tashirey87 avatar tashirey87 writer

Austin Shirey (SHY-ree) writes strange and fantastic fiction. He is the author of CITY OF SPORES, and his stories have appeared in such publications as The Saturday Evening Post, MetaStellar, The Dread Machine, and others, as well as in several anthologies.

https://www.austinshirey.com




Stories

Pallbearers

Pallbearers by Austin Shirey

WHAT IF THERE WAS A WAY TO BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE? It’s August 2009, and twenty-somethings Darrell Sanchez, his brother Cash, and Riley Weisman are all set to go on a summer road trip with their best friend, Tad Cooper, when Tad unexpectedly dies, leaving the three friends devastated and adrift. HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO? But when Cash presents Darrell and Riley with evidence of a secret government program that can resurrect the dead, they decide to dig up Tad’s freshly buried body and set out for the haunted desert of Nevada on an absurd cross-country quest to bring their best friend back to life. WHAT WOULD YOU RISK? Along the way, Darrell, Cash, and Riley will learn to grieve together as they risk their lives for their fallen friend, even as they are pursued by an otherworldly menace intent on stopping them.


City of Spores

City of Spores by Austin Shirey

Welcome to Madripol, city of artists and madmen, city of mushrooms. There’s something wrong with this city. When a strange plague infects Old Town, Johanna Kolibrik thinks the graffiti messages scrawled all over the city might be right. Kolibrik’s got her own problems, though—like paying the bills and keeping her PI business afloat—so when a well-dressed man from New Town offers to double her fee to find his missing wife, she ignores her gut and takes the case. But when she stumbles across a manuscript that shouldn’t exist, Kolibrik finds herself caught up in a vast web of conspiracy that will challenge everything she believes—a conspiracy that could shake the city of Madripol to its very foundations. Because in Madripol, everything is connected …



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