Search Worlds Without End

This is a collection of van Belkom's short stories written for Truck News, which recount the adventures of a former private investigator who becomes a trucker.

"Death Drives A Semi comes at you with a sparkle in its bloodshot eye, a happy twist on its pale lips, and a switchblade tucked into a back pocket of its faded jeans. These stories move with the brutal, crazed efficiency of a starved rat who has just spotted a half-eaten cheeseburger on the other side of the alley. Throughout, Edo van Belkom's left-handed, almost surreal sense of humor aerates and elevates the proceedings by providing a constant ironic commentary, like a soundtrack composed by Frank Zappa and Spike Jones."
-- Peter Straub, author of The Hellfire Club

250 years ago, French Jesuits erected a mission deep in the uncharted Canadian wilderness, where they lived until they were brutally tortured and murdered by a band of Iroquois.

Or so the legends say.

Today Ste-Claire College stands near the legendary massacre site, the mission's memory now more folklore than fact. Then Ste-Claire professor, Karl Desbiens, a Regent in the Order of Jesus, and his band of students set off to locate the mission ruins. But after ten days of digging and searching, they find nothing...

Until an old world evil is uncovered and the true nightmare is unleashed.

With his own inner demons to struggle with, and his own crisis of faith to overcome, Karl Desbiens is an unlikely hero. Nevertheless, it's up to him to carry on the Jesuit tradition and fight the evil that has invaded Ste-Claire College before all of his students are dead.

Six contestants. One haunted house. And a whole lot of bloody murder.

B-grade horror masters the Gowan brothers have devised a new reality TV show with a killer hook. Six contestants compete for the chance to star in an upcoming slasher movie. All they have to do is survive one night in a "haunted" house and be voted Scream Queen.

The setting is perfect: a crumbling Victorian mansion with a gruesome history and a former owner who turned out to be a serial killer. Throw in a few buckets of fake blood, a bunch of rubber body parts, and a cast of aspiring actors who'll do anything for a close-up. An expert parapsychologist even warns the production team against disturbing the house's dormant spirits. Fantastic publicity. Sure, the budget's low, but the ratings are going to soar.

Then the sun goes down. The cameras start rolling. And all hell really breaks loose...

They think they're getting lucky.

They're dead wrong.

Detective Joe Williams has seen all kinds of murder scenes. Some brutal, some gory, all disturbing and horrific in their way. Nothing could have prepared him for what's waiting in Apartment 413. A man -- what's left of him -- lying in a pool of his own blood, his face frozen in a silent scream.

That's just the first. Soon there are more victims, all male, all mutilated, seeming to have little in common except an agonizing death by castration. All of them went looking for pleasure. Instead they found a killer wreaking vengeance in the most bloodthirsty way. And the only clue Joe has found is a tiny, gleaming metal tooth...

The Wyrm, the ultimate evil, and all the twisted dark forces at its command once again awaken to feed on human souls and threaten the world with destruction.

The Dragonlance Warriors series continues with the tale of Soth, once a mighty warrior, whose jealous passions and neglect of duty has caused him to lose all that is dear to him - his love, his life and his very spirit. His is the tale of a descent into evil and darkness.

After a devastating forest fire, a ranger discovers a litter of wolf cubs. He and his wife soon learn that they are no ordinary wolves. They are both animal and human. Although the young ones try to fit into the human world, their true nature makes the challenges of being teenagers all the more difficult.

When one of the pack is kidnapped, the others must draw on both sides of their nature - human and wolf - to find the cunning, the strength, and the courage it takes to rescue her.

Noble, Harlan, Argus, and their sister, Tora, are werewolves. When Ranger Brock found them in the forest after a fire, he thought they were human babies. Even when he and his wife realized that the infants were part wolf, they were determined to raise them as normal children.

In Lone Wolf, a sequel to Wolf Pack, the quartet, now in their teens, face the same challenges as everyone else their age: Tora wants desperately to be chosen for the school play. Harlan, who is smaller than his siblings, is the victim of a bully, and Argus wants to help his little brother but knows it would humiliate him. Daily problems are pushed aside when the foursome must unite against a common enemy; an unscrupulous logging company is planning to clear-cut the woods in which they run freely - and secretly - as wolves.

The four teenage werewolves are back in their newest episode, a little older and a little more compromised by their approaching adulthood. This time, they are the target of Jake MacKinnon and Maria Abruzzo's desire for revenge.

At an end-of-term party, Jake spikes Noble's drink, turning it into an almost lethal drug cocktail. While Noble is sidelined, events take a disastrous turn. Maria Abruzzo's young sister goes missing, and despite their dislike for Maria, the pack does the right thing by trying to find the girl. As it happens, she has simply snuck off without permission to be with some boys. Everyone, including the police and the pack, is happy she is safe, but are less than pleased by her prank and the trouble she has caused. Maria, embarrassed by her sister and suspicious of the pack, threatens to expose them and whatever it is they are hiding.

A near fight-to-the-death between Argus and a wild wolf might have saved a little girl's life, but it has also created something new and very, very deadly. Fully recovered, the wild wolf now returns in Wolf Man as a savage werewolf bent on terrorizing the town of Redstone and taking what it needs to feed itself and its hungry pack. When a mountain man's pet dog and livestock are viciously murdered, he convinces the town to take up arms to defend themselves against a pack of killer wolves. But along with guns comes trouble, and although Ranger Brock forbids the pack from running through the forest, it isn't long before someone is shot.

Now it is up to the ranger and members of the wolf pack to save a dying wolf and restore calm before any more blood is spilled or someone ends up dead. Will they succeed?