Jay Lackey

The mastermind behind the madness. Founder of Mutant Strain and purveyor of dark fiction. Jay Lackey writes dark, atmospheric fiction where the supernatural bleeds into the modern world and technology becomes just another haunted house. His stories explore obsession, grief, addiction, and the quiet horrors that live beneath everyday routines—often through characters who are already broken long before the impossible finds them. Blending elements of horror, techno-thriller, and noir, his work focuses less on monsters and more on the cost of surviving them. When he’s not writing, Jay works on creative projects rooted in storytelling, sound, and place—always chasing the next unsettling idea that won’t let him sleep.

Books by Jay Lackey

The Quiet Game

The monster didn’t keep her. He taught her. Twenty years ago, eight-year-old Maya Miller was stolen from her driveway in Oakhaven. The town mourned, the family shattered, and her sister, Sarah, spent two decades waiting for a ghost. Then, the miracle happened. Maya came back. But the woman who walked out of the woods isn't a broken victim seeking comfort. She is cold, calculated, and terrifyingly efficient. While the town celebrates her return, Sarah watches her sister retreat to a secluded ranch, fortifying it with high fences and soundproof rooms. Maya claims she needs peace. She claims she needs silence. But as Sarah tries to reconnect, she realizes she isn't just helping her sister heal—she is being enrolled in a dark curriculum. Maya has brought back a philosophy from the dark: that empathy is a weakness, noise is a danger, and the world is divided into those who eat and those who are meat. Now, with local girls disappearing and her own marriage crumbling under the weight of Maya’s influence, Sarah must decide how far she will go to protect her sister. Is she saving a survivor? Or is she becoming an apprentice?

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Grim Vacation

When Death takes a vacation, all Hell breaks loose. Juan Tu drives a 1979 Cadillac Deville and has a five-star rating on the Uber of the underworld—or he would, if he knew he was working for it. When Juan accidentally runs over the Grim Reaper in a taco shop alleyway, he expects a lawsuit. Instead, he gets a job offer. Azrael, the Angel of Death, is suffering from severe burnout and decides to take an unauthorized sabbatical, leaving Juan holding the bag. (Literally. It’s a leather satchel that hums.) The Job: Collect souls. The Method: Push the button on the pager. The Problem: Juan is human. Unlike the efficient, unfeeling bureaucracy of the afterlife, Juan has a heart. He listens to the souls. He comforts them. And thanks to a cosmic glitch, his empathy acts as a spiritual super-glue. Before long, Juan is physically fused to a motley crew of lost souls, including a paranoid conspiracy theorist and a grandmother who misses her cat. To get them unstuck, Juan has to bypass the standard "Grease Trap" processing center and venture into Worship World—a flashy, neon-lit alternative afterlife run by Lucifer himself. But the Devil’s new theme park is hiding a dark secret, and he’s turning souls into batteries to keep the lights on. Armed only with a tire iron, a magical pager, and a stubborn refusal to give up, Juan has to unionize the dead, outsmart the Prince of Darkness, and reboot the entire afterlife. Perfect for fans of Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job, Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, and anyone who has ever suspected that Hell is just a basement office with bad air conditioning.

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When The Metal Screams

Peace is just a pause between wars. And the pause is over. In the Cradle, violence is treated as a disease. History is a cautionary tale. For Kaelen, a scholar of the ancient "Sick Years," war is something that happens in dusty books, not in the pristine, bioluminescent streets of his home. Until the sky falls. When the "Invaders"—a mechanized, merciless force known as the Iron Swarm—descend upon the valley, they don't bring demands. They bring extermination. They burn the libraries, pave the forests, and slaughter anyone who tries to reason with them. Stripped of his family, his mentor, and his philosophy, Kaelen is forced to flee into the frozen Iron Mountains. There, buried in the dark, he discovers the one thing his pacifist society tried to hide. To save the future, Kaelen must resurrect the violent ghosts of the past. He must trade his stylus for a rifle, and his morality for survival. But as he transforms from a scholar into a killer, Kaelen realizes that the greatest threat isn't the army marching on the capital. It’s the darkness growing in his own blood. Because when the metal screams, the man breaks. And what rises from the ashes might be worse than the enemy. ___________________ Perfect for fans of Red Rising and The Expanse, When the Metal Screams is a brutal, fast-paced dive into the cost of war.

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