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

by Richard Van Doren

Overview

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).

Product Details

BN ID:	2940164117702
Publisher:	Richard Van Doren
Publication date:	06/18/2020
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	426 KB

About the Author

Richard Van Doren is an ordained minister in a mainline Protestant denomination. He has always been fascinated by the fringe element in American culture and the extreme events that test faith. All of his novels and short stories deal with the collision of spirituality and earthly crises, or the ongoing conflict between the forces of good and evil. He moonlights as a college composition instructor, and every semester he teaches his students the two most important rules of writing: 1) write on a subject about which you know something, and 2) write on a subject about which you feel strongly. Over the years he has read and heard about countless instances of dark invasions into every day, innocent living. Anyone who has ever experienced something very strange, or who believes that we live in a reality that extends far beyond this world of the five senses will find his novels and stories much to their liking. All of these works contain instances that Van Doren has either experienced in his career or was told about by friends, students, parishioners and family.