They are the building blocks of our lives. They are our memories. They are how we come to know our history. They are our escapism and entertainment. Some fact, some fiction, and some are a clever little mix. These stories… these stories are fiction. Short and scary. Delivered to you in small, terrifying bursts, much the way you'd experience each individual room in a haunted house attraction. They were specifically written to be enjoyed by both the not-too-young and old alike. Inside, you'll see some names you know and some names you don't. You'll find horror, drama, and even a few laughs... and zombies. Zombies by the ton. Gnawing, gnashing, stumbling, and staring... Right. At. You. Waiting... for a bite-sized offering. Enjoy!

    An insidious sickness has cursed her hometown of Port Steward. Strangers, neighbors, friends and even her own family have fallen victim to the sickness. Monte soon discovers that a bite from someone with the sickness is how the gruesome disease is spread. Once infected with the sickness, it transforms normal people into ravenous monsters with a craving for flesh. Monte struggles to make her way to safety in a town thriving with disease. As loneliness and paranoia set in, she finds that her newfound freedom from an abusive father is not all she’d hoped for. While faced with the near certain chance of defeat, Monte is unbending in her quest to stay alive, making grim decisions that test her humanity. With a tremendous will for survival, will Monte make it to salvation or fall victim, like so many others, of the sickness?The Sickness: Monte's Story is closely related to an upcoming full-length novel in the Rise of the Plague Series. Monte's Story is a first-hand account of a girl who encounters the plague the morning after the outbreak. Be on the look out early 2013 for the novel to find out the origins of the outbreak and to find out how it all began.

    "New York Times "bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology. Introduction by Genevieve ValentineThe SegmentAfter the Cure by Carrie RyanValedictorian by N. K. JemisinVisiting Nelson by Katherine LangrishAll I Know of Freedom by Carol EmshwillerThe Other Elder by Beth RevisThe Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew KresselReunion by Susan Beth PfefferBlood Drive by Jeffrey FordReality Girl by Richard BowesHow Th’irth Wint Rong by Hapless Joey @ Homeskool.guv by Richard BowesRust with Wings by Steven GouldFaint Heart by Sarah Rees BrennanThe Easthound by Nalo HopkinsonGray by Jane YolenBefore by Carolyn DunnFake Plastic Trees by Caitlín R. KiernanYou Won’t Feel a Thing by Garth NixThe Marker by Cecil Castellucci

    But must zombies always be shambling, brain-obsessed ghouls? If zombies actually maintained some level of personality and intelligence, what would they more than anything? Could zombies integrate themselves into society? Could society accept zombies? What if a zombie fell in love?These are just some of the questions explored in original stories that take readers from a tropical resort where visitors can become temporary zombies, to a new-made zombie determined to protect those he loves, to a cheerleader who won't let death kick her off the team, to a zombie seeking revenge for the ancestors who died on an African slave ship. Here's your chance to take a walk on the undead side in these tales from a zombie's point of view...

    When he encounters a mysterious group of survivors who call themselves The Chosen, Dan is unsure whether he can trust them.THE WHITE FIST: Five years after the first of the infected reach Texas, pockets of survivors are reminded that the living can be even more dangerous than the dead.ROAD TRIP AT THE END OF THE WORLD: A middle aged couple, cut off from civilization for months, decides to strike out into the ruined world and make for the West Coast.FLIGHT 124: Air Thailand Flight 124 threatens to bring a gruesome and unwelcome passenger to Los Angeles International Airport. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Lost worlds where T-Rex and Velociraptors still roam and man is now on the menu. Laboratories at the forefront of cloning technology experiment with dinosaurs they do not understand or are able to contain. The deepest parts of the ocean where Megalodon, the largest and most ferocious predator to have ever existed is stalking new prey. Plus many more thrillers filled with extinct prehistoric monsters written by some of the best creature feature authors this side of the Jurassic period.

    Zombies attack seemingly out of nowhere and the witnesses are ordered to leave at gunpoint. When Eric Bayne does as ordered, only to find that the zombie attack wasn’t a onetime occurrence, he is forced to face a terrible truth. The zombie apocalypse has truly come to pass.Knowing that life will never be normal again, everyone has to make the choice to survive or give up.Eric Bayne chooses to fight and survive at all costs. His journey to battle the odds takes him down a darker road than he ever imagined. Can he fight the inevitable and win or will he end up just another mindless creature?

    But theirs is not the only tale to be told. In the first volume of the AS THE WORLD DIES UNTOLD TALES experience three terrifying tales of those who are forced to face the unrelenting and hungry walking dead.Deep in the Texas Hill Country, a man and his little dog takes refuge in a bed and breakfast located in the hills above a doomed town where an infested rescue center might unleash the hungry undead…On a deserted highway slicing through the desolation of West Texas, a woman struggles to survive as she faces the horrifying aftermath of the rise of the zombies…And finally, discover what happens on the first day to Katie’s beloved wife, Lydia, as the world dies…

    Bravo Team scrambles into action. On the way to the scene, Bravo's helicopter crashes. Although everyone survives, what they discover next is gruesome: an overturned military transport truck riddled with corpses -- and that's only the beginning of their nightmare. Bravo Team is about to discover the evil that is growing all around them, and rookie member Rebecca Chambers is beginning to wonder what she's gotten herself into.

    A dark ritual turns a woman obsessed with supernatural powers against the people who love her most. A possessed TV proves that old B-Movie monsters can still terrify an unsuspecting audience…Scare Street’s roster of authors brings you eleven new tales of supernatural horror, in one blood-chilling volume. This macabre collection of short stories is guaranteed to get your pulse racing, and send shivers down your spine.Each deliciously dark tale will haunt your dreams, and keep you reading long past the witching hour. But wait…What was that noise? Did something move in the shadows?Just keep telling yourself… it’s only a story.

    And that's a scary place to be.

    Half of the stories portray the strengths--for good and evil--of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

    From dark fantasy and pure suspense to classic horror tales of vampires and zombies, 999 showcases the extraordinary scope of fantastical fright fiction. The stories in this anthology are a relentless tour de force of fear, which will haunt you, terrify you, and keep the adrenaline rushing all through the night.Amerikanski dead at the Moscow morgue / Kim Newman --The ruins of contracoeur / Joyce Carol Oates --The owl and the pussycat / Thomas M. Disch --The road virus heads north / Stephen King --Keepsakes and treasures: a love story / Neil Gaiman --Growing things / T.E.D. Klein --Good Friday / F. Paul Wilson --Excerpts from the records of the New Zodiac and the diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax / Chet Williamson --An exaltation of termagants / Eric Von Lustbader --Itinerary / Tim Powers --Catfish gal blues / Nancy A. Collins --The entertainment / Ramsey Campell --ICU / Edward Lee --The shadow, the darkness / Thomas Ligotti --Rio Grande Gothic / David Morrell --Des Saucisses, Sans doute / Peter Schneider --Angie / Ed Gorman --The ropy thing / Al Sarrantonio --The tree is my hat / Gene Wolfe --Styx and bones / Edward Bryant --Hemophage / Steven Spurill --The book of irrational numbers / Michael Marshall Smith --Mad dog summer / Joe R. Lansdale --The Theater / Bentley Little --Rehearsals / Thomas F. Monteleone --Darkness / Dennis L. McKiernan --Elsewhere / William Peter Blatty

    Since the Outbreak ten percent of all teenagers transform spontaneously and without warning into horrible, parasite-spreading Beasts. This monstrous tide threatened to destroy the world, but the survivors persevered and kept the parasite at bay by creating Quarantines, rigid prisons to hold their children through volatile puberty into the safety of adulthood. For Sam, incarceration is freedom. The child of damaged Outbreak survivors, he relishes the day he can unleash the tricks his brother James taught him and make his mark on the world. The tyrannical principal who would happily see him dead? A worthy adversary. His chemically-obsessed roommate who keeps trying to build a dirty bomb? A useful pawn. His own debilitating fear of becoming a monster himself? Well… he’s not really ready for that one. Cages is a deceptively easy to read page-turner concealing a deep coming of age story. How do we develop our own identities among a sea of external influences? Will we take on our parents’ neuroses? Our brothers’ lost dreams? Or… will we go wild?

    This is Koontz's spellbinding collection of takes interconnected by the strange highways of human experience: adventures, terrors, failures and triumphs.