SENSELESS BY RONALD MALFI: BOOK REVIEW
Senseless is a Los Angeles centered, thriller filled with vampires, a human fly, a monkey, doctors, detectives and Hollywood predators. When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Detective Bill Renney, assigned to the case can’t deny the similarities between this murder and one that occurred a year prior. As Renney struggles to find suspects, clues and a grip on reality he must overcome ghosts pursuing him from all directions.
Is it a serial killer? A copycat killer? And how do a human fly, a vampire, an author on the run from her past, a narcissistic Hollywood producer and his drug addict son and a Hollywood shrink fit into the puzzle? They will all converge on Renney to make Senseless an unforgettable rubiks cube of horror you won’t be able to put down.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE RULE OF THREE
Lana Grant had built her entire brand on the fine line between fear and fun. Her TikTok series, “3-Minute Myth,” had started as a side project during her last semester of college in upstate New York. Now, with nearly 800K followers and a growing YouTube mirror channel, she was one of horror-Tok’s most popular creators—equal parts skeptic, storyteller, and scream queen.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: BROTHER
He was seventeen when the call came.
They said it was a miracle—finally a matching donor, with a perfect heart. My parents cried tears of joy. I just stared at the carpet. I didn’t know what to feel. My big brother Danny had been sick for most of my life. Dilated cardiomyopathy, they called it. His heart was too weak, too big and just not good at being a heart. For years, I watched him fade—pale, tired, sometimes blue-lipped and wheezing after walking upstairs. But then came the transplant and then came the change.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE ALGORITHM FEEDS
The video was everywhere, a shaky, low-light livestream. A woman in her twenties. Makeup—perfect. Ring light—glowing. She leaned toward the camera, mid-sentence.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: FATHER
They kidnapped me from outside my apartment. One moment I was unlocking my bike, the next—a hood, hands, a vehicle that smelled like sulfur and old milk. I passed out.
I woke up, strapped to a table of cold metal—my wrists burned. The air buzzed with some frequency I couldn’t hear, but felt in my teeth. Inside I tasted dread as candles flickered while the smell of rotted flesh lambasted me.
I lifted my head to see my kidnappers in a large dilapidated open room. They’d arranged themselves with their backs to me mostly, in a semicircle around a wall. As I stared, the wall pulsed, shimmered and breathed. Like it waited for me—licking its lips to taste my fear.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE CRYSTALLINE VOW
They say when you’re dying, your life flashes before your eyes. But mine won’t stop replaying just one night—one scream, one blade, one name I still whisper in dreams. I broke a vow I never made, and they killed him for it. Now the crystal is humming again, and I don’t think I have much time left. So if you’re reading this, listen closely—because once I tell you, it won’t just be my secret anymore.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE GATEKEEPERS
There’s something lurking in the code, in the algorithms that’s preying on us—If you’ve seen this post, it might already be too late.
The door was open. It wasn’t supposed to be. It gaped like an invitation no one wanted, humming with silence. I stepped inside Justine’s apartment, whispering their name. No response. Just the kind of stillness that feels loaded. And then I saw the blood.
It was smeared along the edge of their keyboard—a perfect, curling half-print of a fingertip. Beneath it was a tiny message written in red Sharpie on the back of a Post-it note:
"Rule 0 is real."
That was the last thing they ever wrote.
THE DAMAGE OF GATEKEEPING IN HORROR
I have been having a blast on the NoSleep Subreddit, sharing horror stories and interacting with horror fans in fun, immersive ways. As a professor of Transmedia storytelling at RIT, community building and engaging is so important to me. Having been the Creative Director at DeviantArt and having overseen the development of many communities through curation and moderation, I was so excited to have the opportunity to play on Reddit with the Nerd Horror concept.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: POLLY MILLER ROAD
If you grew up in upstate New York, you’ve probably heard some version of the Polly Miller story. Witch. Murdered lover. Cursed swamp. The older kids always dared each other to go out there, to Polly Miller Road, after dark. I used to think it was all bullshit. Just local legend. But in the summer of 1999, I found out it wasn’t. Polly’s real—and she’s been waiting.
All we wanted was to run—me and Jess, two girls who’d gotten too deep in Carter’s bullshit. Swayed by the money, the free drugs, and that so-called safe compound tucked deep off Vickerman Hill. We had it made, but the cost was our souls, and that was too steep for me.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE CURIOUS CASE OF JORGE THE VAMPIRE HORSE
This is Jorge.
Jorge was a good little horse.
He came from Mexico.
He didn’t have papers—just dreams.
This is the Man in the Red Hat.
He was not the sharpest tool in the shed.
He was very mean.
He hid behind a cross and a gun.
And he treated politics like his favorite sports team.
The Man in the Red Hat hated Jorge.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: JACK’S TONIC
WARNING: Never drink a 150-Year-old Snake Oil Tonic—My Aunt did, and now she’s not human anymore
They told me the old milk house hadn’t been opened since 1947. My great-grandfather, Jack “The Milk Man,” died there—collapsed by the churn with his boots on. The room had stayed sealed ever since, the cold stone cellar beneath it undisturbed.
Until now.
BLACK MIRROR MADE A TRANSMEDIA GAME YOU CAN PLAY FOR SEASON 7
Black Mirror is back for season 7 on Netflix and along with it, comes some transmedia horror that brings the episode into the real world. Peter Capaldi's 'Plaything' episode introduces the creepy little game Thronglets—and Netflix has made the game a reality you can play right now.
Fuck Your Tragedy: A Review of Chuck Tingle’s BURY YOUR GAYS
Bury Your Gays is a masterstroke of horror metafiction—sharp as a kitchen knife, heartfelt as a queer found family hug, and soaked in that signature Chuck Tingle sincerity that turns satire into sacred rage.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: MIDNIGHT MASS
Once a month, every adult in town would vanish after dark. The children stayed home—locked in, lights out. Told not to peek, that we should be asleep by then anyway, and if we weren’t, all manner of monsters lurked about at night looking for disobedient children to chase.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: SEE EMILY PLAY
This is a warning. If you hear kids calling outside your window after 2AM—don’t go. Don’t answer. And whatever you do, don’t say your name.
There’s something wrong with my street, and it starts after midnight. You’ll hear laughter—children playing. Sometimes tag, sometimes jump rope, sometimes just… calling.
But we all know better. You don’t open the window. You don’t peek through the blinds. You never go outside.
I told Emily this, but she didn’t believe me. She thought it was just some dumb story I made up to scare her.
She doesn’t think that anymore.
Because she’s gone.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE MAN WHO STANDS ACROSS THE STREET
There’s a man who stands across the street from my house every single night at exactly 2:17 AM. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He just stands there. Watching.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
Raymond Kessler’s father was, quite literally, a trust fund. Groomed into a vapid vessel devoid of empathy, Raymond pissed away his inheritance on the finest drugs, the loudest cars, and the trendiest clothes. He replenished his fortune by gutting pensions through the family business and selling conspiracy supplements to men who hated their wives. He believed aliens were real, we live in a simulation, and women were mostly decorative buckets for his sperm.
So when a shadow dealer in Morocco offered him a strange object—carved from jet-black meteorite, with spindled horns and a vaguely feminine shape—he wired $4.5 million instantly.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE CROOKED ONE
(HE WHO HAUNTS THE TOWPATH - as told in German Flatts, New York – circa late 1850s)
In the late 1850s, the towpath connecting Ilion and Mohawk, New York, was a vital link along the Erie Canal, bustling with activity. Running parallel to the Mohawk River, it was not only a hub of commerce but also a place of whispered legends among the locals.
One such tale was that of The Crooked One.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE DIRT WITCH
My best friend stole a cursed crystal. Now she’s gone, and someone—or something else has her face.
We were just two art students crafting costumes for Comic Con—until my best friend stole a strange red crystal to cosplay the Dirt Witch, a local legend known for vengeance and blood. Now she’s missing… and something wearing her face won’t stop staring at me.
GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: THE JESTER
My family is dead and everyone thinks I killed them—but it was the Jester, I swear.
I didn’t hurt anyone. He did. He tricked me. It was all just a joke. A bad joke.
I’m getting out tomorrow. Ten years in juvie. They say I’ve made “progress.” That I’ve “accepted responsibility.”
But they’re wrong. I didn’t kill my family. I was the victim. Preyed upon by that toy—that evil thing.
The Jester.