Including "The Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; "The Treasure in the Cave" by Mark Twain; "Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons" by Walter R. Brooks; "The Forgotton Island" by Elizabeth Coatsworth; "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall"; and more. Illustrations by Fred Banbery.

    It's the promise of heaven on earth, but the hell that follows is a constant hunger, a cold emptiness. The craving to get high is an intense yearning not unlike that of any other blood-thirsty monster.The best way to tell the truths of addiction is through a story, and dark truths such as these need a piece of horror to do them justice.The stories inside feature the insidious nature of addiction told with compassion yet searing honesty. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental deaths, and some of the most incredible names in horror fiction have tackled this modern day epidemic. A WICKED THIRST, by Kealan Patrick BurkeTHE ONE IN THE MIDDLE, by Jessica McHughEVERYWHERE YOU'VE BLED AND EVERYWHERE YOU WILL, by Max Booth IIIFIRST, JUST BITE A FINGER, by Johann ThorssonLAST CALL, by John FD TaffTORMENT OF THE FALLEN, by Glen KrischGARDEN OF FIENDS, by Mark MatthewsRETURNS, by Jack Ketchum

    P. Lovecraft from authors who do not merely imitate, but reimagine, re-energize, and renew his concepts in ways relevant to today's readers. Fresh new fiction that explores our modern fears and nightmares. From the depths of R'lyeh to the heights of the Mountains of Madness, some of today's best weird fiction writers -- both established award-winning authors and exciting new voices -- THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF CTHULHU collects tales of cosmic horror that traverse terrain created by Lovecraft and create new eldritch geographies to explore . . . With stories by: Laird Barron, Nadia Bulkin, Amanda Downum, Ruthanna Emrys, Richard Gavin, Lois H. Gresh, Lisa L. Hannett, Brian Hodge, CaitlíR. Kiernan, John Langan, Yoon Ha Lee, Usman T. Malik, Helen Marshall, Silvia Moreno, Norman Partridge, W. H. Pugmire, Veronica Schanoes, Michael Shea, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Sandra McDonald, Damien Angelica Walters, Don Webb, Michael Wehunt, and A.C. Wise

    Chill your bones with two hundred horror stories, two sentences at a time.Do you have the courage to face the natural and supernatural scares that lay within these cursed pages? Pull up the blankets, close the blinds, take a deep breath and find out.A series of brief, horrible moments await.

    What will begin, however, with the solemnity of marriage vows will end in the echoing screams of the damned - an ungodly spectacle of spilled blood and sobbing, throat-aching terror. There is a curse that grips the Bradwins from generation to generation, from horror to bloody horror, and that climaxes in a spine-chilling nightmare of black occultism and blood vengeance.

    She had to see the dark hole in the storage room down the hall. She had to make love to Nicholas beside it, and stare into its secretive, promising depths. Then Nakota began her experiments: First, she put an insect into the hole. Then a mouse...Now from down the hall, the black hole calls out to Nicholas every day and every night. And he will go to it. Because it has already seared his flesh, infected his soul, and started him on a journey of obsession - through its soothing, blank darkness into the blinding core of terror...

    In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses--whether we know it or not.

    Recognition is the first step, what you do with your friends/demons after that is up to you.

    Hiding from his past big city exposés in the quiet coastal town of Terrel, he stumbles upon a web of mysterious teen suicides that somehow connect a ring of five women. Is there really a malevolent presence inside Terrel Cliff that holds all of the town in thrall as Angelica, a fortune teller, suggests? Or is there a murderous covenant between five women to sacrifice their first-born? When Angelica is kidnapped right under his nose, Joe suspects that there is more at work in Terrel than a dark, tragic streak.Deep beneath the remains of a long-demolished lighthouse on its tragic cliff, Joe discovers Terrel's secret history and salvation. And in his desperate bid to save two women, he forges a new covenant, one that puts his own soul in deadly danger.