The Terrible Thing That Happens - Softcover

Mellick III, Carlton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1621052249 ISBN 13: 9781621052241

Publisher: Eraserhead Press, 2016

Synopsis

"A new spin on the post-apocalypse genre. One you won't soon forget." --Garrett Cook, author of A God of Hungry Walls

There is a grocery store. The last grocery store in the world. It stands alone in the middle of a vast wasteland that was once our world. The open sign is still illuminated, brightening the black landscape. It can be seen from miles away, even through the poisonous red ash. Every night at the exact same time, the store comes alive. It becomes exactly as it was before the world ended. Its shelves are replenished with fresh food and water. Ghostly shoppers walk the aisles. The scent of freshly baked breads can be smelled from the rust-caked parking lot. For generations, a small community of survivors, hideously mutated from the toxic atmosphere, have survived by collecting goods from the store. But it is not an easy task. Decades ago, before the world was destroyed, there was a terrible thing that happened in this place. A group of armed men in brown paper masks descended on the shopping center, massacring everyone in sight. This horrible event reoccurs every night, in the exact same manner. And the only way the wastelanders can gather enough food for their survival is to traverse the killing spree, memorize the patterns, and pray they can escape the bloodbath in tact.

From the godfather of bizarro fiction, Carlton Mellick III, comes an absurd horror story unlike anything you've read before.

About this title

From the Back Cover

From the Back Cover Praise for Carlton Mellick III
 
"Easily the craziest, weirdest, strangest, funniest, most obscene writer in America." -- GOTHIC MAGAZINE
 
"Carlton is an acquired taste, but he hooks you like a drug." --HUNTER SHEA, author of Forest of Shadows
 
"The most original novelist working today? The most outrageous? The mostunpredictable? These aren't easy superlatives to make; however, CarltonMellick may well be all of those things, behind a canon of books thatall irreverently depart from the form and concepts of traditionalnovels, and adventure the reader into a howling, dark fantasyland of the most bizarre, over-the-top, and mind-warping inventiveness." --EDWARD LEE, author of Header
 
"Carlton Mellick III is a genius with an insanely beautiful imagination." --JOE AUGUSTYN, writer of Night of the Demons
 
"Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book titles... and the kinkiest fans!"  --CHRISTOPHER MOORE, author of The Stupidest Angel

"If you haven't read Mellick you're not nearly perverse enough for the twenty first century."  --JACK KETCHUM, author of The Woman and The Girl Next Door

"Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talentedpractitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale." --CORY DOCTOROW, author of Little Brother
 
"Mellick's career is impressive because, despite the fact that he puts out a fewbooks a year, he has managed to bring something new to the table everytime... Every Mellick novel is packed with more wildly original concepts than you could find in the current top ten New York Times bestsellers put together." --VERBICIDE
 
"Mellick's guerrilla incursions combine total geekboy fandom and love withgenuine, unbridled outsider madness. As such, it borders on genius, inthe way only true outsider art can." --FANGORIA
 
"Bizarre, twisted, and emotionally raw--Carlton Mellick's fiction is the literary equivalent of putting your brain in a blender." --BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising and Dead Sea
 
"I'm a huuuuge Bizarro fan. This new strain of cheerfully transgressiveweird fiction is to me the most vibrant, exciting, genre-mangling scenein all of strange literature today. And no one holds dominion over thisblossoming underground phenomenon like the godfather of Bizarro, Carlton Mellick III. With the most impressive sideburns in imaginative litsince Isaac Asimov, and a brain that squirts out more shamelesslyplayful originality in any given chapter than most artists willaccomplish in their entire lives, he's the poster boy. The Elvis. Aswell he should be." --JOHN SKIPP, co-author of The Bridge
 
"It's not unusual to blow through a Mellick book in one sitting. They'refast-paced with an endless number of surprises, making it tough not tokeep turning pages. When the end comes, I'm left with that done-too-soon feeling that I always love experiencing." --RAZORCAKE
 
"A wormhole of disturbing surrealism and absurd satire." --VICE MAGAZINE
 
"Carlton Mellick III exemplifies the intelligence and wit that lurks between its lurid covers. In a genre where crude titles are an art in themselves,Mellick is a true artist." --THE GUARDIAN

"Hisfiction blends bizarre scenarios mixed with horror, action, and evenmore bizarre actions to create fiction that toes the line between theabsurd and the dark places of the mind... Shocking yet entertaining" --THE EXAMINER

"I imagine Mellick as a Willy Wonka-type character, someone withpersonal access to another world, a world of his own creation, but dueto its mind-bending energy, he's lost control of it, and it continues to thrive even without him there to pull the strings.  And I like the idea of that." --BOOKIE MONSTER
 
"The imp of the perverse." --3AM MAGAZINE
 
"Just as Pop had Andy Warhol and Dada Tristan Tzara, the Bizarro movement has its very own P. T. Barnum-type practitioner. He's the mutton-choppedauthor of such books as Electric Jesus Corpse and The Menstruating Mall, the illustrator, editor, and instructor of all things Bizarro, and his name is Carlton Mellick III." --DETAILS MAGAZINE
 
"Discussing Bizarro literature without mentioning Mellick is like discussingweird-ass muttonchopped authors without mentioning Mellick." --CRACKED.COM

Edition details

• Publisher: Eraserhead Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1621052249
• ISBN 13: 9781621052241
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 154