Splatter Western

Series · 16

books · 2020-2023

By Kristopher Rufty, Wile E. Young, Chandler Morrison, and more

Books in series

The Magpie Coffin

2020

The year is 1875 and outlaw Salem Covington has spent the last twenty years collecting stories, possessions, and lives. Nicknamed "The Black Magpie" for his exploits during the war, Salem has carved a bloody trail across the western territories. Informed that his mentor, Comanche shaman Dead Bear, has been murdered. Salem vows vengeance on the perpetrators. Enlisting the help of an army scout and preserving the body of his mentor in a specially made coffin, he sets out in pursuit. But the choices of Salem's past that earned him the moniker "Black Magpie" are riding hard behind him and the only weapon that can kill him might not be as far away as he thinks. The Magpie Coffin is an unrelenting tale of revenge, with precise brutality and extreme violence - the first in the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press.

Dust

2020

1879: An unknown and timeless evil descends on East Texas. John Dee, bestowed with knowledge from beyond, moves through time and space, pursuing age-old horrors and ending their reign. As he seeks the hidden town of Dust to continue his lifework, another is hot on his heels, and will stop at nothing to rip the divine knowledge from Dee. As these opposing forces collide, Dee becomes both hero and villain in his quest against the Elders. He doesn't have time to be sorry - THERE ARE GODS TO KILL. Third in the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press.

The Night Silver River Run Red

2020

Some things, according to Cody McCall, are worth risking a whipping. Such as, sneaking out with your friends after dark for a peek at the traveling show setting up just outside of town. Oddities, the signs promise. Marvels. Grotesqueries. Exotic attractions and mysterious magics. Not as if they'd be allowed to attend otherwise, not with parents and preacher and schoolmarm all disapproving. But how often does a chance like this come along? There isn't much else by way of excitement in quiet, peaceful Silver River, a once-prosperous boom town slowly gone bust. Worth risking a whipping, sure. Worth risking life and limb, and maybe more? Worth risking being ripped to pieces by ravenous, inhuman brutes? Worth crossing paths with those strange, silent cult-folk from the high valley? Worth all the fire and bloodshed and horror and death? Because something far worse than any ordinary traveling show has come to town, and one thing is for certain: those who survive, if any, will never forget The Night Silver River Run Red. Fourth in the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press.

Starving Zoe

2020

To most, 1865 was an eye-opening year. The American Civil War was officially over and the soldiers fortunate enough to survive the bloody conflict returned home to collect the pieces of their former lives. To young Arizonan, Robert Jack, the fateful desert homecoming marked the end to all he once knew. Forgiveness is overrated. Death is final. Revenge, however, dances between the fine lines of mortality and eternity. Love always finds a way. Fifth in the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press.

A Savage Breed

2020

A ruthless band of outlaws makes good their escape from execution. A mountain man seeks justice following the grisly murders of his wife and daughter. A sharp-tongued teenager flees her newly widowed mother in search of adventure. Amongst the eerie peaks and crevices of the Wichita Mountains, this assembly of pariahs converge. But it isn't just each other they need be concerned about, because there's more than frigid winds in the skies over Indian Country. Sixth in the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press. (All Splatter Western books are stand-alone stories. Read them in whatever order you please!)

Red Station

2020

There is a house overlooking the vast, rolling plains. A home station where a traveler will be welcomed with a piping hot meal and a downy bed. It is a refuge for the weary. A beacon for the lost. A place where blood and bones feed the land. For four stagecoach passengers... a doctor in search of a missing father and daughter... a newlywed couple on the way to their homestead... and a lady in red with a bag filled with secrets... Their night at the Station has only just begun.

The Thirteenth Koyote

2020

An evil has returned to the town of Hope’s Hill. When a grave robber unearths the corpse of Jasper Thurston, a piece of the body is stolen, one that will call the Koyotes from across the plains. They are a vicious company of outlaws, part madmen and part wolves. Their leader is Glenn the Dreadful, and he’s out to gather the power of the Menhir, a particle from an ancient evil. The fate of Hope’s Hill—and perhaps the world—rests in the hands of unlikely heroes. A rugged U.S. Marshall, a teenage girl out for revenge, an emancipated slave, a nun with a dark secret, and a mysterious half-breed with the number thirteen tattooed on his neck. The Thirteenth KoyoteGone to See the River Man and Full Brutal. Filled with gunfights as well as ghouls, it is a horror epic as big as the open range.

Shadow of the Vulture

2021

As Americans move west towards their manifest destiny, they disrupt lives, steal, and murder. What happens when that brutality clashes with witchcraft and the supernatural in the small town of Soledad? A powerful witch goes to the extreme to protect the land. A young woman weaves protective spells into clothing, but what she wants to do more than anything, is soar with the vultures. An ex-soldier accompanied by her dead friend looks for another battle to fight and will do anything to make the American invaders pay in the bloodiest ways possible. When they come together, Texas will never be the same. Power clashes between witches, warriors, brutes and innocents, and over it all hovers the shadow of the vulture.

#10

They Built a Gallows for You and Me

2021

"Was the threat of death all we needed to die?" When smiles act like monsters in the dark who are pretending to be friendly, it's hard to know where to put your trust. As a mysterious sickness starts killing the children in the town of Salinas, the townsfolk find themselves distraught and searching for answers. A new family in town seemed to bring forth the illness. Did they bring it with them? Are they causing it to happen? Or did the family stumble into something dark and sinister, something with witchcraft on its lips?

#11

Human-Shaped Fiends

2021

LOS ANGELES, 1854. Felipe Alvitre and a band of teenage outlaws set out on a brutal, seemingly random killing spree across the San Gabriel Valley, igniting the ire of the Los Angeles citizens. Sheriff James Barton wrestles with a rapidly escalating crime rate and a populace that demands more from their corrupt, do-nothing legal system as the bodies continue to pile up. The crimes of the young Alvitre gang become symbolic of a greater frustration, and the sheriff faces mounting pressure to bring the outlaws to justice. His greatest battle, however, comes from within, and his responsibilities soon play second fiddle to his struggles with addiction and his toxic, unrequited love for a mysterious prostitute. LOS ANGELES, 2021. Self-obsessed, pretentious, womanizing novelist Chandler Morrison has been contracted to write a Western. He knows what kind of book his fans want, but he's torn between his commitment to the craft and the "brand" to which he believes he's expected to adhere. As he sinks deeper into deluded self-importance while juggling a number of surface-level relationships, the line separating fiction from reality becomes increasingly blurred.

#12

The Devoured and the Dead

2021

Three families traveling through the mountains of North Carolina to claim their share of the gold rush become stranded deep in the forest, overwhelmed by the unrelenting snow and frigid temperatures. It doesn’t take long for the food supply to run out, for desperation and harmful intentions to set in. When one of their own dies, they commit a depraved act to survive, a depraved act that unleashes a curse that will not stop until every one of them is either devoured…or dead! (All Splatter Western books are stand-alone stories. Read them in whatever order you please!)

#13

Last of the Ravagers

2022

Snakebite is a sleepy town in the middle of the Arizona desert. Nothing much exciting happens there. Until, that is, a terrified bounty hunter rides in raving about monsters. Shortly thereafter, a stranger named Doyle shows up, a mysterious figure with powerful magic at his command. Alternately known as the Lord of the Dead and the Last of the Ravagers, the renegade wizard seeks even greater power, the source of which resides in the heart of Snakebite. As monsters and dead things rise and lay siege to the town, a band of citizens must come together to make a desperate last stand.

#14

For a Few Souls More

2023

Six years have passed since Salem Covington, the Black Magpie, rode a vengeance trail against those who killed his mentor. Now another lies on her deathbed and she has a message for her former He will soon follow her into the next world. But for Salem, there is no opportunity to mourn. A chance encounter with a young outlaw, Amaya, reveals three she is being hunted by strange riders that cannot be killed, they have stolen women, and they answer to a man named Granger Hyde. Left for dead once, Granger has returned to take vengeance for his suffering, and perform a ritual of murder. A ritual with which Salem is intimately familiar. A bloody game of cat and mouse begins as Granger’s riders pursue the pair across the west, led by a woman that awakens long-forgotten fear, and is intent on driving the Black Magpie to his fate and the grave she has prepared for him. FOR A FEW SOULS MORE is the sequel to the Splatterpunk Award-winning novel, THE MAGPIE COFFIN, the second part in a trilogy by Wile E. Young, author of SHADES OF THE BLACK STONE and DUST BOWL CHILDREN . It is an examination of bleak fatality, nihilistic violence, and the iron at the heart of men.

#15

How The Skin Sheds

2023

When Garrett Walkinshaw pays a visit to his sister, he finds her murdered—throat sliced and nipples missing, his albino niece left emotionally scarred on her bed. Determined on getting revenge, the two set out after the killer, following a bloody trail of skin-lacking bodies. After Garrett's best friend—a recently freed slave—joins the road-trip hunt, they're forced to teach Garret' s niece the dark world of survival and assassination in the gritty, wild west, where they're met with myriad of roadblocks in the form of evil lawmen, bizarro brothers, a swamp witch, and more. Hap & Leonard meets The Professional, chasing down Ed Gein.

#16

Ballad of the Werevixens

2022

Years after battling the dreaded outlaws known as the Koyotes, Delia Van Vracken travels mountains and valleys, hunting demons that managed to escape Hell. But also traveling across the plains is Balthazar Rott, a subhuman who's been alive for centuries. He's searching for something Delia hoped was forever buried, bringing with him a band of bloodthirsty brides. Meanwhile, young prostitute Josie is discovering new changes about herself, particularly when the moon is full. And when sisters Emma and Pearl find a strange sphere in the hands of a dead preacher, they must band together with crusaders to bring the relic to The Reckoning, before the Werevixens come. Ballad of the Werevixens is the thunderous sequel to The Thirteenth Koyote, part of a trilogy of horror-western epics by Splatterpunk Award-winner Kristopher Triana, author of Gone to See the River Man and Shepherd of the Black Sheep. It celebrates the strength of the women of the American West, weaving a stunning tale of horror, hardship, and hope.

#17

Cruel Angels Past Sundown

2023

New Mexico Territory, 1882: She comes to the Klein ranch at sunset, a strange naked pregnant woman dragging a cavalry saber. Annette Klein and her husband have built peace between their marriage and secret relations beyond, but their serenity dies in bloodshed tonight through a cannibalistic demon and a mad preacher. Annette barely escapes the bloodbath to the nearby town of Low’s Bend, where she might find safety with a shotgun-toting barkeep, two no-nonsense boarding room ladies, and the gunslinging bounty hunter who’ s captured Annette’ s heart. But hell is at her heels. If she’s going to survive until dawn, she’ll have to forget everything she knows about peace and mercy, and face a hollow malevolence more ancient and ruthless than she’s ever imagined.

Authors

Kristopher Rufty

Author · 27 books

Kristopher Rufty is the writer and director of the movies Psycho Holocaust, Rags, and Wicked Wood, and also the author of Angel Board, PillowFace, and The Lurkers. He used to host Diabolical Radio, an internet radio show devoted to horror fiction and film for five years and developed quite an archive list and following. He is married to his high school sweetheart and is the father of two insane children that he loves dearly, and together they reside in North Carolina with their 120 pound dog, Thor, and a horde of cats. He is currently working on his next novel, script, or movie.

Little is known about Chandler’s origins. He has claimed, on separate occasions, to be both from Helltown, California, and Cleveland, Ohio. To date, it is still unclear from which locale he actually hails. He currently resides in Los Angeles, but sightings of him are rare.

Patrick C. Harrison

Author · 11 books

Patrick C. Harrison III (PC3, if you prefer) is an author of horror, splatterpunk, and all forms of speculative fiction. His current publications include GRANDPAPPY, A SAVAGE BREED, VAMPIRE NUNS BEHIND BARS, 5 TALES THAT WILL LAND YOU IN HELL, among others, and his works can be found in numerous anthologies, including AND HELL FOLLOWED and ROAD KILL: TEXAS HORROR BY TEXAS AUTHORS VOL. 4. PC3 is the Splatterpunk Award-winning editor (with Jarod Barbee) of AND HELL FOLLOWED, and has edited several other anthologies. He is a freelance editor, having done work for notable authors like Aron Beauregard, Daniel J. Volpe, Mark Towse, Rebecca Rowland, and many others. PC3 also has a FREE substack, in which he frequently does movie reviews and updates readers on his fiction. Check out pc3horror.substack.com.

Kristopher Triana

Author · 39 books

Kristopher Triana is the author of Gone to See the River Man, Full Brutal, They All Died Screaming, Shepherd of the Black Sheep, Toxic Love, and more. His fiction has appeared in countless magazines and anthologies and has been translated into multiple languages, drawing praise from Publisher's Weekly, Cemetery Dance, Rue Morgue, Scream, The Ginger Nuts of Horror and others. Full Brutal won the Splatterpunk Award for Best Horror Novel of 2019, and Triana won the award again in 2022 for The Night Stockers, which he cowrote with Ryan Harding. He lives in Connecticut.

C. Derick Miller

Author · 1 books

C. Derick Miller Is An Award Winning Texas Author, Podcaster, Actor, Producer, Freelance Journalist, Songwriter, Screenwriter, Poet, Ordained Minister, Paranormal Investigator, Independent Dallas Art Consultant, Retro Arcade Gamer, Hair Metal Lover, Snake Enthusiast, Vintage Steam Locomotive Fireman, Guitar Novice, Army Veteran, & Braggart! "Chad is a believer and an adventurer looking for answers to questions that most people dare not ask. He looks for these answers in dark places that most of society steers clear of. In order to share certain experiences and supernatural insights, Chad has chosen to travel along a paranormal path that is safer during the day but far more interesting at night. Enjoy the ride." - Del James

Chad has written for Famous Monsters of Filmland, Rue Morgue, Cemetery Dance, and Scream magazine. He's had dozens of short stories published, and some of his books include: OF FOSTER HOMES & FLIES, STIRRING THE SHEETS, SKULLFACE BOY, THE SAME DEEP WATER AS YOU, THE PALE WHITE, THE NEON OWL and OUT BEHIND THE BARN co-written with John Boden. Lutzke's work has been praised by authors Jack Ketchum, Richard Chizmar, Joe R. Lansdale, Stephen Graham Jones, Tim Waggoner and his own mother. He can be found lurking the internet at www.chadlutzke.com

Kenzie Jennings

Author · 5 books

Kenzie Jennings is an English professor suffering in the sweltering tourist hub of central Florida. She is the author of the Splatterpunk Award nominated books Reception and Red Station (Death’s Head Press). Her short horror fiction has appeared in the anthologies Rampage on the Reef, Slash-Her, Baker’s Dozen, Slice Girls, Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror, Dig Two Graves, Vol. 1 and Deep Fried Horror: Mother's Day Edition.

Regina L. Garza Mitchell

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, No Gods for Drowning, The Worm and His Kings series, Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Benny Rose, the Cannibal King, and The Possession of Natalie Glasgow. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, with articles and short fiction appearing in Tor Nightfire, CrimeReads, Library Journal, Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, Vastarien, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and various other publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their occult rituals are secret. Find her on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays or at www.haileypiper.com.

Bryan Smith

Author · 48 books