Nick Antosca's THE GIRLFRIEND GAME is a tumble through the looking glass into a vortex of violence and desire. The 12 stories in the newest collection by the Shirley Jackson Award-winning author are brutal, urgent and unforgettable.In "Predator Bait," a decoy in a sex sting news show questions her job and the man who shares her bed. An undependable son watches his mother become a creature he hardly recognizes in "Amphibian." A young man plots the death of his girlfriend's killer in "Winter Was Hard."Antosca crafts surreal doomsday scenarios and otherworldly transformations alongside painfully articulate depictions of sexuality and animal impulse. The stories in THE GIRLFRIEND GAME are mesmerizing, leaving a haunting afterglow long after you close the book.

     A tale of Bigfoot, bad guys, and one woman’s ride to the brink of utter madness, Devil of the Forest builds with thrills and spills to a climax that will leave you seeing devils everywhere—even the face in the mirror.

    Locals in Naples, Maine think they know this story. But are they wrong? Luke Howard and his mom move to Naples and Luke’s eager to make new friends. When Jason and Davey invite him out to the abandoned Cobb place for a game they call “chasing ghosts,” he’s ready and willing. However, the boys will come to discover that some vacant houses are better left to die alone. Meanwhile, a punk band set to play in a rented cabin out of town feel eyes upon them. Somebody’s watching, but not their usual audience. When their lead singer strays too far from the group and disappears, his band mates set out in the darkness to find him. Police Chief Walt Henderson is about to discover that there’s more going on out in the woods of his town than he ever imagined. Chasing ghosts is more than just some children’s game.

    What starts out as a search and capture mission soon turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the crew come face to face with the fiercest ocean predator to have ever existed - Carcharodon Megalodon.Alone and with no hope of rescue the crew will need all their resources if they are to survive not only a 60 foot shark but also the harsh Antarctic conditions.

    The town of Stillwater has been dying—the long and painful death of a town ravaged by floods and haunted by the ghosts of all who had lived there. Yet this most recent flood has brought something with it—a creature that nests among the good folks of Stillwater... and feeds off them. The children who haven't disappeared whisper the same word—“vampire.” But they’re wrong. What has come to Stillwater is something much more horrific.

    No details have been passed down to us. The heights of the tallest mountain have kept their secret. -- Until now. A short story featuring the eponymous Abominable Snowman of legend.

    And she's suffered from night terrors where a shadowy man pursues her. The Shadow Man found her once before when she was sixteen years old and slaughtered her parents. And now, nine years later, he's found her again.The Shadow Man is killing people as he works his way closer to Tara. She can see the murders through his eyes, the clues left behind, and he wants it that way. He takes things from each victim: blood, skin, and other items he needs for his bizarre ritual. But it's all leading up to the most important and central piece of the ritual - Tara.Tara wants to run. She wants to hide - it's what she's always done. But she makes a decision to fight back, to stop the Shadow Man before he kills again.

    This novella is from Gina Ranalli, an author of bizarro fiction, including Chemical Gardens and 13 Thorns (with 0utsider artist Gus Fink). Suicide Girls in the Afterlife is weird and fun and hauntingly bittersweet. I read it in one evening and enjoyed it very much. -Brian Keene, author of The Rising and The Conqueror Worms

    Winner of six Emmys (he was nominated nine times), two Sylvania Awards, on Peabody Award, and one Christopher Award for his teleplays, Serling came as close as anyone to dominating an era that abounded with talented men. His plays "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and "Patterns" are usually the first items on the lips of television aficionados reminiscing about the good old days. Yet as television changed, Rod Serling kept pace. He became producer and chief writer for the famous "Twilight Zone" series. These bizarre and fantastic adventures into the occult and demonic were without doubt one of the most creative, imaginative and successful enterprises in the history of television.Now Rod Serling has applied his prodigious writing talents to a new medium: one in which he is perhaps destined to make his greatest mark. The three novellas that compromise THE SEASON TO BE WARY betray the skillful hand of a master storyteller and prose stylist. Fired with a savage yet disciplined irony, paced with deliberate cadence that rises to a starting denouement, each story explores the theme of a terrible vengeance delivered for terrible deeds performed.In "The Escape Route," ex-Gruppenfuehrer Joseph Strobe - ex-deputy assistant commander of Auschwitz, ex-confidant of Heinrich Himmler - putters about his little rathole in Buenos Aires chewing over the good times he had breaking Jews. Yet his snug little world is turned upside down b the capture of Adolf Eichmann, and Strobe soon finds himself on the wrong end of a terrifying hunt."Color Scheme" recounts the life and times of the great King Connacher, racist and rabble-rouser, who makes his living on the stump, preaching the lynching gospel, only to find himself one summer evening the victim of an extraordinary case of mistaken identity.In "Eyes," Miss Claudia Menlo, who in her fifty lifeless years has been denied nothing that she wanted - except her sight - manipulates people with the same purposeful indifference with which she fondles the expensive bric-a-brac in her lavishly cluttered dwelling. Yet her insistant will is brutally thwarted by the one set of circumstances she cannot control.Serling has infused these simple, forceful tales with an extraordinary richness of character and detail. There is, for example, the Prussian officer Gruber, who cannot stomach the pigs like Strobe he helped create and with whom he is forced to share his guilt. And there is Indian Charlie Hatcher, the most memorable portrait of a burned-out prizefighter since Serling's own justly famous Mountain Rivera.The power, the drive, the complexity and subtlety of these novellas mark Rod Serling as one of the most important and graceful fiction writers. Mr. Serling is a graduate of Antioch College and lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

    Soon they realize Allen’s true potential and purpose when they embark on a perilous journey in a struggle to preserve the planet. Meanwhile, Professor Nora Howard, a cryptozoologist and geneticist working for an unscrupulous high-tech conglomerate, Wilde Enterprises, recruits wildlife conservationists, Jack Tremens and Miguel Walla to travel the globe searching for evidence of cryptid creatures and secure proof of their existence. Adventurous treks into the unknown filled with danger and near death as they defend themselves against bizarre beasts and voracious man-eating plants. Soon everyone’s paths will cross in a terrifying fight for survival on CRYPTID ISLAND...the thrilling prequel to Cryptid Zoo.

    This should be a time of rest, of contemplation and reconnection with his elderly father, a chance to recharge in the fresh air of the remote village. However, grim nightmares and daytime visions of hellish environments populated by insidious creatures serve only to fray his already ragged nerves. A chance encounter with a fellow sufferer leads to an unlikely alliance as imaginary threats suddenly become manifest, and the entire village falls under the sway of the Black Star. As neighbours become enemies and the world around him crumbles, Ben must search for the truth but, more importantly, he must be prepared to accept it. Black Star, Black Sun – an unsettling new novella from Rich Hawkins, the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Last Plague.

    They find Viet Cong corpses along the path, strangely mummified or desiccated, and the village of Hai Trang itself turns out to be a ghost town. There, they find just one survivor - a young girl named Lai Anh - who tells them that everyone in the village has been destroyed by the "Vietnam Black". Heading back to base, they stumble across a Viet Cong tunnel system, which they feel compelled to investigate. Crawling into the darkness, the squad discovers that a nightmarish creature has made the tunnels its home. The Vietnam Black, a colossal centipede, covered in impenetrable black armour, loaded with a highly poisonous venom, and armed with scythe-like mandibles has awoken. Now, Reese has to lead his squad back home, avoiding the North Vietnamese Army, the Viet Cong, the dangers of the jungle, and the Vietnam Black.

    Now they've escaped, and they've learned man is slow and clumsy underwater...and delicious.

    Campbell published the novella Who Goes There?, about a team of scientists in Antarctica who discover and are terrorized by a monstrous, shape-shifting alien entity. The story would later be adapted into John Carpenter's iconic movie The Thing (following an earlier film adaptation in 1951). The published novella was actually an abridged version of Campbell's original story, called Frozen Hell, which had to be shortened for publication. The Frozen Hell manuscript remained unknown and unpublished for decades, and it was only recently rediscovered. Frozen Hell expands the Thing story dramatically, giving vital backstory and context to an already incredible tale. We are pleased and honored to offer Frozen Hell to you now, as Campbell intended it. You will be among the first people to ever read this completed version of the story.

    Older than darkness.Levi is a monstrous man—made of scars and scary as hell, he’s glutted on ghosts and evolving to carry out the dark wishes of the ancient whispers in his head. He’s building a door and what’s on the other side is terrifying.Jones spent a lot of time living bottle to bottle and trying to erase things. Now he’s looking for the man who killed his mother and maybe a little bit of looking or himself as well.Keaton is on the run from accusations as well as himself, he suffers alone until he meets Jubal, an orphaned boy with his little sisters in a sling.Every line is not a straight line and everything must converge. A parable writ in dust and blood on warped barn wood. A journey in the classic sense, populated with dried husks of towns… and people both odd and anything but ordinary. Hornets, reverse-werewolves and one of the most vicious villains you’ll ever know are all part of it.Pull on your boots and saddle up, we’ll Walk The Darkness Down.