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The Case Against Satan
Ray Russell - 1962
Then one night, she strips in front of the parish priest and sinks her nails into his throat. If not madness, then the answer must be demonic possession. To vanquish the Devil, Bishop Crimmings recruits Father Gregory Sargent, a younger priest with a taste for modern ideas and brandy. As the two men fight not just the darkness tormenting Susan but also one another, a soul-chilling revelation lurks in the shadows—one that knows that the darkest evil goes by many names.
The Woodwitch
Stephen Gregory - 1988
But he also has a dark side. When his girlfriend Jennifer laughs at his impotence, he lashes out in a violent rage, knocking her unconscious. At the suggestion of his employer, Andrew heads to an isolated cottage in the dark Welsh countryside to take a break and get a grip on himself. In the woods, he discovers the grotesque stinkhorn mushroom, whose phallic shape seems to rise in obscene mockery of his own shortcomings. But the stinkhorn gives him an idea, a way to win Jennifer back. As the seeds of obsession take root in Andrew’s mind, he embarks on a nightmarish quest, with unexpected and horrifying results. Stephen Gregory earned worldwide acclaim with his first novel, The Cormorant (1986), which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was adapted for a BBC film. In The Woodwitch (1988), his second novel, Gregory once again proves himself a master of disturbing and unsettling horror.
Pin
Andrew Neiderman - 1981
Father was consumed by his medical practice and an analytical approach to life. But he understood the sensual hunger growing inside his children's young bodies. He knew they could help each other answer "The Need". Father had Science. Father had Reason. And he had Pin.
Crucifax
Ray Garton - 1988
Garton has a way with teenage boredom, atmospheric small town isolation, incest, drug abuse, and over the top violence and he has managed to create a modern remake of the story of the Pied Piper with a sinister character, Mace (who wears a crucifax around his neck a crucifix with an axlike blade on it) appearing on the scene, seducing mixed up kids with his siren song of pleasure, power, and indulgence, all leading to a horrifically unsettling climax of death and destruction. And then there are the ratlike things that do the piper s bidding . . .
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!
Mile 81
Stephen King - 2011
It's a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It's the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother, who's supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to the gravel pit to play "paratroopers over the side." Pete, armed only with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out. Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn't been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says "closed, no services." The driver's door opens but nobody gets out.Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug calls "the ultimate insurance manual," but it isn't going to save Doug when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then notices that the wagon has no plates.Ten minutes later, Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon, and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton's cracked cell phone near the wagon door—and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile 81 rest stop. Two kids—Rachel and Blake Lussier—and one horse named Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon...
Those Across the River
Christopher Buehlman - 2011
At first, the quaint, rural ways of their new neighbors seem to be everything they wanted. But there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice. It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of Savoyard still stand. Where a longstanding debt of blood has never been forgotten. A debt that has been waiting patiently for Frank Nichols's homecoming...
The Vampire Tapestry
Suzy McKee Charnas - 1980
He lives discrete lifetimes bounded by decades of hibernation and steals blood from labs rather than committing murder. Weyland is a monster who must form an uneasy empathy with his prey in order to survive, and The Vampire Tapestry is a story wholly unlike any you've heard before.
Slob
Rex Miller - 1981
Slob is his debut novel, the story of a man who thinks of himself as Death. A man wholikes to feast on human hearts, spilling blood wherever he goes. Jack Eichord is the detective who must hunt this human monster and genius killer. Years of working as a homicide detective for the Chicago Police department has hardened Eichord to things that would make most men turn and flee. But even he is not prepared for the labyrinthine search underground, as he trails the killer and his hostages through the sewer system of the city. Eichord thinks that he is beginning to understand thediabolical man and his patterns of violence...but can he guess the next victim in time, before it is too late for the woman he loves?
The Amityville Horror II
John G. Jones - 1982
An inconspicuous hose in a sleepy Long Island suburb that gave rise to a monstrous evil, a terrible phenomenon that stunned the country. It was to be the dream home of the Lutz family, but it turned out to be a hell house. After just 28 days, the Lutzes fled in terror, convinced the house was possessed by evil spirits. Now comes the full terror of the Amityville horror, for the nightmare that Jay Anderson described was not the whole story. There is more, much more, and it is all disclosed for the first time in The Amityville Horror II. For four years after the Lutzes fled the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, they were followed and tormented by an inescapable evil. Now the reveal the harrowing details of their harrowing ordeal.
The Fungus
Harry Adam Knight - 1985
Strange, mushroom-like growths are appearing on peoples' bodies and doctors, puzzled by the strange virus that plants inhuman desires in the minds of victims, look for a cause and uncover a horrifying reality.
The Lost Boy
Noel Hynd - 1999
For Ellen Wilder, editor of the local newspaper, the gruesome killing is as disturbing as the irrational fears that have suddenly woven themselves into her mind and left her doubting her own sanity. For state police detective Michael Chandler, whose haunting near-death experience has left him with an uncanny way of sensing things, the murder is only a hint of what is to come.But nothing could have prepared either of them for the return of Franny Corbett. A hulking child of a man and the blackest sheep in a family of black sheep, his eerie presence may have ushered in all of these bizarre and frightening events. Soon the town of Wiltshire will be shaken again. For in a car sunk beneath the surface of a glimmering blue lake, floats another body. And the killing has just begun....
Stalkers
Ed GormanCharles de Lint - 1989
In this compelling, all--original anthology, the masters of suspense take you into the, darkest depths of terror as they explore both sides of the human hunt. These 19 chilling tales of horror and suspense will leave pulses pounding long after the last page has been turned.
The Werewolf of Paris
Guy Endore - 1933
An episodic tale, the story wanders through 19th Century France and into hotspots like the Franco-Prussian war. Stunning in its sexual frankness and eerie, fog-enshrouded visions, this novel was decidedly influential for the generations of horror and science fiction authors who came after.