For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes: I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago. These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

    Something is happening in Apartment Seven. Something evil. Charlie Cerrone thought he had it all—a loving marriage, a good job, a nice home and financial security—until the night his wife betrayed him and his entire world came crashing down. Angry and confused, Charlie wanders the streets of Boston after dark, dazed and searching for answers, trying to figure out why his wife has apparently taken up with another man and why she's been frequenting a strangely ominous and otherwise abandoned building late at night in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Throughout the cold winter night, Charlie descends deeper and deeper into a nightmarish journey that encompasses his past, present and future, a terrifying and surreal odyssey that leads him through the darkest alleys and most dangerous streets of a haunted city, and that will eventually put him face-to-face with the horrific riddle behind his own troubled existence and the shocking mysteries of Apartment Seven.

    R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre. This collection contains some of his most chilling tales, including A View from a Hill, Rats, A School Story, The Ash Tree, and The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. Read by BAFTA and Emmy-award winning actor Derek Jacobi, and with haunting and evocative music, these tales cannot fail to send a shiver down your spine.

    Replete with the brutality, primordial waste, and savage blankness familiar to readers of his earlier works, Evenson's Kafkaesque allegories entice the mind while stubbornly disordering it. In the title story an obsessive consciousness folds back on itself, creating a vertiginous mélange of Poe and Borges, both horrific and metaphysical. Here, as in "Moran's Mexico," and "Greenhouse," the solitary nature of reading and writing leads characters beyond human limits, making the act of putting words to paper a monstrous violation opening onto madness. In "White Square" the representation of humans by dimly colored shapes confirms our feeling that something lies behind these words, while seeming to mock us with the futility of seeking it. Evenson's enigmatic names-Thurm, Bein, Hatcher, Burlun-placeable landscapes, and barren rooms all combine to create a semblance of conceptual abstraction, as though the material universe had come to exist inside someone's head.Small wonder that Evenson's work has attracted so much attention among philosophers, literary critics, and other speculative intelligences, for it continuously projects a tantalizing absence, as though there were some key or code that, if only we knew it, would illuminate everything. However, the blade of discernment wavers, and we are left to our own groping interpretations.

    These are stories to be savored late at night in bed, read by the light of a single lamp in an empty, dark house.

    Brought to you by the international best-selling author readers have named the new Stephen King.Enter strange worlds and meet the unusual and sometimes terrifying residents. Dive into the complete collection of Behind Dark Doors, filled with stories of suspense, horror, paranormal and supernatural, from the dark mind of short story award-winning author Susan May.Enjoy these and thirteen more stories, plus Susan May's celebrated and fascinating From the Imagination Vault, behind-the-scenes visit discussing the inspiration for each tale. This collection combines Behind Dark Doors (one) (two) (three).DO US PARTWhen you've been married seventy years, what secret and deadly thoughts lie behind the smiles?RING RINGJanuary 13, 1887 is the day the telegraphic transmitter patent is granted to a desperate Alexander Graham Bell. But Bell is eaten by guilt due to a mysterious phone call from the future which changed everything.PROGRAM DELETEThe Intelervate Chip repairs brain-damaged babies good as new, better than new, superior. But as the children mature, the differences between chipped children and their peers changes everything. BACK AGAINA tragic accident takes Dawn's son before her eyes. The grief is overwhelming, until she finds herself back again reliving that terrible day. Fate is now within her grasp. Only one problem... fate doesn’t want change.SCENIC ROUTEWhen a young family stop overnight at a quaint country bed-and-breakfast what they don’t know is that something is wrong in Broken Springs, population 402.

    In the mist.An apprentice mortician moves his family to the small town of Sotherton to provide them with a better life. Little did he know the dark secret the town and its people harbored. The town sat on the edge of a mist-shrouded forest with a deadly secret. Something lives in the trees, in the mist and it’s jealous. Jealous of all those who have flesh.Disembodied is a preview story from the author’s upcoming collection Creatures and Crypts due out in late 2011. Creatures of the living and the dead gather in a volume of over 70,000 words to stalk their prey…humans. 20 stories set the scene for a cast ranging from the Grim Reaper, shambling zombies and restless spirits, to unimaginable monsters that only inhabit the shapeless darkness and the author’s imagination. Join them as they wreak havoc on their unsuspecting victims and celebrate with a victory dance on hollowed bones.

    All things unknown and unknowable are coming to light... Strange creatures wander the dark canopies of Germany's Black Forest. A young boy harbors something both dark and divine within him. A man learns to control his dreams, only to find an ancient evil imprisoned within them. Something lurks in the shadows of a woman's house, and it wants her baby. All of these things and more in this riveting new collection of 18 terrifying cosmic and paranormal tales. Get it now and discover the terrors that lurk within.

    Here is the lineup:AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY, by Mary Elizabeth BraddonTHE HAUNTED MILL, by Jerome K. JeromeTHE GHOST CLUB, by John Kendrick BangsTHE SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, by Louis BeckeTHE ROOM IN THE TOWER, by E. F. BensonTHE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS, by Lord Edward Bulwer-LyttonTHE MIDDLE BEDROOM, by H. de Vere StacpooleTHE DRUMMER GHOST, by John William DeForestMISS JÉROMETTE AND THE CLERGYMAN, by Wilkie CollinsTHE SPECTRE BRIDE, by William Harrison AinsworthTHE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER; or, The Lady in the Square, by Sir Walter ScottTHE OLD NURSE’S STORY, by Elizabeth GaskellTHE JUDGE’S HOUSE, by Bram StokerAT THE END OF THE PASSAGE, by Rudyard KiplingTHE WITHERED ARM, by Thomas HardyJOHN CHARRINGTON’S WEDDING, by Edith NesbitTHE MAN OF SCIENCE, by Jerome K. JeromeWHAT DID MISS DARRINGTON SEE? by Emma B. CobbA GHOST STORY, by Mark TwainTHE SOUL OF ROSE DÉDÉ, by M.E.M. DavisTHE HOUSE OF THE NIGHTMARE, by Edward Lucas WhiteREALITY OR DELUSION? by Mrs Henry WoodFISHER’S GHOST, by John LangTHROUGH THE IVORY GATE, by Mary Raymond Shipman AndrewsTHE COLD EMBRACE, by Mary Elizabeth BraddonAnd don't forget to check out all the other volumes in the "Megapack" series! Search on "Wildside Megapack" in your favorite ebook store to see the complete list...covering adventure stories, military, fantasy, ghost stories, westerns, mysteries, and much more!

    They locate ghosts who are haunting places – or people. It’s a well-known fact that the Mill Street Theatre is haunted. And everyone knows the building closes for cleaning work during the first week in September every year. But this is a cover-up. The theatre closes because the hauntings escalate during that week, bringing a threat to human life. The owner decides these hauntings have to be investigated, and any ghosts dealt with. The Laurel sisters offer their help. Their investigations lead them to a heartbreaking story.

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    In this collection he explores the dark depths of the human condition, offering tales of death, disaster and - just occasionally - redemption.

    A locked front door is to an adult what a duvet it is to a child. Once the key is turned in the lock, and once the child is safely snuggled under the duvet, the monsters are kept at bay.Except they’re not. A closed door won’t keep out the boogeymen… And a blanket won’t keep away the monsters. The safety of our cosy homes is a lie. There are bad people out there, who want to do bad things to you in the dead of night, and a locked door isn’t going to stop them. There are bad things already lurking IN our homes; monsters that live in the shadows and in closets, just waiting for you to close your eyes at night.From the real to the supernatural, this collection of stories, held together with a wraparound story, explores all manners of evil that can invade our homes at night.Lock your doors, bolt your windows and sleep with the light on, because THEY are coming to get you….

     Featuring stories by Amy Cross, Mike Duke, Matthew Brockmeyer, Lex H. Jones, J.C. Michael and Kevin J. Kennedy.

    His teenage friend Claire is an ace with numbers, and is always eager to help him with his homework. Max adores her, and loves when she visits him in the old house on Hollow Street. Claire can also weave a ghost story like no one else. But her favorite tale always sends chills down his spine, and hits a little too close to home...