But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    Take a chance and pick up a hitchhiker. But only after midnight and only when you need some company. Of course, the hitchhiker will disappear. That’s the way the story goes, right? But this time you are the hitchhiker. And there’s a tunnel up ahead.From the acclaimed Dutch horror author of HEX comes Thomas Olde Heuvelt's chilling short story "You Know How the Story Goes."At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    I wasn't totally against the idea, either. Sometimes things just fall that way, and either you roll with it or it rolls over you. Letting the bad guys win isn't how I roll."Meet Joe Ledger, Baltimore PD, attached to a Homeland task force… who's about to get a serious promotion.

    But when he discovers a smuggling ring rumored to be protected by powerful magic, he seeks out old friends and new to lend a hand. A tale set in Alex Bledsoe's popular medieval noir world.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    It currently appears in the Konrath story collection 65 PROOF. Because THE AGREEMENT ties into the Jack Daniels thriller LAST CALL, Konrath has made it available on its own. Also included is a chapter from LAST CALL. Warning: Though this only takes a few minutes to read, the images will stick with your for life. This is a wickedly mean story. So let the reader beware... If you are a more sensitive (or adventurous) reader, this handy scale rates specific categories from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) to give you some idea if this is your kind of book. THE AGREEMENT by JA Konrath Bad Language - 2 Scary - 6 Violent - 9 Funny - 3 Sexy - 0

    With Chief Constable Bob Skinner's help, Haddock will soon discover that outward appearances are never as they seem, and that no crime can go unpunished... Also features an exclusive extract from Quintin Jardine's brand-new Bob Skinner mystery, HOUR OF DARKNESS.

    What's worse strange things are happening to the remains of the dead the and by the time she befriends Ben Archer she's beginning to wonder if a global pandemic is the least of her problems....

    After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors—the last of humanity—are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six—children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool. Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity—a future which might never unfold. Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut post-apocalyptic thriller offers a topical plot with a satisfying twist.

    As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible. It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself. Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours. Full contributor list: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Laura Silverman, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia

    An ancient city, entombed beneath a museum that seeks to understand the brutal race that once inhabited the underground world.A young woman with special empathic powers offered a job to create an exhibit of the city's artifacts.Underneath, they wait for her.Underneath is a ten-thousand word novelette, approximately fifty pages.

    And what happens in between—well, that's Decker's story. This is the story of those eleven minutes, and the six days that follow, from his perspective. Because while it must be terrifying to be trapped under the ice, it's a different kind of terror seeing your best friend trapped... Especially if it's your fault.

    So while it might be a love story, it's also about killing people and disposing of their bodies in the most efficient manner possible.DEAD PIG COLLECTOR introduces readers to Mister Sun, a very proficient businessman whose trade is the murder and spotless removal of human beings. Like any businessman, he knows each transaction is only as good as his client - and today's client, in Los Angeles, has turned out to be so dangerously stupid that Mister Sun's work and life are now in jeopardy...

    That is, his specialty is opening safes. Every job is a little mystery, and he has yet to encounter a lock he can't break or a box he can't crack. But the day Holloway gets called in to open a rare, antique safe in a famous author's library, his skills open a door that should have remained closed.In this haunting and singular story, previously published anonymously, Michael Connelly proves once again that he is "superb at building suspense.... the reader can never be sure what sudden turns the plot may take" (Wall Street Journal).

    Unfortunately, Brian’s father has made him take along Oliver, the strange kid who moved in next door. When Brian and his friends decide to scare Oliver by daring him to enter the old abandoned house on Cottage Lane, an evening of Halloween fun quickly turns into a nightmare.

    His memory has been slipping, and he worries that soon he won’t remember her at all.When he finds a vintage cigar box hidden in June’s old dresser, he begins to obsess over the odd collection of knick-knacks contained inside it — but his journey to remember the past will take a horrifying turn for the worse.