The Silver Eyes


Scott Cawthon - 2015
    It’s been exactly ten years since the murders at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and Charlotte, who goes by the name Charlie, has spent the last ten years trying to forget. Her father had owned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and had built its four adult-sized animatronic animals. After meeting up with her friends, curiosity leads them back to the old pizza place, and they find it hidden, but still standing. They discover a way inside, but things are not as they used to be: the four mascots that delighted and entertained them as children have changed. The animatronic animals have a dark secret and a murderous agenda.

Mary: The Summoning


Hillary Monahan - 2014
    Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go. A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror. Once is not enough, though--at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary's wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary--and Jess--before it's too late?

The Pilo Family Circus


Will Elliott - 2006
    You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?"Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

Sea Sick


Iain Rob Wright - 2012
    Now, years later, Jack is a changed man, with a head full of secrets driving him insane. His recent record of police brutality and a reputation for not following the rules has prompted his seniors to give him an ultimatum: take a few weeks off, relax, and find some way to let go of all the anger – or else find another job.That’s why Jack is about to board The Spirit of Kirkpatrick, a cruise liner built for relaxation and fun. Pretty soon, however, Jack realises that a little R&R is the last thing he’s ever going to get aboard the cursed ship. There’s a virus onboard, making people insane and bleeding from the eyes. The whole ship is overrun with blood and death, and there is nowhere to escape. Just when Jack thinks his number is up and his life is over, he wakes up. The day is exactly the same. In fact, everything is the same. Jack is forced to witness the viral outbreak again and again as it ravages the ship and its passengers over and over, day after day. Jack finds himself trapped in a repeating hell. It won’t be long before Jack realises there are others onboard just like him – and that some of them know more than they’re letting on.

The Girl Aquarium


Jen Campbell - 2019
    Weaving between whispered science and circus, Campbell turns a cracked mirror on society and asks who gets to control the twisted tales hiding in the wings. Jen Campbell received an Eric Gregory Award in 2016, is Vlogger in Residence for the Poetry Book Society, and was a judge of the Forward Prize in 2018. She talks about books, fairy tales and disfigurement at youtube.com/jenvcampbell. She lives in London.

Carrier Wave


Robert Brockway - 2015
    What we heard shattered the world.Listen.Just once. That’s it.As soon as you hear it, it has you. And once it has you, it’s over. You may think you’re in control. You’re not. You want one more listen. You want to look at that strange spot in the sky. The one that’s been slowly growing. The one that didn’t make sense… until you listened. You want to listen again, and you will do whatever it takes to make everyone else listen. By any means necessary. Even if it kills you.Just one more listen. One more.Listen.

The Year of the Witching


Alexis Henderson - 2020
    Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow


Christina Henry - 2021
    Not even Ben Van Brunt's grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that's just legend, the village gossips talking.Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play Sleepy Hollow boys, reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow have ever said. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods?

The Necromancer's House


Christopher Buehlman - 2013
    We know where you are. And we are coming.”The man on the screen says this in Russian.“Who are you?”The man smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile.The image freezes.The celluloid burns exactly where his mouth is, burns in the nearly flat U of his smile. His eyes burn, too.The man fades, leaving the burning smiley face smoldering on the screen.“Oh Christ,” Andrew says.The television catches fire.Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her.

Black Water Sister


Zen Cho - 2021
    So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god--and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she'll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.

A Touch of Jen


Beth Morgan - 2021
    In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart.Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.

Falling in Love with Hominids


Nalo Hopkinson - 2015
    She has been dubbed “one of our most important writers,” (Junot Diaz), with “an imagination that most of us would kill for” (Los Angeles Times), and her work has been called “stunning,” (New York Times) “rich in voice, humor, and dazzling imagery” (Kirkus), and “simply triumphant” (Dorothy Allison).Falling in Love with Hominids presents over a dozen years of Hopkinson’s new, uncollected fiction, much of which has been unavailable in print. Her singular, vivid tales, which mix the modern with Afro-Caribbean folklore, are occupied by creatures unpredictable and strange: chickens that breathe fire, adults who eat children, and spirits that haunt shopping malls.

Suffer the Children


Craig DiLouie - 2014
    Soon, they return from the grave…and ask for blood. And with blood, they stop being dead. They continue to remain the children they once were...but only for a short time, as they need more blood to live. The average human body holds ten pints of blood, so the inevitable question for parents everywhere becomes: How far would you go to bring your child back?

Man, Fuck This House


Brian Asman - 2021
    Sabrina's a bored and disillusioned home-maker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren't what they seem.Sabrina's hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbors are odd or absent. And Sabrina's already-fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they're far from its only residents...

Beneath


Kristi DeMeester - 2017
    But she accepts the assignment, dredging up long-buried memories as she seeks the truth.As Cora begins to uncover the secrets concealed by a veneer of faith and tradition, something ancient and long concealed begins to awaken. What secrets do the townsfolk know? What might the handsome young pastor be hiding? What will happen when occulted horrors writhe to the surface, when pallid and forgotten things rise to reclaim the Earth?Will Cora–and the earth–survive? The answers–and pure terror–can only be found in one place: Beneath.