101

“There’s so many books in the series. Which one comes first? Will I be lost if I read the wrong one first? And what’s it all about?”

We hear you, and we want to make it easy. So to help anyone new to Dead Park find their way, we offer this class 101 in all things Dead Park.

What is it, what inspired it, what’s in each book, and why you should read them all!

Book 1: Dead Park Plaza

The book that started it all was inspired by my father and 20+ years dwelling in cubicles for tech companies and manufacturers. You meet a lot of people working in an office. Some good, some bad. And when you’re a writer with an active imagination, you can conceive quite a bit of horror from those interactions.

Thus Dead Park Plaza was born: a four story office building inhabited by evil companies, evil bosses, and employees ranging from total innocents to total depravity. the first book contains stories about bosses making deals with the devil, employees going tribal when management suddenly drops dead, corporations changing management not by swapping bodies but entities that dwell in the same body, and of course… secretaries seeking revenge against their cannibal cult bosses.

Book 2: The Shops at Dead Park

I wasn’t thinking series when I wrote Dead Park Plaza, but I inadvertently opened the door for one by stating that Dead Park Plaza was build in the grounds of a top secret military base, along with a shopping mall and a very nice suburb. Book 2 takes you shopping in an outdoor strip mall where the Mothman can be seen at the froyo stand. You’ll find some retro anomalies at the mall like a video arcade, a video rental store (that still offers VHS, Betamax, and Laser Disc!), and of course, Radio Shack.

Then there are the unfortunate anomalies: killer clowns, killer puppets, killer prom queens with chainsaws, killer arcade games, killer Amish men, and mannequins that… well, they haven’t killed yet, but they sure love to gossip.

Book 3: Dead Park Records

Book 3 is unique for a few reasons. It’s a standalone story, adapted from a screenplay I wrote more than 20 years ago. It’s also the only book that takes place almost entirely outside of Dead Park, even though Dead Park Records is headquartered – where else? – in Dead Park Plaza. It’s also much more of an action thriller than horror.

Dead Park Records can make anyone into a rock star – for the right price. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or not, or if you have any modicum of talent. For some it’s just a matter of selling your soul – or being willing to take the life of someone you never met, no questions asked!

Book 4: Dead Park Estates

Our journey into the suburbs of Dead Park returns us to the short story format of the first two books. Book 4 takes you to a cryptid poker game and the local indie wrestling show. Because of course, Dead Park has pro wrestling. And of course, Bigfoot is one of the star attractions.

You’ll also meet a killer doll with teeth and visit a yard sale where you may or may not be able to buy the belongings of one D.B. Cooper. One word of warning: do not open the doors during the neighborhood’s annual zombie walk. No, they’re not actually zombies, but they will kill you for other reasons!

Fun side bar: there’s a tie in between Dead Park Estates and our sci-fi novel Die Alan Die. And it won’t be the last connection made between the two. More to come…

Book 5: Return to Dead Park

In Book 4, Dead Park Estates, I started laying the ground work for the end game of the Dead Park story, thinking book 5 would be the end. You can imagine my surprise when I started writing and discovered I had more Dead Park Plaza stories to tell.

Book 5 has some of my favorite stories, including one that explains what happens if you’re late on your rent payments (hint: blood is required!) and another story based on an old screenplay about an inter-office affair that goes horribly, horribly wrong. It also introduces Charles, but only briefly. You’ll read more about him in…

Book 6: Dead Park Classified

Book 6 could have been the end, but at the suggestion of a loyal reader, I decided to go back in time to reveal some of the events that took place on the old, top secret military base. Charles, the chupacabra, gets his moment to shine in this book, and Emily, the would-be murder victim from Dead Park Records, returns as a central character.

There are numerous short stories here, but the entire book is framed about Emily’s discovery that her parents were… well, I won’t give it away here. Let’s just say that back during the Cold War, the Russians were well aware of the plot to use cryptids to hunt and kill their spies. Emily’s story comes to a dramatic close here, along with a love story woven into books 1, 3, and 4.

There are at least two more books on the way. Book 7 will be called Dead Park Holiday, because after six books, I couldn’t resist throwing a Christmas-themed chapter into the saga. Book 8 may well be the finale. I’m finally starting to see how it all comes together but… I’ve been trying to end this series for 3 books now, and have failed to do so!

The entire series is available in paperback or Kindle as a bundle on our website. To shop all the Dead Park options, click here!

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People of Dead Park: Candace is a Survivor

There’s a reason I gave the name Candace to the leading lady in “Lord of the Files,” one of the cornerstone stories in Dead Park Plaza. Simply put: Candace is a survivor.

I don’t mean in the normal ways society labels people as survivors. Very specifically, she’s a survivor of the corporate cubicle jungle.

Candace came in every day, Monday through Friday, and sat a desk or two away from me. Monday mornings, the fun began in earnest around 10. That’s when her biggest VIP customer called to tell Candace everything she did wrong with the order he just received.

Not that she, personally, committed every – or even the lion’s share – of errors. But he took it out on her anyway.

Candace juggled phone calls, emails, and faxes for 8-10 hours every day. She did it all with grace. True grace under fire. She might argue with me over that, but I know what I saw. She was unflappable. Indefatigable. She never gave up.

Until the company gave up on her.

I already shared the story about the Queen of Throat Punch Thursday and the day they let her go. The day Candace was let go, well, that was just as bad. Contrariwise, the day our boss was let go… well, there was catharsis.

I was the one to walk Candace out that last day. We’ve caught up here and there over the years, but as of this writing it’s been a while. She once tried her hand at modeling, and one of the photos she took was morphed into a book cover for me.

It was an honor to go to war with that lady. That’s why I chose to honor her, naming the heroine in one of the most absurd stories I ever wrote after a lady who truly could survive an office at war and live to tell about it.

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Ken/Mark: The horror of being the new guy at the office

I had a pretty good job when I got married. If the pay was better, and if the bridges to Louisville were not about to undergo major renovations, I might have stayed.

I might have stayed long enough to not longer be the New Mark.

My predecessor was not named Mark. I don’t remember his name, which is surprising because I heard it almost every day I was at the job. I wasn’t John to my boss, who in all fairness was a very nice lady named Carol. I was the New Mark.

It was honestly a cushy job. I spent about a third of my time at a desk and the rest of the time running around a warehouse. I pulled samples of our products – eyeglasses – and shipped them to off to our sales reps.

It was easy. It was fun. Ownership was stand-offish, but management was terrific. Everyone wore jeans in the winter and shorts in the summer. I never, ever had to wear a shirt with a collar.

Carol made sure to ask about that when I handed in my resignation. “You’re going to have to wear slacks and collars and dress shoes.”

“I know,” I said. I did not add that I would no longer be labeled as the New Mark. But I definitely thought about it.

Staying the New Mark might not have been as lucrative in the short run, but it would have been more pleasant. Hindsight, you know.

My stint as “The New Mark” came to me years ago as I was working on book five in the Dead Park series. My plan for book five, originally, was to do a flashback book, telling the backstory of Dead Park when it was a military base. That book is coming very soon. But book five ended up being more office-related catharsis.

Again, I had no issues with Carol, with the place I worked, or with the job itself. It was active. It was fun. It was something I easily left at the door when I clocked out at 4:30 every afternoon.

But being The New Mark led to some creative thoughts. What if someone at Dead Park was The New Mark? What if, over the course of a few weeks or months, they literally became the employee his new boss missed?

I didn’t have a Jekyll and Hyde story. Now I do. You can read “Ken/Mark” in the book Return to Dead Park, a second compilation of work-related horror stories (and book five in the series).

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People of Dead Park: Chuck from Dead Park Records

Dead Park Records by John Cosper

The hero, if you can call him that, of Dead Park Records is a hapless, aspiring musician who is offered a devil’s deal. Chuck’s friend, a concert promoter, introduces him to a recording executive who will make his rock n roll dream come true. All Chuck has to do is murder a girl he’s never met – no questions asked.

While there’s no one person who inspired the character of Chuck, the idea behind the story came from my old friend Stephanie. Stephanie and I met through a church group, and we spent a lot of time going to the movies when she was home from college. We watched a lot of teen comedies in the late 90s and early 2000s. I’m pretty sure Get Over It, one of my favorite of the genre, was one of them.

One night, Steph told me about a friend of hers who had a job fulfilling the rider agreements for concert artists. If you’re not familiar, the rider is a secondary contract that all artists require and all concert promoters must follow to the letter.

Rider agreements are a necessary evil, giving artists some control over the food and accommodations at every stop. Some have special dietary needs, for example, and no one wants to eat the same thing (pizza again??) at every stop. But the bigger the artist becomes, the more demanding and extravagant the demands can be: new carpeting, new furniture, fresh flowers, an endless variety of food, and a ridiculous amount of booze.

Stephanie’s friend told her that many artists also had unwritten requests that had to be fulfilled. Items that couldn’t be put in writing because, well, they’re illegal. You can guess what those special requests might include.

It was that conversation that inspired a screenplay called “The Rider.” The screenplay went through several drafts over the years, but it finally say the light of day more than two decades later. That’s when I adapted the story into the Dead Park universe.

While all the other books in the Dead Park series are a compilation of multiple short stories, Dead Park Records tells one single story. It felt fitting to let this story, once a film script, stand on its own. Perhaps one day it’ll be adapted back into film. Until then, you can enjoy the Dead Park version of the story, complete with boy bands, a cappella groups, and more all hell-bent on committing murder – just to get a recording contract.

Order your copy of Dead Park Records now.

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Loretta Kendall Answers 3 Irrelevant Questions

Ghouls and Gals by Loretta Kendall

Loretta Kendall is talent manager and beauty guru of 20+ years in the entertainment industry. She retired a few years ago and is now living her best life as a full-time romance author. She writes paranormal, contemporary, rom-com, and sports wrestling romance.

Yup, you read that right. Wrestling romance.

She’s currently working on a modern monster retelling series featuring vintage horror monsters living in the human realm. The series follows several monster gal pals after an explosion joined the movie monster world with Earth, caused by Victor Frankenstein VI, the heir to the Frankenstein fortune. She loves vintage horror, pin-up style, vintage cars, and rockabilly culture, and has integrated all that into this new series. “It’s Halloween year-round and I’m loving it,” she tells me. “Who says monsters can only come out to play once a year?”

But that’s not important right now.

Loretta Kendall

Loretta Kendall is my guest this week, and it’s her turn on the hot seat answering the 3 irrelevant questions.

What is one of your favorite guilty pleasure movies, and for goodness sake why?

Other than the typical girly rom-com, I love cheesy monster films. I hate scary movies if there’s any major gore, but I love throwback horror, especially ones from the 80’s and old black-and-white films. Shows like Elvira and Sammy Terry who hosted those old shows used to terrify me as a kid, but now I always find myself watching Svengoolie and the awesomely awful horror movies he features. I just watched Killer Klowns from Outer Space a few days ago, and wonder why I watched it. It’s about as corny as it comes. I’m also a big fan of Maximum Overdrive and Trick or Treat. What’s not to love? Killer cars and a psychopathic rock star. It’s horror perfection with an extra slice of cheese.

A zoo gives you the opportunity to have all access with your favorite animal. What animal are you going to spend the day with, and why?

No doubt, sloths. It’s on my bucket list to hold a baby sloth. I know they are riddled with a literal ecosystem of fungus growing on their backs, but they are adorable. Also, a sloth isn’t going to want to have me on their menu like a lion who didn’t get his lunch on time. Always choose the wild animal that’s too slow to catch you.

You’re hungry, and you have access to both a fast car and a private jet. Where are you going for your ultimate snack, and what makes that food/place/experience the best?

I’m hopping in the car for a trip across the river to Sake Blue Japanese Bistro on the southeast side of Louisville. The ambiance is nice and modern and the perfect date night spot. They have the best sushi, and my favorite is the Sake Blue roll. Not only is it delicious but it’s presented on a flaming plate. Everything is better with fire, right?

Click here to find Loretta’s stuff on her website.

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Holly Wholahan Answers 3 Irrelevant Questions

Holly Wholahan is an artist and designer who lives in Louisville, KY. She is best known for her cryptid and monster drawings and a frequent convention artist alley haunter. Holly has done work for a few small publishers, including recent illustrations for a monster manual by Bloat Games. She designed the shirt for the inaugural Small Town Monsters Monster Fest and has been known to pop-up in the Cryptid Crate from time to time.

Holly also happens to be a favorite artist of mine. I have four of her prints on display in my office, and I’ve drawn inspiration from them as cryptids have made their way into the Dead Park Universe. Her Flatwoods Monster is definitely my favorite.

But that’s not important right now.

I asked Holly Wholahan three questions I ask every artist friend of mine, questions that are completely irrelevant to her work as an artist. Here’s what she had to say.

What is one of your favorite guilty pleasure movies?

The Beastmaster. I have to watch it every time it’s on. It was like the first ‘He-Man’ movie to me. It’s horrible acting and a weird story, but I loved it as a kid. I’ve always been into magic and swords and stuff. This movie was my first introduction to a Dungeons and Dragons like setting before I knew what that was.

If you could have all access for a day with your favorite animal what animal would you choose, and why?

I’ve always loved Polar Bears. They are cute and fuzzy, but could also bite your head off. I could watch them chill and play all day.

You’re hungry, and you have access to both a fast car and a private jet. Where are you going for your ultimate snack, and what makes that food/place/experience the best?

I do marketing in the food industry as my real job, and I follow a ton of restaurants and food pages on Instagram. My husband is from San Diego, and all he talks about is how good the burritos are there. Based on what I’ve seen on social, I think I would got to So Cal and try ALL THE BURRITOS. Like every burrito I can find. Ramen burritos, Vegan Burritos, Cheeto burritos, as long as they are made in Southern California.

If you like monsters and cryptids and are one of the “cool kids” who believes in supporting independent artists, click the link below for Holly’s website to see her work and follow her on social media. I can’t recommend her enough.

Click here to visit Holly Wholahan Art.

Sasquatch by Holly Wholahan.

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Kayla Perkins Answers 3 Irrelevant Questions

Kayla Perkins

I’ve known Kayla Perkins since my earliest days as a filmmaker. The actress and model started her career at the age of twelve when she appeared on The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie on the E channel. Kayla, who would be crowned Junior Miss Kentucky in 2003, fell in love with TV and film thanks to her experience on The Simple Life, and she’s become a fan favorite on the independent film circuit. Her credits include The Dark Room, A Promise To Alexis, The Killbillies, The Girl, the TV show Nashville, and many more, including a short I produced, The Last Temptation of Fluffy. She is busier than ever today working on projects like The Art Of Killing; Monster On: The Art Of The Craft; The Baton Rouge Serial Killer: Derrick Todd Lee; 12 Till Dawn; Midas Cove; Murder, Murder, Kill, Kill; and The Anniversary.

Kayla dabbles in books as well. We collaborated on a novel, Kayla Perkins is Dead, and she’s writing a wonderful children’s book with her son Kayden. The book is called I’m Kayden and I Have JIA, and it was written by mother and son to help children like Kayden who are dealing with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Whew, that’s a mouthful.

But, that’s not important right now.

This week, I asked Kayla to answer the 3 Irrelevant Questions. So here we go!

What is your favorite guilty pleasure movie? 

I love all kinds of movies. But one movie that I love and have watched literally over 32 times is called My Fault with Nicole Wallace and Gabriel Guevara. It is based on the book by Mercedes Ron. My Fault is such a great story, and the chemistry that these two actors have is amazing! They did an amazing job. I love romance movies.

If you could spend a day with full access to any animal, what animal would it be? 

There are so many animals that I would love to spend the day with, but if I had to choose, I would pick a tiger. Tigers are the largest cat species. I love cats. I have two named Cinammon and Tabby. They are just like kids. They are super fast. I love that they go after what they want. I think everyone of us should go after what we want in life.

If you could hop in a fast car or private jet and go anywhere in the world for a favorite food, where would you go, and what would you eat? 

This is such a hard question. I love all kinds of food and snacks, but I’m not a big sweets person. If I had to pick one item, though it would be Superman ice cream. Growing up, going on vacation and doing photoshoots for pageants, I would eat Superman ice cream. Everytime I see it on vacation, it brings back memories.

You can learn more about Kayla Perkins and find her social media links at www.kaylaperkins.com

Movies and books featuring Kayla Perkins

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For My Dad

 

Several summers ago, I attended Fright Night Film Festival in Louisville. The inside of the hotel was almost as sweltering hot as the exterior, but that didn’t stop a few hundred of us from jamming into a ballroom to listen to horror master John Carpenter answer questions about his career.

One exchange really stuck with me. A very goth-looking young woman asked Mr. Carpenter what advice he would give to someone who wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a horror director in Hollywood.

“Well, I went to Hollywood to make Westerns,” said Carpenter. “So I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”

I can relate to that statement more today than ever. I never set out to write books about pro wrestling, but I’ve written more than twenty. And if you told 8 year old me I would one day write HORROR? I never would have believed you.

I was the biggest fraidy cat you can imagine. I did not like scary stories or scary movies. My nightly prayers included asking God to help me not be afraid of everything that ever scared me on TV: from the weekend’s Sci-Fi Cinema to the Terrible Tunnel episode of Fraggle Rock.

I loved science fiction. Specifically, I loved STAR WARS. So how did I, an aspiring screenwriter and author of science fiction flights of fancy, turn to horror?

It’s my Dad’s fault.

Dead Park Plaza and its growing list of sequels would not have happened without my dad. My dad loved horror. Not all horror, mind you, but a good chunk. He liked a good scare, but he also liked horror-comedy. He’s the one who introduced me to William Castle, Ed Wood, Army of Darkness, and many of my favorites.

My dad had a direct influence on one of the stories in Dead Park Plaza. One morning in mid-February of 2021, I heard my phone buzz. I was still in bed, but my Dad was already up and texting me. He had dreamed something he thought would make a great horror story, a story that took place in an office setting, and he wanted to share it with me. It was a clever idea, and I think (I hope) I replied back and said so. I wasn’t working on any fiction at that time, so I kind of put it out of my mind.

It was one of the last texts my Dad ever sent me. It might have been the very last. A few days later my mother rushed him to the hospital. Nine days later, after transferring to rehab and then back to the hospital, he was diagnosed with cancer on his birthday February 28.

A week after that diagnosis, he was gone.

Four months later, Dad’s story idea drifted back into my mind. I didn’t see potential for a full novel, but it felt like a great short story. That’s when I started connecting the dots, from Dad’s story to a few others I’d been mulling over – stories that took place in an office.

Today, I have a job for a virtual company that allows me to work from home, the coffee shop, the library, or wherever I feel like. I work with incredible people and two amazing bosses who actually believe in me. For the first time in my life, I look forward to starting work each day.

But in 2021?

In 2021 I was still getting up every morning and driving to an office that, at the time, was refusing to acknowledge that I’d been given a promotion, dragging their feet backfilling my old role.

I spent most of my adult life, more than 20 years, driving to an office, working in cubicle,  being forced to make new “friends” on a recurring basis as people left or were let go (including me, a few times), working with good and not-so-good people, working for great and TERRIBLE bosses left a mark.

All that “work experience” fostered story ideas. Little fragments taking up real estate in my imagination, just waiting for their moment. “What if,” I thought, “These stories all took place in the same office building? You know, like Sideways Stories from Wayside School?”

One story became a group of three, then five, then seven.

The first book literally came together in a month. A scattered group of half-cooked stories all came together in the most remarkable way. I recently published book four in the series, and books five, six, and seven are in the works.

And all because my my Dad’s crazy idea about a man starting a new job and discovering a message warning him he’s in grave danger.

Without that text, there would be no Dead Park Plaza and no Dead Park Books. The whole identity of my fiction publishing would not exist without that germ of an idea he sent me.

I was still in denial about my Dad’s passing when the first book was published, and as I write this (revised) blog post, I’m still pretty much in the denial stage about my Dad’s passing, by the way. Wondering if I’ll ever move on from that, but grateful that he gave me the gift of a story, a book, and much more.

Click here to order your signed copy of Dead Park Plaza.

Kindle Reader? Click here to get the full Dead Park series at a special price!

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Scary Movies I Made With My Kid

During the 2020 Summer of Covid, my son Sam and I started a weekly tradition. We’d go out every Saturday morning to have breakfast and play tennis. We still have breakfast every Saturday, but in deference to our being artsy types and not athletes, we no longer play tennis. The rackets are still in my car should we ever get the urge, but it’s been a good while. And it’s winter now, so…

Sorry, I digress.

One morning over a round of badly played tennis, we started spitballing ideas for short horror films. Not the kind you normally see at film fest, mind you, but the kind you’d see if people on horror films had something called Common Sense. You know. Common Sense  tells you not to open doors that say, “Keep out.” Common Sense says, “Don’t hunt vampires during the day.” Common Sense says, “Run out the front door, not upstairs where there’s no escape.”

We had six or seven ideas by the time we left the courts that day. In the coming weeks, we ended up with fifteen. I started reaching out to actors on Facebook, asking folks to film themselves and send us footage. (Covid, remember?) We cut them together on my trusty ol’ MacBook, the one with iMovie HD because I still to this day refuse to learn the newer versions. (It’s just easier, okay?) And we released them one at a time on YouTube.

The World’s Shortest Horror Films is a fifteen part series featuring the talents of many old friends and new. I made a lot of short films in my day, but few make me prouder. I mean, I made them with my kid. We wrote them. We cut them together. We even appear in one. Well, I appear in it; you can hear his voice. (Spoiler alert, I am not opening that door!)

Sam and I went our separate ways creatively after Covid. I’m back to writing, and he’s in a killer school of rock band called Abstract Agenda. He plays keyboard, bass, guitar, and saxophone. As a matter of fact, I was in quarantine with Covid the day he brought home a saxophone for the first time in July. He went from the usual beginner squeaks and squawks to accurately playing the opening solo from “Careless Whisper” in less than two hours. Kinda makes you sick!

Maybe one day we’ll collaborate on another short. Until then, I’m proud of the one series we assembled together.

You can watch the whole series, all 15 short films, in the video below. It’s only an eight minute commitment, so give it a whirl, will you?