MYTHS REBORN: Author Profile for the Old Dude

Mark Scioneaux, of October Nights Press, is posting author profiles in advance of the release of Myths Reborn, which is now available for pre-order. Here is mine, so read it and weep!

Myths Reborn Author Showcase:

Cryptid: The Wampus Cat

Stephen Mark Rainey is here with a tale that blends supernatural terror with primal fear titled "The Devil of Transylvania County."

In the misty woods of Transylvania County, North Carolina, two men make a gruesome discovery and a mysterious barrier hiding unspeakable horrors. Haunted by a creature from Cherokee folklore known as the Wampus Cat, they confront a nightmare that echoes a tragic encounter from decades past. Stephen Mark Rainey's chilling tale blends supernatural terror with primal fear in a gripping modern monster story.

Stephen Mark Rainey is the author of numerous novels, including (but not limited to) The House at Black Tooth Pond, The Nightmare Frontier, Blue Devil Island, The Lebo Coven, and Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark. He has written six short story collections, over 200 works of short fiction, and the scripts to several Dark Shadows audio productions. For ten years, Rainey edited the award-winning Deathrealm magazine. He has also edited various anthologies, notably Shortwave Publishing’s best-selling Deathrealm: Spirits. Rainey lives in Martinsville, Virginia, with his wife, Kimberly, and a passel of precocious housecats.

Myths Reborn, edited by Kelly Hearty, will be available in ebook, paperback, and hardback on 1/23/26.

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Pre-order Myths Reborn here.

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Coming Soon—MYTHS REBORN From October Nights Presss

Coming in early 2026—Myths Reborn, from October Nights Press, edited by Kelly Hearty. This new anthology features my story, "The Devil of Transylvania County," along with 18 other tales of cryptids, critters, long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night.

"You’ll ask can a skinwalker become the savior of two terrified young girls? How might the tale of Sasquatch be different when told from his perspective? Could a vampire exist undetected in your city or a Tatzelwurm make its way into the very walls of your home?

"In this anthology, you'll encounter cryptids and folk characters portrayed in novel and frightening ways. Nineteen talented authors breathed new life into traditional tales to create a unique collection of re-envisioned, re-contextualized myths."

"The Devil of Transylvania County" is set in the mountains of North Carolina and is based on one of the creepiest legends from the region, which I learned about when I was a kid at summer camp—and I hope this tale will terrify you the way the original legend did me.

Myths Reborn is now available for pre-order, and is slated for release on January 23, 2026.

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Pre-order Myths Reborn here.

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Put a Little Fear in Your New Year!

When New Year's Eve is on the horizon, I love to recommend my 2012 novella, Gods of Moab, which is available in paperback ($9.99) and ebook (only $2.99). Don't know what you might be in for? Well, here's a little something...

A pleasant New Year's Eve outing becomes an experience in otherworldly horror when two close-knit couples discover a shocking secret in the darkest corners of the Appalachian mountains. At an opulent mountain inn, Warren Burr, his fiancee, Anne, and their friends, Roger and Kristin Leverman, encounter a religious zealot named John Hanger, who makes it his business to bear witness to them of his peculiar... and disturbing... faith. His efforts rebuffed, Hanger insidiously assumes control of the couples' technological devices, leading them to stumble into unexpected, surreal landscapes... landscapes inhabited by nightmarish beings that defy explanation. To survive, Warren and his friends must not only escape the deadly entities that pursue them but somehow stop John Hanger's nightmare-plague from spreading to the outside world.

"After devouring The Gods of Moab in one short sitting, this novella has not only become my favorite work by the author, it has become one of my favorite reads of the year. Rainey balances his supernatural frights with the natural, and it works beautifully. From the first page to its mind-bending final sentences, The Gods of Moab will have readers wide-eyed and enthralled." —TTZuma, HorrorWorld 

Love it or hate it, Amazon.com reviews are always appreciated. Thanks!

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Order The Gods of Moab from Amazon.com here!

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Karaoke, Trolls, Bumbles, and Drumpfs

Last night, Ms. B. and I hadn't planned on doing anything like going out to a brewery and performing karaoke, but friends Scott & Jamie sent us a message in the afternoon and invited us to go out to a brewery and perform karaoke. So, that's what we did. Scuffle Hill Brewing, in nearby Collinsville, makes a few decent brews and, as I discovered, some pretty fine mead. In general, I'm not really a fan of mead; it's too sweet for my palate. However, I decided on a lark to try some of theirs, and damn if it didn't hit the spot. Not all that sweet, and very flavorful (it was their Wildflower variety).

Jamie's son Wesley came along, and he led the way for us to wail some serious songs. He performed several, including a wonderfully riotous rendition of "Mr. Brightside," my favorite Killers song. Brugger killed the Indigo Girls with "Galileo," and I hollered REM's "Driver 8" and Gordon Lightfoot's "Carefree Highway" (okay, well, I didn't really holler the latter as much as croon). When we left, Brugger forced us to pull into the nearby Cook Out and order a couple of burgers. Yes, she did.

Geocaching on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day has been something of a personal tradition since I started caching back in 2008. I didn't manage it this year, but I reckon a couple of days after Christmas is plenty good. This morning, friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and I met up in High Point, NC, to hunt some new and some older caches. On my drive down, I was in good spirits until I saw some dumbfuck had put a great big inflatable of Donald Drumpf in their front yard, and the graphic reminder of human idiocy sent my spirits plummeting for a couple of seconds. But it wasn't long until Scott and I met at High Point's Piedmont Environmental Center to kick off our day of caching.

On our hunt, we found a couple of dozen caches, a very humble bumble (though it didn't bounce for us), and a massive troll sculpture. When we arrived at the latter site, there were tons of people around, which struck us as odd because it was in a kind of run-down section of High Point. But as it turns out, there is a troll sculpture back there, one of over a hundred created by artist Thomas Dambo. I was not aware that such critters existed, but apparently, they're a fairly well-known thing. They're damned cool, I can tell you that.

 

We found lunch at B3 Smokehouse in downtown High Point, which was surpassing tasty, if a little lacking in quantity for the money. (This is actually where we found the bumble.) After this, we trucked a ways southward to Randleman, where we hunted a couple of most interesting caches. One was a two-stage multi cache, and you found the second stage by pressing a radio button found at the first stage because it chimed at you. Follow the chime, find the cache. We did. The other was a locked ammo can, and you figured out how to unlock it by watching some ancient View-Master reels and collating the info to obtain the lock's combination. Fun, fun stuff.

Tomorrow, Imma gonna be writing, real good and a whole lot.

A Smashing Hot Christmas!

Amid all the turmoil out there in the world, Ms. B. and I have managed to have a pretty mellow Christmas season, for which both of us are very grateful. Recently, we both have had to deal with some unpleasant health issues, expensive cat health issues, and the loss of a dear loved one a couple of weeks ago, so a little holiday joy has gone a long way.

Last night, we went to visit and have dinner with friends Bob & Yvonne, which was a lovely time. We had some delicious food, excellent drink, fun games, and great music. One of their (several) cats, Fry, hung out with us as well, which gave us a few good laughs. Since they don't live very far away, I walked both ways (though Ms. B. drove because she transported the foodz, presents, and other goodies), and I enjoyed seeing so many nice holiday decorations around the neighborhood. Down at nearby Lake Lanier, there's a floating wire Christmas tree, about 25 feet tall, which is quite lovely at night, as you may see in the photo at left.

 

This morning, Ms. B. and I opened a fair passel of lovely presents we got for each other. I got a Space Godzilla figure, which I'm sure y'all will be seeing amid one of my miniature sets very soon. To celebrate, as you can see above, Godzilla took a festive Christmas morning stroll. The cats enjoyed some fun wrapping paper adventures. After all the gifts were opened, I went for a stroll around the neighborhood, only to find it unpleasantly hot out there. It's not like I'm all that keen on freezing winter weather, but Christmas morning ought not feel like it's late summer. But I did enjoy getting out there, walking around the lake, and taking a few photos of the scenery.

This afternoon, we'll be having Christmas dinner with friend Samaire. And to all of you who visit this little corner of the virtual world, Scary Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy Horrordays to all.

Old people making merry at Bob & Yvonne's

Old dude, Yvonne, Fred, Bob

Fry, nonplussed by all the excitment

L: Our Christmas tree; R: Ms. B. is festive on Christmas morning!

Do you see Mr. Moose?

Working up a sweat walking around Lake Lanier

The boathouse

Apparently, this is where Great Pumpkins go to die.

R.I.P. Richard "Dick" Wickliffe, 1932–2025

My "second dad"—Richard "Dick" Wickliffe—passed away on Thursday, December 11, after a brief but severe bout of pneumonia. He and two of his three young'uns, Gretchen and Todd, had been over for Thanksgiving dinner only two weeks earlier, and he had been doing very well at the time, so his death came as a shock. Dick was 93 years old. His funeral was this morning.

Dick and his wife, Martha (who passed away in 2013), and my parents were long-time best friends, and since we all spent so much time together, the Wickliffes literally became our second family. Gretchen is my age, Todd is a couple of years younger, and Scott is five years younger (the same age as my late brother), so we had a lot in common, especially in the mischief department. Dick and Martha always seemed to catch on to the mischief sooner than my parents did, and this was always a blessing because they tended to have more patience than my folks.

 

Dad and Dick worked together at the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. plant here in Martinsville for many years, which was how they got to know each other. Mom and Martha hit it off immediately, and though their personalities were oil and water, they somehow managed to get along better than human beings in general have a right to. It was Martha's habit to call Mom on the phone every afternoon, no matter what, about 2:00 p.m. After Martha died, Dick took up the mantle and called her daily without fail until Mom became too debilitated to even use the phone. His faithfulness always meant the world to me.

In his younger days, Dick was an avid scale modeler, and in more recent years, he took up the activity again, building plastic scale models of airplanes, tanks, ships, and even the starship, USS Enterprise (essentially the same model kit that I had when I was a kid). These were intricately detailed and painted, and his collection had become impressive indeed. Lately, every time I'd go for a visit, he'd have some new model in the works.. His completed models occupied a several tables at the funeral today.

All of Dick's family, as well as Kim and I, were pretty well shocked when he passed so suddenly. But while that shock is hard to deal with, I think that, in the long run, the fact he didn't suffer a long, debilitating illness is, in its way, a great relief.

 

The funeral service today was a fitting tribute to Dick—intimate, uplifting, and reassuring. I know his family, Kim and I, and so many good friends will remember him with love for the rest of our days.

 

Here is his official obituary from Roselawn Funeral Home: Obituary, Richard E. Wickliffe

Martha and Dick in our living room in the early 1990s

Dick, Martha, and Mom, Christmas 2008

Geminids

Pixabay image

I went out a little after midnight last night to see if I could see anything of the Geminids meteor shower. It was a very clear sky, and for about 15 minutes, the show was pretty spectacular—I saw several meteors, a couple of which were brilliant and streaked all the way across the sky.

Then Kimberly comes outside to watch, and for the next ten minutes... only a single, quick, fizzling streak. It had gotten pretty cold out there, so we went back inside.

Dammit, Brugger.

THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND for Christmas?

As many of my readers already know, I'm currently working on the sequel to my novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond, which came out earlier this year. So, if you haven't already read the original novel, I think you really otter! It's a fun blend of folk and cosmic horror, available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook (narrated by the inimitable Joshua Saxon) from Crossroad Press.

Why not scare the pants off somebody you love (or loathe) for Christmas? It's what I'd do!

 

"Stephen Mark Rainey brings Lovecraftian horror to rural Virginia in this chilling tale...the grounded and believable characterization of his protagonists makes suspending disbelief easy. This is cosmic horror done right.”

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

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More info and ordering links for
The House at Black Tooth Pond here

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Let It Snow... (Again)

Literally, a few hours after the last of the snow from the other day melted, bit more fell today—about the same amount we had the first time. This evening, I decided to go walkies around the neighborhood to look at the holiday decorations. There's a pretty good many around, and that makes me happy because I love seeing the neighborhood all done up. It's pretty cold out there, but once I got moving, I felt plenty comfortable.

 

I was most curious to see how our lit-up trees in the woods behind our house looked from other vantage points. There are several areas on the neighboring streets from which I can see them, and they really do look great—kind of like a bunch of fiery creepy crawlies from another dimension.

 

As they should.

 

Our next-door neighbors have a nicely decorated place, and they put some lights of their own around the edge of the woods next to us. So, we have what looks like a convocation of spritely spirits out there, and I heartily approve.

The lights in the woods seen from our driveway; they're to the right of the house in the photo above, just out of the camera's view.

Our next-door neighbors' place and some of their outdoor lights, seen from in the woods.

Since Brugger is in Michigan, I took the opportunity to wrap her Christmas presents today and put them under the tree. I always label them clearly, so that, come Christmas Day, there is no confusion about what belongs to whom.

Let It Snow...

Well, we got a wee bit of the white stuff overnight. Predictions ranged from one to five inches, and ours was about one and a half inches. It is right purty out, and at the moment, the sky looks like it's wanting to dump some more, though I don't believe there's any additional in the forecast. That may or may not mean diddly. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more anyway.

Brugger is at her folks' place in Michigan, so it stands to reason we'd get snow here. In the past three years, every time we've gotten snow in Martinsville, she's been in Michigan. I think she believes we don't really get any snow, and the local folks are just joking with her. Of course, she's got plenty of snow up where she is, so she ain't missing much.

The roads aren't too bad out there, but since I don't have to go anywhere, I can just enjoy the view from home. As long as things don't get ugly enough for us to lose power or anything, I reckon I'm happy as I can be. Now, the cats are sure enjoying piling onto me while I'm trying to write, so forward progress on my current project has been kinda slow...

No need to laugh—though you certainly can if you like—but I've been getting in the mood to watch some old Christmas shows, and the night before last, I watched the Rankin/Bass Frosty the Snowman from 1969. I didn't like it any better now than I did back then, but hey, it fulfilled a craving. I'll probably watch The Grinch, and maybe Rudolph - The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Ms. B. and I watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! every year at Christmastime because we just gotta. But because I was in a Rankin/Bass mood the other night, I also watched Mad Monster Party, which I loved as a kid, though now it's a bit harder to sit through. Still, it too fulfilled a craving.

It's Starting to Look a Bit Like Christmas

Black Friday is when I typically start decorating for Christmas, and so it was this year. I do love the festiveness of the Christmas season, and Brugger and I always try to do up the house as best we can. We both have a bunch of decorative stuff from our days of living in our separate places, and there's a good bit that Mom had in the house. Mom's decorations were always nice, but fairly low-key. Ms. B. and I tend shoot for at least slightly more extravagant.