The human obsession with the mysteries of the afterlife is explored in these supernatural tales of haunted houses, lost souls, unexplained phenomena, and “good” neighbors. Neil Gaiman’s “Closing Time” is a troubling tale recounted by an elderly man on a cold drizzly night in London while Joyce Carol Oates’ “Haunted” is a chilling story of two young girls drawn to abandoned houses and what they find in one. Francis Wardwell is eager to inform readers that everything they think they know about ghosts is wrong in Peter Straub’s “Hunger: An Introduction,” and George R. R. Martin’s "Remembering Melody” stresses the importance of keeping promises—no matter the consequences. Fans of a good ghost story will find this collection the ideal go-to for chills.Content"Anna" by F. Paul Wilson"Cargo" by E. Michael Lewis"Eenie, Meenie, Ipsateenie" by Pat Cadigan"Hunger: A Confession" by Dale Bailey"Delta Sly Honey" by Lucius Shepard"Nothing Will Hurt You" by David Morell"The Ammonite Violin (Murder Ballad #4)" by Caitlín R. Kiernan"Haunted" by Joyce Carol Oates"The Have-Nots" by Elizabeth Hand"Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman"Mr. Fiddlehead" by Jonathan Carroll"The Fooly" by Terry Dowling"The Wall" by Paul Walther"The Pennine Tower Restaurant" by Simon Kurt Unsworth"Distress Call" by Connie Willis"The Horn" by Stephen Gallagher"Everybody Goes" by Michael Marshall Smith"Transfigured Night" by Richard Bowes"Hula Ville" by James P. Blaylock"The Bedroom Light" by Jeffrey Ford"Spectral Evidence" by Gemma Files"Where Angels Come In" by Adam L. G. Nevill"Two Houses" by Kelly Link

    It is a world where body parts randomly fall off and fathers turn into antelopes. In this world, vampires and spontaneous combustions are a constant threat. THE OVERWHELMING URGE is a collection of bizarro flash fiction, containing ridiculous characters and absurd stories reminiscent of David Lynch and Franz Kafka. Written at knifepoint in a burning room, this book will make you think of a dirty comedian raving from Freud's couch.

    ‘Going Green’ gets a whole new meaning when a shadowy evil haunts an eco-lodge. And a young boy's mother must protect him from a terrifying monster unleashed upon their home…Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three macabre morsels for your reading pleasure. These pulse-pounding tales are filled with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until you reach the bitter end. And they’ll leave you wondering just how safe you really are, under the warm covers of your bed. They say bad luck comes in threes. But that’s just a silly superstition… isn’t it?

     A photographer reluctantly agrees to take images of an abandoned manor house on the Dorset cliff tops only to find the building is not completely empty. . .

    Drab even. That all that changed after an accident left her in a coma for three days. That's when the spookshow really began, when Billie realized that she could see the dead.And the dead could see her. Now, they won't leave her alone. Accompanying two friends through a haunted house, Billie uncovers a terrible secret that brings, not only the police, but the homicide detective responsible for putting her into the hospital in the first place. He's also the one man she sworn to stay away from.

    A disused London Underground lift goes way beyond the bottom floor.A psychic boy discovers what terrors are buried in the fallow field.A handshake seals a midnight fate in an old farming dispute.A corpse must be buried by dawn.BLACK GATE TALES: Fourteen short stories of dread, hope, death and wonder.

    Something happened to her in the manor when she was fourteen, but she can’t remember any of it. A whole month of her childhood is just blank, and nobody will tell her what caused it. Shortly after, her parents sent her to boarding school without any explanation and she thought she would never go back again. A decade on, Tamara can’t sleep. She has nightmares about the house and the brooding woods. She sees a dark place in her dreams, a place she knows she mustn’t go. Something is waiting in the woods of Towneley Manor, and the only thing Tamara can remember is the symbol she sees in her dreams. An eye surround by a black sun. Watching her. Never letting her go. The Towneley family keep dark secrets, and the manor holds the worst of them. Children dying in the walls, servants disappearing. As Tamara unwinds the secrets of her family, she starts to discover what happened to her all those years ago. When her memory unfolds and she finds out what haunts the halls of Towneley Manor, she soon wishes she had never gone back…

    Having entered the Church more by default than through any great calling, he struggles to inject some life into his ailing parish. His wife Christine longs for them to escape the endless rounds of coffee mornings and cake sales. Then Theo, a child at her school, starts to exhibit strange marks on his hands and feet that vanish almost as soon as they have appeared. What has produced these marks - is it physical violence or something stranger? And why has the previous vicar of St Joseph's ended up in a psychiatric hospital?

    She can see ghosts and she helps them with any unfinished business. In this first story, Lottie’s dad brings a dollhouse into the family store. A ghost is attached to it. It doesn’t take Lottie long to connect with the ghost, but when she does, her heart fills with sadness. This is going to be a difficult case for Lottie, but she is determined to help the ghost.

    All four stories in this volume have been previously published.Volume One Contents•The Girl in the Carnival Gown•Last Stand•Nos Galan Gaeaf•A Haunted House of Her Own

    14, 2010, and was never seen again. The only clues to his fate were a series of blog posts he left behind, allegedly recounting his final hours inside one of the most haunted houses in the world. But what started as an investigation into the mysterious occurrences inside Madison Manor also revealed shocking truths about Sean’s own past. “The Last Blog” is a 10,000-word short story that includes Sean’s final blog postings, as well as additional analysis and insight provided by noted supernatural expert Soren Chase. It’s the perfect treat for Halloween!

    Can anything save them when the spirit decides they belong to him? Crying through Plastic Eyes-A messy divorce, a room filled with creepy dolls, and a missing six-year-old all create the perfect storm for a young mother’s worse nightmare. Will Work for Food- You see them everywhere begging for money or food. When an older couple decides to lend a helping hand to a young man and his son, someone gets more than they bargain for. Pieces-A battered woman confesses to the mutilation and death of her husband, but did she really commit this heinous crime? Paying the Hitchhiker-You see a beautiful young woman on the side of the road with her thumb out, asking for a ride. Who should be the most afraid: the hitchhiker or the person picking her up? Inheritance-A confession from Accalia’s grandmother about a curse and an inheritance are just the prologue to seven days of suffering through a living hell.

    May of these stories are from the pages of Weird Tales and other classic magazines which brought the work of masters like H.P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and many others to the public. Includes an active table of contents.

    He is absolutely indestructible... He changes with the styles in fiction but he never goes out of fashion. He is the really permanent citizen of the earth, for mortals, at best, are but transients' - Dorothy ScarboroughThis new selection of ghost stories, by Michael Newton, brings together the best of the genre. From Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Old Nurse's Story' through to Edith Wharton's 'Afterword', this collection covers all of the most terrifying tales of the genre. With a thoughtful introduction, and helpful notes, Newton places the stories contextually within the genre and elucidates the changing nature of the ghost story and how we interpret it.

     She’s been kicked out of her apartment in Queens by her alcoholic boyfriend and has no other friends in the city. A co-worker tells her about a house on Staten Island where she can live in rent-free, but Lisa comes to realize the price that comes with living in an abandoned house. Abandoned: A Ghost Story is a novelette of 14,500 words.