From Vaudeville, through the big bands and up to the hottest rock acts, the Luxor had them all. It's closed now, a boarded-up relic, standing alone in a run down industrial part of town. But the old dance hall isn't empty. A hideous presence lives there, a monstrous evil that has the ability to invade people's fantasies and nightmares . . . and bring them to life. Three strangers will soon learn the extent of the dance hall's power. As their lives become more and more entangled in its inescapable web, they will come to see that what haunts the Luxor is far worse than any ghost.

    It spread like unstoppable wildfire in all directions, decimating everything in its path for six full weeks before outside measures were taken to cleanse the scourge. These stories take place in those final times. They are told through the eyes of several different Angelinos, each offering a unique perspective to the events as they unfolded and to the aftermath of the virus. When it comes to safely navigating 747's from London to Los Angeles, Edgar Reynolds is a consummate professional. It's his personal life that's in shambles, or more specifically his marriage, after a string of affairs he couldn't be bothered to hide. None of that matters to him the morning he wakes up to discover he's smack dead in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Now what's important is that he survives long enough to hijack a plane from LAX and flee the end of the world.Detective Gary Wendell isn't having the best day. A murder case in West Hollywood takes him from the Hollywood Hills to the Twin Towers in downtown Los Angeles. The hunt for his killer stirs fresh life into Gary's secret obsession. If it's the end of the world, Gary’s going to exact his own justice on the monster who got away, the one who told him that murder isn't art if NO ONE IS WATCHING.When Donny's dad took off he left him and his mom in a run down apartment in Hollywood scrambling to make ends meet. Still, Donny managed to form a begrudging bond with his mom's new boyfriend, Bram, who took him under his wing. Just when things were starting to look up for them as a family, a virus hit Los Angeles taking away any last shred of hope or safety they had. Soon it's up to Donny and his pack of teenage friends, not just to defend their gated apartment complex, but also to scavenge for food and supplies. Working together, they do their part to protect and provide for the remaining survivors at CAMP ZOMBIE.Being invited to the Emmys as the date of her favorite television actor is a dream Kathleen could never imagine. She also never expected to return to the city of her college years one last time before dying of terminal cancer. When the doors burst open in the middle of the ceremony and infected homeless people begin eating her favorite celebrities, everything changes. Now she's caught between spending her final moments in mind-numbing terror fleeing for her life, or letting the filthy undead strip the last good memories away in TO LIVE & DIE IN L.A.Pilar Garcia grew up working in her father's fish taco truck in Boyle Heights, but dreamed of becoming a world-class chef one day. After overcoming the cultural stereotypes and working her way through Culinary Arts school she is able to harness the power of her dreams by returning to her roots and creating a food truck empire in Los Angeles. She's so successful, in fact, that three of her best trucks snatch a spot at the coveted Los Angeles City Fall Street Food Fair in downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, that's the same day the virus is released into Skid Row, mere blocks away in LA CUCARACHA. Guillermo and his half brother, Caesar, have always been survivors. Growing up in the gang neighborhoods of Venice Beach they've learned to take care of each other first and ask questions later. Yermo, as his real friends call him, is starting to get a reputation as a serious surfer by the local guys he reveres, including the new legend of Dogtown and former professional surfer, Brody. He's not about to let like the end of the world keep him out of the water or off his streets. Together they form a group capable of not only dealing with the zombie menace but also fighting off the new arrivals intent on taking over Venice Beach – a vicious new supergang: One Blood. They're not heroes though, they're just the DOGTOWN LOCALS UNION.

    The decaying industrial backdrop of England's midlands provides a working class context that is both uniquely English, but universally accessible.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear. A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk. A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple. The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests. Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world. The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea. A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . . In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer's novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author's own. Adam Nevill's best early horror stories are collected here for the first time.

    A locked desk drawer full of old papers. And an 80’s mix tape? Jill is tasked with seeking out any legal documents from the property. What she discovers, transports her into a world of nightmares, ranging from the macabre to the downright chilling. Jill knows she has to share the stories she’s uncovered…In Twisted: Tainted Tales, the Splatterpunk Award-nominee delivers creature features, supernatural urban legends, cannibalism and a few other surprises. Mixing flash fiction with short stories, these tales might be tainted and will be twisted.Includes foreword from the amazing Flame Tree Press author, Glenn Rolfe.

    . . Evil Doesn't Die The cozy little town of Pine Deep buried the horrors of its past a long time ago. Thirty years have gone by since the darkness descended and the Black Harvest began, a time when a serial killer sheared a bloody swath through the quiet Pennsylvania village. The evil that once coursed through Pine Deep has been replaced by cheerful tourists getting ready to enjoy the country's largest Halloween celebration in what is now called "The Spookiest Town in America." It Just Grows Stronger But then--a month before Halloween--it begins. Unspeakably desecrated bodies. Inexplicable insanity. And an ancient evil walking the streets, drawing in those who would fall to their own demons and seeking to shred the very soul of this rapidly fracturing community. Yes, the residents of Pine Deep have drawn together and faced a killer before. But this time, evil has many faces--and the lust and will to rule the earth. This struggle will be epic.

    Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.

    The Panic Hand assembles in one volume the shorter works of this master, including the World Fantasy Award-winning tale Friend's Best Man and the short novels Uh-Oh and Black Cocktail.

    Vampires call me The Executioner. What I call them isn't repeatable. Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs. I know better. I carry the scars. . . In my job -- I'm an animator; I raise the dead -- I've seen just about everything. I've dined with shapeshifters, danced with werewolves and been wooed, but not won, by Jean-Claude, the most powerful bloodsucker in St. Louis. When a serial killer started murdering vampires, it was Jean-Claude who wanted me to find the killer. Later a rogue vamp named Alejandro hit town and wanted to make me his human servant. A war of the undead had begun. Over me. I'd have been flattered, if my life weren't at stake.Books in this collection:* Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Bk 1)* The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Bk 2)* Circus of the Damned (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Bk 3)

    A woman chases the ghost of her neglectful father to a vanished amusement park at the end of the Long Beach pier. Two recently retired teachers learn just how much Los Angeles has taken from them.In these atmospheric, wide-ranging, surprisingly playful, and deeply mournful stories, grandkids and widows, ice cream-truck drivers and judges, travelers and invalids all discover -- and sometimes even survive -- the everyday losses from which the most vengeful ghosts so often spring.

    From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: The nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction - including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King - Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core. --back coverContains the following stories:Introduction by John Joseph AdamsThe End of the Whole Mess by Stephen KingSalvage by Orson Scott CardThe People of Sand and Slag by Paolo BacigalupiBread and Bombs by M. RickertHow We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan LethemDark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. MartinWaiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S. BuckellNever Despair by Jack McDevittWhen Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory DoctorowThe Last of the O-Forms by James Van PeltStill Life With Apocalypse by Richard KadreyArtie’s Angels by Catherine WellsJudgment Passed by Jerry OltionMute by Gene WolfeInertia by Nancy KressAnd the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth BearSpeech Sounds by Octavia E. ButlerKillers by Carol EmshwillerGinny Sweethips’ Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr.The End of the World as We Know It by Dale BaileyA Song Before Sunset by David GriggEpisode Seven... by John LanganAppendix: For Further Reading

    P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti. His stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards. His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was the inaugural winner of the Shirley Jackson Award.He returns with his second collection, Occultation. Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occultation’s nine tales of terror (two published here for the first time) were nominated for just as many Shirley Jackson awards, winning for the novella “Mysterium Tremendum” and the collection as a whole. Occultation brings more of the spine-chillingly sublime cosmic horror Laird Barron’s fans have come to expect. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    The genes that once created vampires. Now, all over the world, people are beginning to transform. To develop unnatural and unstoppable hungers. Are they still human? Or is there now a brand new link in the food chain?The world is filled with vampire legend. Each culture with its own unique brand of blood-thirsty killer, but the stories aren't mere myth. Strange, savage, immensely powerful, and driven by a need to feed on human blood - vampires are returning.V-Wars is the chronicle of the first vampire war. From the savage murders committed by the patient zero of the plague to full-out battles with vampire terrorist cells, these are the stories of the most terrifying war mankind has ever faced.The vampire wars have begun.The world will scream. . .

    Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries. Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.