There they will confront madness, murder, and the ultimate evil so that their billionaire host might find the key to life beyond the grave. But as they learn, dead souls dwell in The Pines. And death is just the beginning...

    That's when they came. The people who wanted to take him away...change him. Make him like them. They were more horrible than words could describe. And there was nothing he could do to stop them.Bonnie Laine watched her son in terror. Every day he changed a little, grew weaker, paler. Each night he woke up screaming "Don't let it get me!" And somehow she knew the horror was just beginning. Soon it would grow far beyond a little boy's nightmares.Shep Thomas had dedicated his life to destroying the creatures that killed his brother. And Evan was going to lead him right to their hiding place, the place they called the creche. And even though they were far fro human, he was going to send them straight to Hell!

    A good man, that Sand, and when he died, the forces of darkness had taken root in Willowdale, Colorado. Now the isolated little town, nestled in the Rockies, was about to give birth to an evil beyond comprehension, beyond imagining... a reign of terror so insatiable that Al Watt could do nothing to stop it.CHILD PRODIGYSomething bad was going to happen. Eleven-year-old Howie Ingram could feel it in his bones. Of course no one ever listened to Howie Ingram, the twerp. All they did was make fun of him for being so smart he was already taking high school and college courses. Howie tried not to care. Except now he really needed someone to listen to him when he told them about the townspeople turning into zombies and the strange noises coming in over the air waves. And the distant sound of thunder. He and his computer didn't stand much of a chance, alone, against a force as powerful and primitive as Satan himself...

    Four days later, his mother is dead, and a strange cult of religious wanderers have been brutally murdered by the terrified local farmers. In 1995, a gnarled sycamore tree planted over their graves is uprooted by bulldozers--and evil arises.

    But there he discovers a terrifying secret that turns his life upside-down. Newton's adventure begins when Claude Lavigne, a power company employee, sees something monumentally strange in the forests of the gore -- a tiny swatch of unclaimed land created by a surveyor's mistake. The uncanny sight so upsets him, so rattles his sense of what's real, that it leads to his suicide. Lavigne's son, his best friend, and an ancient black man risk an expedition into the gore to discover what Mr. Lavigne saw. In his attempt to stop them, Newton upsets a centuries- old balance that threatens to loose a long-buried nightmare upon the people of Vermont.

    Although In Darkness Waiting begins in much the same vein as many horror novels (mysterious deaths; a small town invaded by evil; plucky, attractive young lovers; the logical level-headed doctor; some salt-of-the-earth townsfolk...) by its end you will have discovered it is not "just another horror novel." With its exploration of the "insect" inside us all, In Darkness Waiting proves more relevant today than ever. Considering a read of In Darkness Waiting is like considering a trip through the Amazon with no weapons and no vaccinations and no shoes. It's like contemplating a journey in the Arctic clad only in your underwear. Or maybe it's more like dropping into one of those spelunker's challenges, those chilling pitch-black shafts into the Earth's crust-and when you get down there your light burns out and you remember the chitinous fauna of the cavern... Unlike undertaking those endeavors, you can get through the harrowing pages of In Darkness Waiting alive (although we are not promising you'll remain unscathed.) Towards the end you'll discover one of the most extreme yet literate passages ever written. It may well be the most outré scene ever created. But John Shirley wasn't after shock alone. Shock is never enough for him.

    Schow received the World Fantasy Award for "Red Light" and the Twilight Zone Magazine Dimension award for "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You", both of which are included in this volume.

    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.

    A young botanist leads a small expedition to find a way out to rescue humanity.

    In San Francisco, Emily Blake and her husband David, a dermatologist, by an old Victorian in Pacific Heights and hope to start a family. Emily's happy plans are threatened when David begins an affair with a beautiful patient named Jennie. A visit to a mysterious young boy in the Mission District named Lupe starts a chain of events in motion that result in Jennie's death -- by spontaneous combustion -- a murder trial, a media circus, and demon possession.

    Sandra Fischer relaxes in bed. Moments later, when her husband enters the room — she is dead. One by one, the women are dying. The leading medical experts are baffled. There is only one clue: the rich, sweet scent of the tropics — the scent of life, seconds after each woman's shocking death.One dedicated doctor. One beautiful woman. Together they will enter an awesome new realm of medical knowledge beyond both life and death. For he will discover a terrifying secret. And she has been chosen for … THE SEEDING.

    But she was brought back to life!That's when people began trying to kill her...nice people...the last people in the world anyone would suspect of being capable of murder--people who were already dead......Walkers: The most terrifying novel you've ever read!

    Original.

    Until a shrieking, freezing horror escapes its ancient prison. Badger Ettison does not believe in magic. But the old blood-rituals are the only way to stop the voracious evil that pursues his wife and son. Badger Ettison does not believe in terror. Now he is living it.

    Now the mountain was a haunted place of weird storms, choking undergrowth and strange accidents. Local rumours spoke of half-human, half-mythical creatures that crept and flitted through the hostile, overgrown woods. In spite of the fears of his second-sighted Indian wife, he has taken to prowling the woods, watching, lying in wait. And now, along with an ex-army buddy and his son, he is about to stumble upon the terrible demented dream-made-real that is at the black heart of Wildwood.