Jason Rubis | Severed Press

The Arena (Task Force E Origins Book 1)

severed_press_ — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:59:17 +0000

Before they tangled with Jacob Stone’s twisted plans to rewrite earth’s evolution, the men of Task Force E were a relatively obedient team in the employ of the US Government, seeking out and when necessary battling cryptids. Of course, in the 90s, they weren’t called cryptids. Bigfoot, lake monsters, mothmen—they were just monsters. But even then, it was becoming clear things were more complicated than they appeared.

TASK FORCE E: ORIGINS explains how the team began the journey from monster-wranglers to a strange twilight world of shifting realities and supernatural beings. In THE ARENA, we follow Smithy and his crew as they journey to an impoverished Washington logging town where bar-owner Red Malone has set up a most unusual side business. A place called the Arena, where men pay to pit their strength and fighting skill against legendary creatures that shouldn’t exist in our world. Creatures who call themselves the Old People, but are known to us as Bigfoot, Mountain Devil, or Sasquatch.

Whatever name you give them, they don’t take kindly to being used for human entertainment. It makes them mad, and when the Old People get mad, us puny humans tend to die. The Task Force can only hope they have time to set things right.

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TASK FORCE E: THE VALLEY

severed_press_ — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 21:39:56 +0000

Rhiannon Merriman didn’t believe in monsters—not until she went to work for multimillionaire Jacob Stone, founder of an isolated Alaska sanctuary where the strangest creatures in existence had been gathered for preservation and study. After years of training and working with sasquatches, dogmen, lake monsters and other “cryptids” she was willing to admit their existence. But surely these beasts were only freaks of nature, nothing more.

Then Stone is abducted by a creature out of nightmare, and Rhiannon finds herself joining an unlikely expedition to rescue him. A journey that will take her and her companions to a mysterious hidden valley, where a strange entity pursues a sinister agenda to retake the world for an entirely new class of beings.

Luckily, the men traveling with her are part of an elite team, one that understands cryptids better than anyone else in the world. Brilliant, headstrong, and unpredictable as the quarry they seek. Four men who call themselves Task Force E.

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TASK FORCE E: THE MUSEUM

severed_press_ — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 01:05:35 +0000

Book 2 of 2: Task Force E

Multi-billionaire Jacob Stone has spent much of his fortune creating New Eden, a preserve in the Alaskan wilderness for creatures out of legend and the wildest reaches of scientific speculation. Creatures that shouldn’t exist; monsters caught between human and animal shape; unimagined beasts that stalk, swim and fly through a world where legend and science are one. Sasquatch. Dogmen. Lake Wyrm. Cryptids.

Now Stone has recruited the four remaining members of Task Force E, a renegade paramilitary group exposed to and transformed by a bizarre paranormal phenomenon, one that has left them with a strange sensitivity to–and affinity for—cryptids. Stone hopes to use their abilities for his own gains. The Task Force E is more interested in his larger ambitions. Stone wants to break down the barriers that separate the cryptids’ world from our own, and if it means destroying our world, so be it.

The Task Force—Smithy, Brick, Jingo and Wizard—aren’t interested in letting him do that. And they’ll do anything in the scope of their strange abilities to stop him.

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Task Force E: The Reservation

severed_press_ — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 02:07:07 +0000

Twenty years ago, five young men enlisted in a top-secret military experiment claiming to enhance elite capabilities. Instead, they got cryptids! Bigfoot, lake monsters, chupacabras and more. For a decade, Task Force E took down these dangerous creatures until a tragic accident forced the team to disband.

Now, the U.S. military is knocking on their door again. A deranged billionaire has created a reservation for cryptids, and the military smells trouble. Task Force E, with their unrivaled discipline, determination, and tactical brilliance, reunites for another wild ride. Hunting cryptids is their expertise. They’re just not that good at following the rules.

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JURASSIC BEACH

severed_press_ — Sun, 28 Mar 2021 09:31:51 +0000

It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend of partying on a remote Pacific island, one last bit of fun between the end of graduate school and the rigors of adult life. But for paleontology student Beth Norian and her friends, the party quickly turns deadly. Little did they realize the island they chose is the site of a secret Government experiment in time travel, one that accidentally catapults them back millions of years to a primitive world of savage beasts. Nor are dinosaurs the only threat the island presents; a band of soldiers have also discovered a route back to the Jurassic, using it as a site for nightmarish biological experiments. And the mysterious soldier who accompanied Beth’s group back in time might just be the deadliest monster of all…

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PROJECT CALIBAN

severed_press_ — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 10:21:48 +0000

Josh Carter and Diane Rostov are a couple of self-styled cryptid investigators dead set on proving the existence of Bigfoot in the forests of western Pennsylvania. Marty Bloom is a professional “skeptic” on the U.S. Government’s payroll who writes and lectures on the impossibility of Bigfoot and other cryptids. In short order, all three find themselves in the orbit of Dr. Joyce Smith, a reclusive small-town vet with a sketchy past, one that involves a long-defunct military project. Things move quickly to a show-down with murderous sasquatch…and their “leader,” a creature far more intelligent and deadly than any ‘Squatch should be.

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THE WORLD BENEATH

severed_press_ — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 19:31:16 +0000

Dirk Bannerman is leading a simple life in an isolated South American town, living day-to-day while hoping for better things. Things get interesting when he meets Theophilus Chalmers, a self-professed scientist and explorer in search of a subterranean lost world.

Chalmers has a proposition that intrigues the young American; he needs someone to guide his granddaughter to a nearby research site and begin the search in earnest….a simple task that will pay beyond Dirk’s wildest dreams. But Chalmers is more than he seems, and so is his underground world. There are mutants and mysterious energy sources and dinosaurs. Lots of dinosaurs!

TERROR BIRDS author Jason Rubis serves up a pulp thriller for all who’ve dreamed of discovering Pellucidar.

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TERROR BIRDS

severed_press_ — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 08:01:55 +0000

When college student Alex Drummond takes a summer job as research assistant to eccentric cryptozoologist Thaddeus Bruckner, he’s not sure what to expect. He certainly doesn’t foresee babysitting the egg of a Titanis walleri, the massive avian predator that once ruled southern Texas. But after Dr. Bruckner’s experiments in “wormhole dilation” work a little too well, that’s exactly the role he’s stuck with. And when the newly-hatched Titanis is abducted, things get even wilder, as its vengeful parents tear through a wormhole to wreak havoc in the Lone Star State. Bruckner and Alex are forced to play monster wranglers in a desperate effort to get the rampaging Terror Birds back to the Pliocene and avert catastrophe!

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