Looming Threats: Stories of Science Fiction, Horror and the Supernatural

Looming Threats (formerly Adrift on Ethereal Seas) contains sixteen stories of the fantastic. All stories stand alone, although some characters appear in more than one. 1) Parapsychologists can hear it, the minister they've invited to corroborate their story can hear it, even the neighbors can hear it: the unmistakable sound of a disturbed father shooting his wife, two daughters and then himself to death; trouble is, the recording equipment hears nothing in A Suburban Haunting. 2) In The Ghost Net Door a little boy exhibits very troubling behavior in a house reputed to be haunted - but by what, a ghost or a demon? 3) A prototype supercomputer can download knowledge directly from the human brain; unfortunately, it also downloads some of the least savory aspects of the human mind and chaos ensues in System Virus. 4) Seeing Things is a short story sequel to the horror/suspense novel Pray for the Devil. 5) An eccentric young man claims to see clearly the lives he has lived as other life forms on distant planets in Exile. 6) Jesus and the Monster gives a detailed backstory to one of the Bible's great confrontations, that between the man many call Christ and the demon possessed Legion. 7) While in prison a mass murderer is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, the last of which relishes describing the killer's eternal fate in An Xmas Carol. 8) Two pilots relate their terrifying experience at the South Pole to a pair of reporters, unafraid that their story will go public because of The Wacko Factor. 9) On a distant planet, a young woman cares for the last of several extremely deadly alien species in Deep Quarantine. 10) A volcano Under the Ice in Antarctica uncovers terrifying secrets of Earth's antiquity. 11) An intergalactic mailwoman inadvertently lures a horrific lifeform back to God's Green Earth. 12) There's one particularly terrifying reason why no one drives over The Mountain at Night. 13) A globe-trotting botanist believes he has uncovered positive proof that the earth is being used as an Incubator by alien intelligences trying to save their own endangered species. 14) The same botanist and his wife take a young couple on a harrowing journey to what can only be an alien laboratory in South America in Desperate Measures. 15) A world-famous astronomer invites the intrepid botanist to his laboratory where he shares some extraordinary, ancient "photographs" in Moonglow. 16) To maintain his sanity, the sole survivor of an alien invasion writes about the last days of humanity on earth in E.L.E. (or Extinction-Level Event).