Wrong Turn: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2017
    Long dead serial killers are appearing before adoring fans, but it doesn't take them long to realise that Nightingale is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong Turn is a fast-paced supernatural story of 14,000 words. Jack Nightingale appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade, Lastnight, San Francisco Night and New York Night. He also appears in several short stories including Blood Bath, Cursed, Still Bleeding, Tracks, My Name Is Lydia, The Creeper, The Undead, The Asylum and The Mansion. The Jack Nightingale time line is complex, this story is set after Lastnight. Jack Nightingale has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com

In Darkness Waiting


John Shirley - 1988
    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.

Son of Rosemary/Rosemary's Baby


Ira Levin - 2013
    

Button Bright


Michael Kurland - 1990
    But Button was only dimly aware of the sounds. Her consciousness had shrunk down to focus on the body that was blocking her hole— —and the warm, thick liquid that was dripping onto her hand.” Button is an 11 year old, bubbly and intelligent girl who is haunted in her dreams by a tapping sound… Living with her mother and father in Cottsborough, Vermont, Button had been trained to hide and not ever answer to her secret name, ‘Rachel’. One day, two men arrive at Button’s family home searching for her by this secret name. Refusing to give Button up, things turn violent and the men shoot her father dead. Through a narrow crack in the floor boards, Button bears witness to the murder. Eluding the two men who tried to catch her, Button uses her wits to navigate herself from Vermont to Boston and then to New York. Button has a plan to find her uncle Dromkin. When her search seems hopeless, Button is taken in by a resident of her uncle’s apartment building, Phil, who claims he can help. But when they find Dromkin sprawled on the floor with his throat cut, Button is convinced she is somehow the cause of these family murders... Will Phil be able to keep her identity hidden long enough for her to find out the truth? Praise for Michael Kurland: "A perfect tale of childhood terror." - Tom Kasey Michael Kurland grew up in New York City, attended Columbia University, spent four years in the Army, much of it in Europe, and now lives in California with his partner, novelist Linda Robertson, a dog, a cat, and an occasional visiting family of raccoons. He has been a teacher of obscure subjects to disinterested children, the editor of a magazine even more idiosyncratic than himself, a seeker of absent persons, a magical explainer, and guest lecturer at numerous unrelated events. Kurland has written a dozen or so science fiction novels, a brace of mysteries, and several books that fit into that tenuous genre known as “mainstream.” He has been nominated for an Edgar (twice) and for the American Book Award. His books have been translated into eleven other languages. His other novel with Venture Press is Psi Hunt.

Soulstorm


Chet Williamson - 1986
    There they will confront madness, murder, and the ultimate evil so that their billionaire host might find the key to life beyond the grave. But as they learn, dead souls dwell in The Pines. And death is just the beginning...

Carcharodon


Paul Carberry - 2020
    But even they could not have been prepared for the horrors that arose from beneath the decks of The Swift Current one dark evening. That night, the sea birthed a perfect predator: hundreds of years old and gargantuan in size, with hungry jaws that have never needed to evolve, and glassy eyes that disguise a fierce intelligence. Can Newfoundland and her people survive this horror from an age gone by?International Best-Selling horror icon Paul Carberry takes the terror offshore in this stunning, suspenseful new thriller!

Phantom


Thomas Tessier - 1982
    It is the story of Ned Covington, a ten-year-old boy, who explores an abandoned building near his home and what he finds there. Nominated for a World Fantasy Award it has been called "a touching, scary book" (Horror Literature: A Reader's Guide); and "a compelling humanist ghost story" (Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural).

Toplin


Michael McDowell - 1985
    With every revelation of the narrator's bizarre lifestyle and unusual acquaintances, the reader is less sure of what can be believed, until the line between actuality and fantasy disappears completely. McDowell has crafted an explicit and unusual nightmarish vision of contemporary urban life that embraces the range of social and sexual maladjustment. The narrator's calm, understated recitation of the unsavory events only heightens the horror; the fine illustrations match the surrealistic mood perfectly. An offbeat, puzzling, and disturbing work that should interest even the most jaded fans of horror fiction.

Cast a Cold Eye


Alan Ryan - 1984
    Jack Quinlan, an American writer, is researching a book on the horrors of the Irish Famine. As the days pass, and the longer nights, the darkness of history parts ... only to reveal an even greater darkness in the present.

The Bones of Morden Gray


David Brian - 2020
    A depraved undertaker whose predilections go beyond a desire to resurrect the dead. A murdered girl bonded to the fiend who stole her life. And a desperate son on the verge of discovering a terrible secret about his missing mother…When the dead rise.When perennial slacker Timothy Harker is forced into accepting a job as a junior undertaker, he soon becomes convinced that the building in which he works is haunted. He sets up six friends for a late night visit, planning a series of pranks aimed at terrifying his companions.It’s time to run.It doesn’t take long for them to prove the building is haunted, but there is far more to fear than the unfortunate souls trapped within the borders of Gray, Skies and Toliver.In a house of pain, horror and death, seven friends fight for survival, banding together in order to uncover long-buried secrets, and to reveal the dreadful truth about the bones of Morden Gray.

Torment


Jeff Menapace - 2012
    An expert on the beast.A mysterious village tucked away from the world, deep in the northern woods.Four friends from Minneapolis heading north to a rented cabin for a weekend of fun.All have a separate agenda. None are prepared for the terrifying outcome lying in wait.This novella also appears in WARPED: A Menapace Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction

The Haunting of Goldville Cemetery


Carrie Bates - 2020
    The cemetery caretaker mysteriously vanished, never to be seen again.Becca, her husband and sons are thrilled to move into their new house. But the shack at the edge of their property leaves Becca feeling unsettled. When she investigates, voices are heard but no one is there. A cold hand grips hers, leaving Becca running in fear.When her sons defy orders to stay away from the shack, the evil is unleashed. For Becca's youngest son has taken something that belongs only to the dead; and they want it back. When a man haunts their dreams, all too soon, Becca's family realizes that he's not in their dreams at all. Can the family fight back against the evil before it's too late? Or, will they spiral into a nightmare that they can never escape from?

House of Malice


Scott Mariani - 2013
    . .But instead she opened the door to HellRomantic novelist Mandy Freeman thinks all her dreams have come true when she becomes the new owner of Summer Cottage, the former home of her idol, bestselling author Ellen Grace. With her new life starting and love on the horizon, Mandy's future is looking bright.But as Mandy begins to learn, all is not as it seems at Summer Cottage. As a series of increasingly disturbing and sinister events forces her to delve into the mysterious past of its former owner Ellen Grace, Mandy finds herself caught up in a horrifying nightmare that threatens to destroy her sanity . . . and perhaps claim her life.

Fiends


John Farris - 1990
    Ravishing beyond words, evil beyond our darkest dreams of Satan, Her eyelids flutter.Rising from Her pit, She wakes her vampire brood -- and frees them from their ancient graves.No, no one is safe, no one -- from the unwashed Children of Eve.

A Song For The Void


Andrew C. Piazza - 2020
    South China Sea. While on patrol between the Opium Wars, the crew of the steam frigate HMS Charger pursues a fleet of pirates that have been terrorizing the waters surrounding Hong Kong.But now the hunters have become the hunted. Something else has come to the South China Sea, something ancient and powerful and malevolent. Now, the crew of the Charger must face their worst nightmares in order to survive the terrible creature they come to know as the Darkstar.A Song For The Void is a haunting, terrifying historical horror novel that will keep you turning the pages and jumping at the shadows.