Something in the Water and Other Stories

From the author of the critically acclaimed SPECTRA Files trilogy come twelve mind-bending tales of cosmic horror. Family secrets, government lies, ancient magic, and modern science collide in Douglas Wynne’s debut short fiction collection.

An antique instruments appraiser finds an apocalyptic song slumbering in a haunted guitar. A pregnant woman house hunting with her husband discovers a doorway to another dimension and a devil’s bargain waiting on the other side. A performance of The King In Yellow staged during the COVID-19 pandemic holds up a mirror to mass insanity.

Within these pages lurk alien gods, covert ops, and pagan cults thriving like black mold beneath the thin veneer of American life from the New England seacoast to the Mojave desert.

Here too, fans will find a web of occult connections to Wynne’s novels.

“The Voyager” follows SPECTRA agent Jason Brooks as he investigates an abandoned amusement park thrill ride with harrowing cosmic implications.

In “Contact” Sgt. Matt Ritter from His Own Devices is ambushed on patrol in Afghanistan and swept into an encounter with an eldritch god on the borderland of death.

And years after the events of the Red Equinox, photographer Becca Philips is hounded by transcendental monsters when a tormented stranger is drawn to her art in the novella Time Out of Mind.

Few authors have brought the motifs of the Cthulhu Mythos into modern times with the depth and resonance of Douglas Wynne. Something in the Water weaves those dark themes into a symphonic overture that reaches terrifying crescendos!