Blackwater: Two Stories of Horror and Dark Science Fiction


Christian Galacar
    In "Mercury Rain" a soldier fighting a new enemy learns the importance of holding on to his memories. "Blackwater," the title story of the collection, is an homage to Stephen King's short story, "Graveyard Shift," and it tells the tale of Paul Hawkins, a mine worker who disturbs something terrifying in the Blackwater Hills of Durham, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1976.

Anything can be Dangerous


Matt Hults - 2011
    The stories include:Anything can be Dangerous ~ the simple things in life can kill.Through the Valley of Death ~ a dark vampire story that will make you remember fear. The Finger ~ zombie literature has never been so extraordinary.Feeding Frenzy ~ lunchtime in a place called Hell. Husk ~ this is what people are saying about Husk:“Matt Hults delivers a crackling, creepy tale. A fast-paced read with a generous body count, ‘Husk’ will make your skin crawl.”—Scott Nicholson, Bestselling author of They Hunger“Remember the first time you read Joe Lansdale’s The Drive-In, or Freezer Burn? Remember how exhilarated you felt as you tore through the pages as Lansdale kept knocking your jaw to the floor with his endless inventiveness, unexpected belly-laughs, and those even more unexpected moments of terror and pathos? Miss that feeling of being completely at the mercy of a writer’s imagination and boundless energy for his subject? Fret no more, friends—you now have Matt Hults’s Husk. This sucker is the real thing, an in-your-face, rollicking, scary, funny, and unexpectedly poignant potpourri of a horror story, an unabashed and unapologetic throwback to the early pulps infused with a vindictive modern-day sensibility that will have your head spinning and your mouth hanging open. It doesn’t get any more fun than this.”—Gary A. Braunbeck, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award, author of Coffin County and Destinations Unknown“Suspenseful and gruesome, with just the right leavening of hopefulness and nod-wink humor.”—Dr. Kim Paffenroth, Bram Stoker Award Winner for Dying to Live.“Husk is wild, bloody, scary, action-packed, and entertaining as hell. Matt Hults seems to be having a blast telling his tale, and I had a blast going along for the ride. Great fun!”—Jeff Strand, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of PRESSURE"'Husk' is a chilling and relentless tale that will make you want to check your closets, lock your windows and keep an eye in your review mirror...but don't think that'll save you!"––Fran Friel, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of Mama's Boy“Husk is violent, intense and terrifying. The characters are as real as you and I, and every triumph is rapturous while every death is harrowing. Matt Hults proves himself as a master of the genre with his striking debut novel. It will leave you feeling skinned alive and dying for more.”—Joel A. Sutherland, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of Frozen Blood“I have come across some pretty mind-blowing demons on paper, on the big screen, and especially in my mind. But the ‘Husk’ Matt Hults created in this his first novel breaks all my thresholds for fear, and believe me I have built some pretty sound barriers in my time.”—Giovanna Lagana, author of With Black & White Comes the Grey

The Mansion: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2017
    But he discovers that there is more than a ghost causing mayhem. The Mansion is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long.

Strange Highways


Dean Koontz - 1995
    This is Koontz's spellbinding collection of takes interconnected by the strange highways of human experience: adventures, terrors, failures and triumphs.

The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu


Paula GuranNorman Partridge - 2016
    P. Lovecraft from authors who do not merely imitate, but reimagine, re-energize, and renew his concepts in ways relevant to today's readers. Fresh new fiction that explores our modern fears and nightmares. From the depths of R'lyeh to the heights of the Mountains of Madness, some of today's best weird fiction writers -- both established award-winning authors and exciting new voices -- THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF CTHULHU collects tales of cosmic horror that traverse terrain created by Lovecraft and create new eldritch geographies to explore . . . With stories by: Laird Barron, Nadia Bulkin, Amanda Downum, Ruthanna Emrys, Richard Gavin, Lois H. Gresh, Lisa L. Hannett, Brian Hodge, CaitlíR. Kiernan, John Langan, Yoon Ha Lee, Usman T. Malik, Helen Marshall, Silvia Moreno, Norman Partridge, W. H. Pugmire, Veronica Schanoes, Michael Shea, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Sandra McDonald, Damien Angelica Walters, Don Webb, Michael Wehunt, and A.C. Wise

Splatter-Punks: The Definitive Anthology


Paul M. SammonChas. Balun - 1990
    Editor Paul Sammon--himself a talented writer and moviemaker--has assembled the first and only book to emcompass this dynamic literary movement. Features the works of Edward Bryant, Craig Spector, Rex Miller, Clive Barker and more.

Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories


Charles Beaumont - 2015
    Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and varied they burst through the walls of whatever box might contain them. Supernatural, horror, noir, science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and more: all were equally at home in his wondrous mind. These are stories where lions stalk the plains, classic cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. With dizzying feats of master storytelling and joyously eccentric humor, Beaumont transformed his nightmares and reveries into impeccably crafted stories that leave themselves indelibly stamped upon the walls of the mind. In Beaumont’s hands, nothing is impossible: it all seems plausible, even likely.

The Best American Mystery Stories 1997


Robert B. ParkerMelodie Johnson Howe - 1997
    The controversial follow-up to Into the Bear Pit, this title pulls no punches in discussing the substantial fall-out from the publication of James' first book, the verbal spat with Nick Faldo that led Faldo waging a campaign to have his European Tour colleague removed from the Tournament Committee, and Mark's eventual resignation as Ryder Cup assistant.

Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors


Doug MuranoJoanna Parypinski - 2020
    Vicious beasts stalk our twisted pasts. Lost souls haunt our deepest regrets. They are the blood on our hands. They are the obsessions in our heads. They are the vengeance in our hearts. They are the chilling shadows in the night. They are Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors. Edited by Bram Stoker Award-winning editors Doug Murano and Michael Bailey. Featuring a foreword by Alma Katsu, and illustrations throughout by HagCult.Contents: * Foreword (Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors) • essay by Alma Katsu * A Heart Arrythmia Creeping Into a Dark Room / short fiction by Michael Wehunt * Matryoshka / short fiction by Joanna Parypinski * Butcher's Blend / short fiction by Brian Hodge * Operations Other Than War / short fiction by Nadia Bulkin * One Day of Inside/Out / short fiction by Linda D. Addison * One Last Transformation / short fiction by Josh Malerman * Brains / short fiction by Ramsey Campbell * You Are My Neighbor / short fiction by Max Booth, III * The Vodyanoy / short fiction by Christina Sng * Imperfect Clay / short fiction by Lisa Morton * Spectral Evidence (2017) / short story by Victor LaValle * Ode to Joad the Toad [Antiquity] / short fiction by Laird Barron * Only Bruises Are Permanent / short fiction by Scott Edelman * My Knowing Glance / short fiction by Lucy A. Snyder * Paper Doll Hyperplane / short fiction by R. B. Payne * Not Eradicated in You / short fiction by Bracken MacLeod * Resurrection Points (2014) / novelette by Usman T. Malik * The Old Gods of Light / short fiction by Christina Sng * Sounds Caught in Cobwebs / short fiction by M. E. Bronstein * Umbra Sum / short fiction by Kristi DeMeester * A Benediction of Corpses / short fiction by Stephanie M. Wytovich * The Making of Asylum Ophelia / short fiction by Mercedes M. Yardley * Frankenstein's Daughter / short fiction by Theodora Goss .

Novels & Stories: The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Other Stories and Sketches


Shirley Jackson - 2010
    M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.” Jackson’s characters–mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own–chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson’s suggestion that there are unseen powers–“demons” both subconscious and supernatural–malevolently conspiring against human happiness.In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with The Lottery (1949), Jackson’s only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story–one of the most widely anthologized tales of the twentieth century–has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are “The Daemon Lover,” a story Oates praises as “deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than ‘The Lottery,’” and “Charles,” the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson’s secondary career as a domestic humorist.Here too are Jackson’s masterly short novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay “Biography of a Story,” Jackson’s acidly funny account of the public reception of “The Lottery,” which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.

100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories


Stefan R. Dziemianowicz - 1993
    They represent more than 150 year's worth of writing, and include the greats: H.P. Lovecraft ("The Terrible Old Man"), Ambrose Bierce ("The Stranger"), Lafcadio Hearn ("A Dead Secret"), Oscar Wilde ("The Sphinx Without a Secret"), and J. Sheridan Le Fanu ("The Ghost and the Bone-Setter"). Best of all, a variety of human emotions and behavior come to the fore, from avarice (August Derleth's "Pacific 421") to revenge (Thorp McCluskey's "Black Gold"), from jealousy (Steve Rasnic Tem's "Daddy") to honor (Edith Nesbit's "John Charrington's Wedding") to love (Darrell Schwietzer's "Clocks"). Using a minimum of elements, each ghost story in this collection will entertain, captivate, and evoke a powerful response in readers. So be warned: you might not want to read these while you're all alone in the house...

Wizards: Magical Tales From the Masters of Modern Fantasy


Jack DannTad Williams - 2007
    Gone are the cartoon images of wizened gray-haired men in pointy caps creating magic with a wave of their wands. Today's wizards are more subtle in their powers, more discerning in their ways, and-in the hands of modern fantasists-more likely than ever to capture readers' imaginations.In Neil Gaiman's "The Witch's Headstone," a piece taken from his much-anticipated novel in progress, an eight-year-old boy learns the power of kindness from a long-dead sorceress. Only one woman possesses two kinds of magic-enough to unite two kingdoms-in Garth Nix's "Holly and Iron." Patricia A. McKillip's "Naming Day" gives a sorcery student a lesson in breaking the rules. And a famished dove spins a tale worthy of a meal, but perhaps not the truth, in "A Fowl Tale" by Eoin Colfer.

Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror


Ellen DatlowNicholas Royle - 2016
    An antique bookseller and a mob enforcer join forces to retrieve the Atlas of Hell. Postapocalyptic survivors cannot decide which is worse: demon women haunting the skies or maddened extremists patrolling the earth.In this chilling twenty-first-century companion to the cult classic Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Ellen Datlow again proves herself the most masterful editor of the genre. She has mined the breadth and depth of ten years of terror, collecting superlative works of established masters and scene-stealing newcomers alike.Introduction / Ellen Datlow --Shallaballah / Mark Samuels --Sob in the silence / Gene Wolfe --Our turn too will one day come / Brian Hodge --Dead sea fruit / Kaaron Warren --Closet dreams / Lisa Tuttle --Spectral evidence / Gemma Files --Hushabye / Simon Bestwick --Very low-flying aircraft / Nicholas Royle --The Goosle / Margo Lanagan --The clay party / Steve Duffy --Strappado / Laird Barron --Lonegan's luck / Stephen Graham Jones --Mr. Pigsny / Reggie Oliver --At night, when the demons come / Ray Cluley --Was she wicked? Was she good? / M. Rickert --The shallows / John Langan --Little pig / Anna Taborska --Omphalos / Livia Llewellyn --How we escaped our certain fate / Dan Chaon --That tiny flutter of the heart I used to call love / Robert Shearman --Interstate love song (Murder ballad no. 8) / Caitlín R. Kiernan --Shay Corsham Worsted / Garth Nix --The atlas of Hell / Nathan Ballingrud --Ambitious boys like you / Richard Kadrey

Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors


Christopher GoldenAngela Slatter - 2017
    

Dreadtime Stories: Volume One: From Fangoria


Max Allan Collins - 2012
    The stories include:� REINCARNAL by Max Allan Collins: A young woman may be the reincarnated victim of a serial killer on the loose.� THE LATE SHIFT by Dennis Etchison: A company takes flesh-peddling to a whole new level.� A FUNGUS AMONG US by Steve Nubie: A mysterious fungus is causing people to act like zombies before their heads explode and spore�like snakes ooze out of their brains!� WOLF by Max Allan Collins: A modern�day werewolf whose appetite for beautiful young women vacationing at a lodge retreat has guests and workers panic�stricken.� LIVING SPACE by M. J. Elliott: A young couple can't believe how "lucky" they are when they find a luxury high�rise apartment in Manhattan for rent at a "slashed" price.