Today, these jive joints seem to be a thing of the past--until a sheriff's deputy stumbles upon a mystery that will take him into the cheating heart of rockabilly hell. In the last 40 years, over 500 people have disappeared along this stretch of highway.

    Its people depend on meat for their survival, meat supplied by the processing plant on the edge of town.Meat is sanctified in Abyrne, a precious commodity eaten with devout solemnity by everyone except for a handful of people who won't, who suspect that the town is evil, rotten to its core.A feud smoulders between the town's religious and secular powers - whoever controls the meat supply controls everything,But the townsfolk are hungry, they must be fed...They must be fed.

    But when her teenage son shows up, things take a very dark turn.

    Desperate for social interaction, he explores the landscape of flesh and blood, teeth and tongue, trying to befriend any strange creature or community that he comes across.

    His father is an abusive drunk with muddled religious views, and his mother, as hard as she tries to defend her son, only ever ends up delaying the inevitable. Things take a turn for the worse one Friday when Bobby brings home a black eye from school. The following day his father brings him out into the woods on a mission to do “God’s Work” and bring him into adulthood. A coming-of-age story about the sins of a father and a son’s chance to absolve himself from them.

    He decides to keep the cell phone just until the owner returns and everything changes. Then the messages begin.Will’s discovered something unspeakable and it’s crawling slowly into the light.

    It was the call of his own blood . . .  When Peter Constantine inherited a vast, remote estate, his life began to change.  Free at last from money worries, Peter and his wife, Meg, could relax—and Peter could explore his new, mysterious home. From the thick woods, the winding trails, the bizarre, sensual sculpture, came a pulsing, ancient call that stirred his very soul. Then he heard the music and saw the beautiful woman who beckoned him into the wood . . . into an ancient ritual, a blood curse, a world of violent, unbridled lust. Now his wife no longer knows him. Now Peter is transformed . . . into a pagan creature, driven by the suffocating need of animal desire . . . until pleasure is not enough, and no evil is forbidden, in . . . The Spirit Wood.

    He has let go of old habits, especially the ones that turned him into an addict and helped land him in prison.On a hike along the Lowback Trail, Joe stumbles on one of the town's oldest secrets--buried long ago, if not forgotten.It's an unusual but safe enough treasure--a jar of old pennies. What interests Joe isn't the pennies themselves, but the pieces of paper taped to every coin--a child's handwritten wish on each one.When the first few wishes come true, they are simple things. Fun. Harmless.Except as time goes on, Joe realizes they aren't really wishes at all...they're exchanges, and the bill was racking up.Nothing is free in life. Sooner or later, you always pay.

    That stranger claims to know the whereabouts of her missing friend Bobby, but there’s a catch: he’ll only tell her what he knows in exchange for something... personal.So begins Laura’s sordid relationship with her new penpal, built on a foundation of quid pro quo. Her quest for closure will push her to bizarre acts of humiliation and harm, yet no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape her correspondent’s demands. The letters keep coming, and as time passes, they have a profound effect on Laura.From the author of Cruel Works of Nature comes a dark and twisted tale about obsession, guilt, and how far a person will go to put her ghosts to bed.

    With a noir sensibility and complexity of character, the novella is a hybrid psychological thriller that's part suspense tale, part family saga, and part literate mystery.Praise for The Walls of the Castle & Tom Piccirilli"As the first entry of a planned ten in Dark Region’s Black Labyrinth imprint, it is worth noting the difference you get in these books. Namely, the cover and interior artwork by Santiago Caruso, which is to be the calling card of all of the Black Labyrinth books. I’m a nut for interior artwork anyways (just look at my ravings in the Hiram Grange reviews). It adds so much to the impact of the story when done right. But Santiago does something special here. His work is as concrete and as ethereal and the words on the page. Images that initially seem only slightly off but become more bizarre the more you consider them. Images that add to the story instead of simply replicating it. Hopefully the other books in the series are done this well." - Horror News"Kasteel is a classic Piccirilli character, a broken, grief-stricken man on a classic Piccirilli quest for redemption. In its own way, The Castle is a classic Piccirilli character as well, a mercurial entity with layers upon layers of secrets." - FEAR NET"[The Walls of the Castle] is a novella with the paramount importance of three Ls: love, life, and loss. The setting is unbelievably believable and the atmosphere is nearly tangible. The author manages to modernize the Gothic concept of a castle turning it into an outpost of death, life, desperation, help and hope." - Zulfiya Trotter"Piccirilli straddles genres with the boldness of the best writers today, blending suspense and crime fiction into tight, brutal masterpieces." - James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Colony"[A Choir of Ill Children is] A wonderfully wacked, disorienting, fully creepy book…The poetic nature of the prose and seriousness of intent carried the day in every scene." - Dean Koontz, New York Times bestselling author of the Odd Thomas series"Tom Piccirilli is a powerful, hard-hitting, fiercely original writer of suspense. I highly recommend him." - David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Creepers

    The endless creaking of the house at night and the eerie stillness of the woods surrounding them would be enough of a sign, but there are secrets too—questions that Silla can’t ignore: Why does it seem that, ever since they arrived, the trees have been creeping closer? Who is the beautiful boy who’s appeared from the woods? And who is the tall man with no eyes who Nori plays with in the basement at night… a man no one else can see?

    Unable to cope with the misery that fills their days, they commit one last act together and die in loving relief. But when Nick wakes up, he soon realizes that death isn't the gentle darkness he expected. Panicked and horrified, he struggles to understand the twisted abominations and hellish world he's now trapped in. Driven by desperation and a sudden will to survive, he sets out to find Jess and is unable to cope with the thought of her having to suffer through the terrors this new reality holds. But nothing could prepare him for the nightmares he found...nothing could prepare him for The Black Farm.

    One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three that died come back on a last chilling mission among the living. A strange and unsettling ghost story in the tradition of Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson, "The Night Country" creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet isolated lives of three people changed forever by the accident: Tim, who survived yet lost everything; Brooks, the cop whose guilty secret has destroyed his life; and Kyle's mom, trying to love the new son the doctors returned to her. As the day wanes and darkness falls, one of them puts a terrible plan into effect, and they find themselves caught in a collision of need and desire, watched over by the knowing ghosts.

    Brockmeyer, the award-winning author of KIND NEPENTHE. In "Mine" a child hangs precariously between the isthmus of innocence and evil, shedding his humanity for the altar of a wolf pup.A horrifying and ancient legend reveals itself with a shocking new twist in "A Dirty Winter Moon.""Have a Heart" teaches us that nature always prevails over the follies of man, sometimes in an extremely gruesome manner.In "Rumpelstiltskin" the troll under the bridge is very real, and wants your children for unspeakable deeds.In "The Gym Teacher" a boy's obsession with serial killers leads him to discover the true nature of a monster.These twenty stories traverse the outskirts of society to reveal the brutality of humanity in all its gory glory.

    When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. So much pain. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures, two friends-- So much blood. --suddenly thrust in the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their life against a sadistic killer. A killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. So much death. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death!