Everything has been prepared for the town’s annual tradition—a lottery in which every family must participate, and no one wants to win. “The Lottery” stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery” has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.

    Psyches fractured, each child has survived as best they could—wrapped in fantasy, the comfort of amnesia, or the silence of isolation When those evils intrude on their lives a second time, it sets a chain of events in action that can only end in destruction. But who will be destroyed, the children or the ancient evils that plague the town?Start reading Demon King today and find out!

    With this anthology, we wanted to give women the chance to take something back to show their skills and storytelling abilities, but to also create striking stories that resonate profoundly with readers: Protagonists who take no shit; women who save themselves; women who slay the beast; women who become the monster.

    As the visions manifest with greater frequency they start targeting his young daughter. They are finding their way into his world and only he can fight them. Chris must uncover the truth about his connection to this strange, sadistic realm, and plunge headfirst into the unknown if he wants to save his daughter and himself.

     Dr. Moesha Kyle is a young, successful pediatric surgeon who is going through a divorce that gets stickier with each passing day. After her third miscarriage, her soon-to-be ex-husband, Aaron Kyle, steps out on her, and in result, gets his side-piece pregnant. Moesha drowns herself with work to avoid her emotions, stumbling upon Mr. Skylaire Watson. Skylaire is a single father whose son, Jacob, is suffering from brain cancer. Him and Moesha connect through Jacob, and they end up being each other’s unexpected peaceful distraction from their chaotic worlds. Peace never lasts long. A shocking turn of events with Jacob leaves Skylaire unsure of his newfound feelings for Dr. Kyle. Dr. Omery Steele is one of Moesha’s best friends and Aaron’s. Feeling stuck in the middle of their divorce, she leans on her husband, Adonis, for support. Ultimately, she sides with Moesha and steps back from Aaron. Omery is one of the top OBGYN’s in Houston, specializing in women of color. Her life is what some would call picture perfect. She has the job, dream house, support system, and mostly, the love of her life. Adonis treats Omery like any woman deserves to be treated, but he’s keeping one, life-threatening secret from her. Their world turns upside down once the secret is revealed, but the couple refuses to let it interfere with the foundation they have built.

     Becky Eicher is excited to be taking over Annie's job at the fabric shop in Shipshewana, Indiana. In fact, she's surprised that her parents agreed to let her have a job that is away from the farm. But she finds it exciting to meet new people. That is until she meets Steven Raber who works at the lumberyard. He's very forward and keeps stopping by to visit with her. Becky has no interest in him, especially since he is not a farmer. But as she gets to know him, she begins to learn that first impressions are not always correct. Is it possible that her preconceived notions were wrong?

    In 1981, Jon and Carlie Summers moved into an inherited home in rural Iowa, leaving behind their workaday lives as a lawyer and a professor in Chicago. Soon after moving in, Jon and Carlie’s lives begin a downward spiral as Carlie experiences violent dreams, possessions, hallucinations, and physical illness. Through old journals, nightmares, and personal encounters with evil, Carlie relives the history of the house, embodying its past of abuse, denial, obsession, broken lives, and death.Anatomy of a Haunting is a terrifying true story that leaves Jon dead and pushes Carlie to the brink of insanity. Through interviews and exhaustive research into the 150-year-old McPherson house, author Lee Strong delves into the history of the haunting and paints a nightmarish picture of one couple’s descent into supernatural madness.

    And then there were the other things…the darker things…the shadow that followed her home from the cemetery and settled into the corners of her home, refusing to let her grow up in peace. Now, after three years away from the place she's convinced she inadvertently haunted, and after yet another family tragedy strikes, Maggie is forced to return to the sweltering heat of a Savannah summer to come to terms with her past. All along, she's been telling herself, it was just in your head, and she nearly convinces herself that she'd imagined it all. But the moment Maggie steps into the foyer of her family home, she knows. The darkness is still here. And it's been waiting for Maggie's return….

    Supposedly corroborating the mermaid story, a ship's log (in the collections of the Provincetown Historical Museum) of the schooner Hannah, which plucked Mr. Stanton from South Weepecket in 1788, indicates that the crew saw two figures on the island prior to his rescue, but failed to locate a second victim. However, regarding accuracy and reliability, this is the same crew, under Captain John Merriweather, that reported sightings of a ghost ship and not one, but two sea monsters. ~~James S. Rucker, Archivist, Family Collections, Falmouth Historical Society, 1924Companion story to Monstrous Beauty.

    Augustine, Florida. An ancient evil is awakened in the Tolomato Cemetery, and is intent on stalking and destroying the citizens of the town. The evil creature, a Shiru, was believed to be a mythical beast from ancient Indian legend. The legend says the Shiru once roamed the earth attempting to mate with the women of the local Indian tribes in an effort to breed, but the Indians recognized the danger and hunted them down, destroying their hideous deformed offspring. But this legend is so old, that almost no one in modern day St. Augustine knows of it, and if they did they wouldn't believe it...that is until one, summoned by three women dabbling in black magic, crosses over from the dead. Now the Shiru is determined to get revenge on the human race, and to breed with a strong woman with an ancient blood line. Unbeknownst to her, local tour-guide, half Cherokee Ssabra Onih, is the Shiru's target. Fortunately for her, and the rest of the town, the spirit of Chief Tolomato comes to guide her, and enlist her help to hunt down the evil Shiru and send it back to the underworld. At the same time city police officer, Jack Colvin is working hard to track down the perpetrator of a series of grisly murders. Soon Colvin's and Onih's paths cross, and they join forces with the help of Chief Tolomato and other friendly spirits, in a desperate attempt to stop the seemingly invincible Shiru.

    Once the abuse becomes too much to handle, the two siblings embark on a sordid cross-country murder spree beginning with their mom. As the murder tally rises, Suzy’s mental state spirals into irredeemable madness.

    A weekend camping trip with a small group of friends seemed like the perfect distraction from a messy personal life, but as Zack and his friends made their way to the camping ground at Drifter’s Folly Memorial Park, he couldn’t shake the feeling something was terribly wrong. Zack should have listened to his gut, because he and his friends aren’t the only ones in the forest. Someone else is watching—someone with dark intentions. And he wants to play a game...

    Welcome to a world where humans live side-by-side with monsters, from vampires both nostalgic and bumbling, to an eight-legged alien who makes tea. Here you'll find mercurial forms that burrow into warm fat, spectral boy toys, a Maori force of nature, a landform that claims lives, and an architect of hell on earth. Through these, and a few monsters that defy categorization, some of today's top young-adult authors explore ambition and sacrifice, loneliness and rage, love requited and avenged, and the boundless potential for connection, even across extreme borders.Moriabe's Children / Paolo Bacigalupi --Old souls / Cassandra Clare --Ten rules for being an intergalactic smuggler (the successful kind) / Holly Black --Quick hill / M.T. Anderson --The diabolist / Nathan Ballingrud --This whole demoning thing / Patrick Ness --Wings in the morning / Sarah Rees Brennan --Left foot, right / Nalo Hopkinson --The Mercurials / G. Carl Purcell --Kitty Capulet and the invention of underwater photography / Dylan Horrocks --Son of abyss / Nik Houser --A small wild magic / Kathleen Jennings --The new boyfriend / Kelly Link --The woods hide in plain sight / Joshua Lewis --Mothers, lock up your daughters because they are terrifying / Alice Sola Kim

    Taff, the "King of Pain," to the mind-bending surrealism of Erik T. Johnson, the darkly poetic prose of J. Daniel Stone and the transgressive mania of Joe Schwartz, I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD offers up five novellas from five unique authors whose work consistently expands the boundaries of conventional fiction. Five Disturbing Visions I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD opens the doors to a movie theater of the damned; travels the dusty, sin-drenched desert with an almost Biblical mysterious stranger; recounts the phantasmagoric story of birth, death and rebirth; contracts a hit that's not at all what it seems; and exposes the disturbing possibilities of what might be killing Smalltown, U.S.A. One Nightmare As diverse as they are, in voice and vision, the work of the five celebrated authors assembled in this stunning volume of terror share one common theme, one hideous and terrifying nightmare that can only be contained within the pages of I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD.

     Remarkably, the astounding protagonist of Gabrielle Wittkop’s lyrical 1972 novella, The Necrophiliac, has never appeared in English until now.   This new translation introduces readers to a masterpiece of French literature, striking not only for its astonishing subject matter but for the poetic beauty of the late author’s subtle, intricate writing.   Like the best writings of Edgar Allan Poe or Baudelaire, Wittkop’s prose goes far beyond mere gothic horror to explore the melancholy in the loneliest depths of the human condition, forcing readers to confront their own mortality with an unprecedented intimacy.