Thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict lost their lives, and tens of thousands more were badly injured. For twin brothers Henry and William, infantry soldiers in the Confederate Army, the battle held more than the horrors of war, it was a portal to something beyond mankind, where the spilling of blood brings not only death, but eternal damnation.A stunning horror novella from a new Master of the Weird and the Fantastic.

    

    To accomplish this, the most primal element of storytelling--a single human voice describing events exactly as it experienced them--is adhered to without embellishment or exception. Within these pages lie taut, unadorned first person narratives from agonized souls, minus all the stylish techniques which dilute, stretch, and burden tales of terror with unnecessary detail. Here you will find no entry into the thoughts of any characters other than the narrator's, no standard passages of dialogue, no humor, no extraneous gore, no romance. The twenty untitled stories inside this book spill forward without page or even paragraph breaks, taking the form of uninterrupted confessions, creating an effect of pure campfire terror. Knifepoint strips away all the tired conventions which water down traditional horror fiction, leaving nothing but the story's riveting spine to compel and chill you to the core.If this collection is expanded in the future, those possessing a copy of any particular edition need only send a page from it to the author to receive a free copy of the new one.

    The silent group by the fire once more broke forth into wild gesticulations and cries, Stella prostrated herself, the Form on the altar grew clearer and with a cry of horror Mr Fowke turned away and rushed madly across the moor'. Amyas Northcote's In Ghostly Company is a rare and splendid collection of strange and disturbing tales from the golden age of ghost stories. His style is akin to that of the master of the genre M.R. James: it is measured and insidiously suggestive, producing unnerving chills rather than shocks and gasps. Northcote's tales make the reader unsettled and uneasy. This is partly due to the fact that the hauntings or strange occurrences take place in natural or mundane surroundings - surroundings familiar to the reader but never before thought of as unusual or threatening. Long out of print, this book remains an enthralling and chilling read.

    Gary Handler has issues. His boss hates him, his mother hounds him, and his cat thinks he’s an idiot. But that’s okay because Gary’s got the perfect solution to all of life’s troubles: a porn site subscription and his right hand.Sadly, all habits grow old, even the fun ones. Gary soon finds himself at the doorstep of a creepy old pawn shop where he buys a used adult novelty toy to spice up his one-man sex life.Pity for him that it’s cursed by the angry spirits of all the “kids” he’s flushed down the toilet. Needless to say, hairy palms are about to become the least of his worries.----------Jack on, jack off ... with the Jacklight in book 2 of Shingles, the horror comedy series that’s not for those with faint hearts or weak bladders.

    Bartlett, author of Gateways to Abomination, is back with The Witch-Cult in Western Massachusetts. A cross between Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas and Gardinel’s Real Estate by Orrin Grey and M.S. Corley, this slender volume consists of 13 bite-sized fictional biographies, each accompanied by a chilling illustration by the masterful Alex Fienemann. Meet Stanley Malanson, who had a curious rapport with felines. Meet Abrecan Geist, who endeavored to take revenge on a capricious God. Meet Minerva LaBrie, who abandoned Wicca in favor of a dark and blasphemous alternative. Meet Jebediah Blackstye, who crossed a line with his beloved familiar, a toad with revolting powers. These are but four of the practitioners of black magic who have made their homes in the cities and towns of Western Massachusetts. Read of sumptuous feasts gone to rot, of a corrupted priest who dared unleash his venomous platitudes over the common airwaves, of a powerful sorcerer born at the intersection of Blood and Stone. Open your hearts to the Witch-Cult in Western Massachusetts.

    These are stories to be savored late at night in bed, read by the light of a single lamp in an empty, dark house.

    M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.” Jackson’s characters–mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own–chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson’s suggestion that there are unseen powers–“demons” both subconscious and supernatural–malevolently conspiring against human happiness.In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with The Lottery (1949), Jackson’s only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story–one of the most widely anthologized tales of the twentieth century–has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are “The Daemon Lover,” a story Oates praises as “deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than ‘The Lottery,’” and “Charles,” the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson’s secondary career as a domestic humorist.Here too are Jackson’s masterly short novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay “Biography of a Story,” Jackson’s acidly funny account of the public reception of “The Lottery,” which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.

    From exploring an empty house with dreadful secrets to the account of an eccentric children’s ayah and from vengeful animals carrying a spirit to a bunch of anxious children in a stark landscape—these are some of the most interesting stories about the supernatural. Selected and compiled by Ruskin Bond, this collection includes stories by authors like Rudyard Kipling, Algernon Blackwood, R.L. Stevenson and Alice Perrin, among others.

    Psychopathy is boring. Coldness is boring. She's interested in feeling, and when her stories turn violent (as they frequently do), it's with a surreal emotional barbarity that distorts the entire world. You can mop up blood with any fabric. Maggie's concern is with the wound left behind, because the wound never leaves-it haunts. As a result, each of these stories leaves a wound of its own. Some weep, watching as you try (and fail) to recover. Others laugh. But never without feeling."-B.R. Yeager, author of Negative Space"And once finished, I felt like my tongue had been misplaced, guts heavy and expanded ... gums numb with a tongue that'd been put elsewhere, my mouth clean around a pipe weaving up through pitch and shadow ... and well past ready, primed for delight, waiting but knowing I had already been filled to skin; crying shit, hearing piss, fingernails seeping bile, pores dribbling blood, soles slopping off and out to meet a drain mid-floor ..."-Christopher Norris, author of Hunchback '88

    These stories (written between 1943 and 1979) combine the mystical and horrific with traditional southern folk tales and legends. At the same time, these stories reveal a post World War 2 modernism that make them much more then pulp romanticism. The paranoia and cynicism of modern weird icons such as the X-files may well have had their genesis in the pulp musings of Manly Wade Wellman. Indeed the intensely driven, idealistic occult investigator John Thunstone could be a pulp/noir stand in for Fox Mulder.This work will be issued in a fine collector's hardcover state, with 24 illustrations. Edited by John Pelan, illustrated by Kenneth Waters.Contents:• Introduction• The Third Cry to Legba• The Golden Goblins• Hoofs• The Letters of Cold Fire• John Thunstone's Inheritance• Sorcery from Thule• The Dead Man's Hand• Thorne of the Threshold• The Shonokins• Blood from a Stone• The Dai Sword• Twice Cursed• Shonokin Town• The Leonard Rondache• The Last Grave of Lill Warren• Rouse Him Not• The Dakwa• The Beasts That Perish• Willow He Walk• A Witch for All Seasons• Chastel

    During his lifetime, his work found little critical regard, but word of his remarkable talents gradually won him an international readership. This volume brings together his complete fiction, including three short stories and his final surviving work, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. Illustrated with Schulz's original drawings, this edition beautifully showcases the distinctive surrealist vision of one of the twentieth century's most gifted and influential writers.

    With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest—Dávila’s debut collection in English—you’ll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.

    In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.

    Although In Darkness Waiting begins in much the same vein as many horror novels (mysterious deaths; a small town invaded by evil; plucky, attractive young lovers; the logical level-headed doctor; some salt-of-the-earth townsfolk...) by its end you will have discovered it is not "just another horror novel." With its exploration of the "insect" inside us all, In Darkness Waiting proves more relevant today than ever. Considering a read of In Darkness Waiting is like considering a trip through the Amazon with no weapons and no vaccinations and no shoes. It's like contemplating a journey in the Arctic clad only in your underwear. Or maybe it's more like dropping into one of those spelunker's challenges, those chilling pitch-black shafts into the Earth's crust-and when you get down there your light burns out and you remember the chitinous fauna of the cavern... Unlike undertaking those endeavors, you can get through the harrowing pages of In Darkness Waiting alive (although we are not promising you'll remain unscathed.) Towards the end you'll discover one of the most extreme yet literate passages ever written. It may well be the most outré scene ever created. But John Shirley wasn't after shock alone. Shock is never enough for him.