We Paint Our Faces with the Ashes of the Dead

January 10, 2026January 24, 2026 / MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

My new short story collection consists of 13 tales spanning the last decade of my writing career. I put a great deal of time and consideration into what I should include in this collection, focused on providing a wide range of stories comparable to my previous collection of short stories, May Cause Unexplained Ocular Bleeding. I wanted to be sure there was something for everyone in the pages of this book.

Works previously published in various anthologies and periodicals combine with stand-alone short stories that were originally made available on the Godless platform, providing readers with an exciting new experience. Ranging from splatterpunk and extreme horror to cosmic horror and crime fiction–and everything in between–these stories showcase a variety that is sure to entertain, titillate, and unnerve.

While I originally planned to self-publish this title, Candace Nola convinced me that it was something she’d like to make available through Uncomfortably Dark Horror.

Coming in digital format to Godless on January 21, 2026.

Available everywhere on February 10, 2026.

When an author puts a short story collection together, they are sifting through the ashes in the hope of finding something valuable, and breathing new life into things that were dead. Each story takes on a new context when brought together, than it had in its original life. The author paints their face with the ashes of the dead, crafting a new facade made from pieces of the old.

This collection includes 13 stories, written and published over the course of more than a decade. Some of them may be familiar, while others may provide a new experience as you lose yourself in these tales of violent revenge, exploration gone horribly wrong, and strange encounters.

Even those you’ve read before may find a different meaning this time around.

Advance Praise for We Paint Our Faces with the Ashes of the Dead:

Available now on Godless at the following link:

We Paint Our Faces with the Ashes of the Dead by Nikolas P. Robinson – GODLESS PREMIERE!

Have A Blast

July 21, 2024January 10, 2026 / MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

In 2022, I was invited to write a short story to be featured in an anthology focused on Wrath, as part of a series of anthologies centered around the Seven Deadly Sins. I was enthusiastically on board. Revenge and wrath are close to my heart, where fiction is concerned.

Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of issues that led to my inability to submit the story I’d been writing–not the least of which was that, upon rewriting the story, it exploded to almost double the word count expected by the publisher. I felt defeated, and like I’d let the publisher in question down by not getting them the story I’d eagerly anticipated sending their way.

When Candace Nola started talking with me about rewriting/revising Innocence Ends, she asked if there was anything new I’d be interested in sending her way. I quickly wrapped up the loose threads I hadn’t tied off in the revenge story and sent it her way.

She wanted it! She had some requests and suggestions for areas she wanted me to expand on, and the story grew to just about the short end of what’s considered a novella.

On August 5th of 2024, Have A Blast exploded onto the scene.

Molded by war and disfigured by a roadside bomb, Oliver Clark doesn’t hold out much hope for the future. Then he meets Jayne, and all of that changes. But when she’s taken from him, Oliver sets his sights on revenge.

No matter who it was, he’s determined that they’ll learn how far someone will go when they have nothing holding them back, and nothing left to lose.

Advance Praise for Have A Blast:

Innocence Ends

November 22, 2023July 21, 2024 / MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

Innocence Ends, which was originally released in August of 2020, is a story of friendship and how far that friendship can be tested. Since its release, it has been one of my most successful titles. It was not, however, successful enough in the opinion of Candace Nola, the founder of Uncomfortably Dark Horror. In late 2023, she asked if I would be willing to remove the existing edition of the novel from publication and allow her to work with me to improve it, slap a brand new cover on it (courtesy of Don Noble), and release it through her publishing house. I agreed, and she quickly got to work. In June of 2024, almost four years from the original release date, the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends found new life.

The concept that forms the substrate of this novel is one that arose from a conversation with an old friend of mine, more than 20 years before the book ended up being published. We’d been discussing that certain B-movie tropes were never played as being serious, and we were sort of disappointed by that fact. You know the tropes I mean, the mad scientist with his manor atop the hillside, the group of friends trapped in a town with a sinister secret, and other such things. Snippets of scenes that would ultimately become part of Innocence Ends were posted on this blog years ago because I’d started writing this book long before I finally sat down and finished it in late 2019 and early 2020. More than two decades in the making, I’m pleased with how this one turned out.

Six lifelong friends meet together in an isolated mountain town in Northern Idaho to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a close friend’s suicide.

A week of hiking, spending time in nature, and a bittersweet reunion soon takes a sinister turn as the friends find themselves fighting for their lives and struggling to survive. A seemingly tranquil community bombarded by late spring storms becomes a trap filled with monsters and threats everywhere they turn.

Terrifying secrets are revealed and the survivors are left to wonder what will be left of the world outside if they can find a way to come through the gauntlet alive.

Advance praise for the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends: