Even More Short & Shivery: Forty-Five Spine-Tingling Tales


Robert D. San Souci - 1994
    Curl up with old friends like Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" or Charles Dickens's "Chips." Or make the acquaintance of "The Serpent Woman" and "The Skull That Spoke"--but beware of spectral visitors like "The Blood-Drawing Ghost." There's something here for everyone who likes a good shudder. . . but be prepared for goose bumps!Delightfully creepy illustrations by Katherine Coville and Jacqueline Rogers highlight this second collection of scary stories.

North American Lake Monsters


Nathan Ballingrud - 2013
    Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible.These are love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are monsters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape.Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but has spent most of his life in the South. He worked as a bartender in New Orleans and New York City and a cook on offshore oil rigs. His story "The Monsters of Heaven" won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter.

Last Christmas


Heide Goody - 2018
     A short story in the Oddjobs universe that tries to answer the age-old question: what Christmas present do you get for the demon who has everything?

Behind You: One-Shot Horror Stories


Brian Coldrick - 2017
    A giggling crowd of masked watchers. A reassembling corpse. What could be behind you, just waiting for you to turn around? Behind You is an illustration series, a comic with no panels, where each piece is essentially a separate story. Each tale is one image and one piece of text; an unsuspecting victim with someone, or something, behind them. Entries range from the amusingly weird to the genuinely unsettling. Inspired by spooky films, books, myths, and internet tall tales, Behind You is full of scary set-ups but leaves lots of blanks for the reader to fill in with their own narrative. Includes an Introduction by New York Times Best-Seller Joe Hill.

Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories


Ellen Datlow - 2019
    The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories is her definitive collection of ghost stories.These thirty stories, including all new works from New York Times bestselling authors Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Seanan McGuire, and Paul Tremblay, span from the traditional to the eclectic, from the mainstream to the literary, from pure fantasy to the bizarrely supernatural. Whether you’re reading alone under the covers with a flashlight, or around a campfire with a circle of friends, there’s something here to please—and spook—everyone.Contributors include: Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Vincent J. Masterson, A.C. Wise, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Lee Thomas, Alison Littlewood, M.L. Siemienowicz, Richard Kadrey, Indrapramit Das, Richard Bowes, Nick Mamatas, Terry Dowling, Aliette de Bodard, Carole Johnstone, Dale Bailey, Stephen Graham Jones, Bracken MacLeod, Garth Nix, Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Gemma Files, Paul Tremblay, Nathan Ballingrud, Pat Cadigan, John Langan, Ford Madox Ford, F. Marion Crawford, Siobhan Carroll.

Dark Tales


Shirley Jackson - 2016
    This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Bird Eater


Ania Ahlborn - 2014
    He abandoned his rural Arkansas hometown vowing never to return, until his seven-year-old son died in an accident, plunging Aaron into a nightmare of addiction and grief. Desperate to reclaim a piece of himself, he returns to the hills of his childhood, to Holbrook House, where he hopes to find peace among the memories of his youth. But solace doesn’t come easy. Someone—or something—has other plans. Like Aaron, Holbrook House is but a shell of what it once was, a target for vandals and ghost hunters who have nicknamed it “the devil’s den.” Aaron doesn’t believe in the paranormal—at least, not until a strange boy begins following him wherever he goes. Plagued by violent dreams and disturbing visions, Aaron begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind. But a festering darkness lurks at the heart of Holbrook House… a darkness that grins from within the shadows, delighting in Aaron’s sorrow, biding its time.

Nightmare Hour: Time for Terror


R.L. Stine - 1999
    The scarecrows creaked, shaking their arms as if waving us away. A large pumpkin came bouncing down a hill. Thud thud thud! A child loses his head inside a pumpkin. A skin-crawling spider spell is cast on a sorcerer's apprentice. A visit to the hospital for a tonsillectomy takes a ghoulish turn. These things don't happen--do they? In Nightmare Hour they do. The fiendishly prolific R.L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps series, offers 10 scary tales to keep you up late, quivering beneath the covers. Each heart-pounding, fast-paced story features lively writing and young characters who come into contact with the tricks and illusions on life's darker side. Curious readers will love the author's introduction to each story, where he explains how the idea for it came to him. From "Alien Candy" to "Make Me a Witch," the stories also feature a spooky illustration by artists from Edward Koren to Bleu Turrell. While not gory, some of the book's situations, such as the hospital visit gone wrong, are not for the faint-hearted reader. For the rest, these are tales you'll be too scared to put down. (Ages 10 and older) --Maria DolanContents: Pumpkinhead / illustrated by Cliff Nielsen --Alien candy / illustrated by Edward Koren --Most evil sorcerer / illustrated by Bernie Wrightson --Nightmare Inn / illustrated by Gary Kelley --I'm not Martin / illustrated by Patrick McBride --Black mask / illustated by Mark Summers --Afraid of clowns / illustrated by Vince Natale --Dead body / illustrated by John Collier --Make me a witch / illustrated by Bleu Turrell --Ghostly stare / illustrated by John Jude Palencar.

The Light at the End


John Skipp - 1986
    The newspapers scream out headlines that spark terror across the city. Ten murders on the New York City subway. Ten grisly crimes that defy all reason -- no pattern, no m.o., no leads for police to pursue. The press dubs the fiend the "Subway Psycho"; the NYPD desperately seeks their quarry before the city erupts in mass hysteria. But they won't find what they're looking for.Because they all think that the killer is human.Only a few know the true story -- a story the papers will never print. It is a tale of abject terror and death written in grit and steel... and blood. The tale of a man who vanished into the bowels of the urban earth one night, taken by a creature of unholy evil, then left as a babe abandoned on the doorstep of Hell. Now he is back, driven by twin demons of rage and retribution.He is unstoppable. And we are all his prey... unless a ragtag band of misfit souls will dare to descend into a world of manmade darkness, where the real and unreal alike dwell in endless shadow. A place where humanity has been left behind, and the horrifying truth will dawn as a madman's chilling vendetta comes to light...Filled with gripping drama and harrowing doomsday dread, The Light at the End is the book that ushered in a bold new view of humankind's most ancient and ruthless evil; a mesmerizing novel from two acknowledged masters of spellbinding suspense.

Dark Entries


Robert Aickman - 1964
    350 copies.(Out of print).Contents: "Introduction by Glen Cavaliero, "The School Friend", "Ringing the Changes", "Choice of Weapons", "The Waiting Room", "The View" and "Bind Your Hair".As Dr Glen Cavaliero states in his introduction to this new edition of Dark Entries, "It is Robert Aickman's peculiar achievement that he should invest the daylight world with all the terrors of the night".Dark Entries was the first solo collection of "strange stories" by British short story writer, critic, lecturer and novelist, Robert Aickman. First published in 1964 it contains the classic "Ringing the Changes" and perhaps Aickman's best femme fatale in "Choice of Weapons." The version of "The View" is slightly re-written from its first appearance in We are for the Dark.

Haunted Nights


Ellen DatlowPat Cadigan - 2017
    In addition to stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick or treating in the future, Haunted Nights also offers terrifying and mind-bending explorations of related holidays like All Souls' Day, Dia de los Muertos, and Devil's Night. -With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfbane Seeds- by Seanan McGuire -Dirtmouth- by Stephen Graham Jones--A Small Taste of the Old Countr- by Jonathan Maberry-Wick's End- by Joanna Parypinski -The Seventeen Year Itch- by Garth Nix-A Flicker of Light on Devil's Night- by Kate Jonez-Witch-Hazel- by Jeffrey Ford-Nos Galen Gaeaf- by Kelley Armstrong -We're Never Inviting Amber Again- by S. P. Miskowski-Sisters- by Brian Evenson-All Through the Night- by Elise Forier Edie -A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds- by Eric J. Guignard-The Turn- by Paul Kane-Jack- by Pat Cadigan-Lost in the Dark- by John Langan-The First Lunar Halloween- by John R. Little

The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft: 102 Horror Short Stories, Novels, Juvenelia, Collaborations and Ghost Writings


H.P. Lovecraft - 2012
    P. Lovecraft" includes all the 102 short stories, novels, Juvenilia, Collaborations and Ghost writings of H. P Lovecraft. If it has been written by H. P. Lovecraft, it is in this book - search no more!You can even find stories of H. P. Lovecraft that are not available online like "four o'clock" and "Bothon". This will be your H. P Lovecraft Bible.The stories are listed according to the writing year rather than the publication year. This will help in reading the stories in the order they were written.An active Table of Contents is available in this book and there is a link to the Table of Contents at the start of each story to make navigation easier for you.Included in this book:Short Stories and Novels:The Tomb (1917)Dagon (1917)A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1917)Polaris (1918)Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919)Memory (1919)Old Bugs (1919)The Transition of Juan Romero (1919)The White Ship (1919)The Doom That Came to Sarnath (1919)The Statement of Randolph Carter (1919)The Street (1919)The Terrible Old Man (1920)The Cats of Ulthar (1920)The Tree (1920)Celephaïs (1920)From Beyond (1920)The Temple (1920)Nyarlathotep (1920)The Picture in the House (1920)Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family (1920)The Nameless City (1921)The Quest of Iranon (1921)The Moon-Bog (1921)Ex Oblivione (1921)The Other Gods (1921)The Outsider (1921)The Music of Erich Zann (1921)Sweet Ermengarde (1921)Hypnos (1922)What the Moon Brings (1922)Azathoth (1922)Herbert West—Reanimator (1922)The Hound (1922)The Lurking Fear (1922)The Rats in the Walls (1923)The Unnamable (1923)The Festival (1923)The Shunned House (1924)The Horror at Red Hook (1925)He (1925)In the Vault (1925)Cool Air (1926)The Call of Cthulhu (1926)Pickman’s Model (1926)The Strange High House in the Mist (1926)The Silver Key (1926)The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927)The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927)The Colour Out of Space (1927)The Descendant (1927)The Very Old Folk (1927)The History of the Necronomicon (1927)The Dunwich Horror (1928)Ibid (1928)The Whisperer in Darkness (1930)At the Mountains of Madness (1931)The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931)The Dreams in the Witch House (1932)The Thing on the Doorstep (1933)The Book (1933)The Evil Clergyman (1933)The Shadow out of Time (1934)The Haunter of the Dark (1935)Juvenilia:The Little Glass Bottle (1898)The Mystery of the Grave-Yard (1898)The Secret Cave (1898)The Mysterious Ship (1902)The Beast in the Cave (1904)The Alchemist (1908)Collaborations and Ghost Writings:The Green Meadow (1918)Poetry and the Gods (1920)The Crawling Chaos (1920)Four O’clock (1922)The Horror at Martin’s Beach (1922)Under the Pyramids (1924)Two Black Bottles (1926)The Last Test (1927)The Thing in the Moonlight (1927)The Curse of Yig (1928)The Electric Executioner (1929)The Mound (1929)Medusa’s Coil (1930)The Trap (1931)Winged Death (1932)The Man of Stone (1932)Through the Gates of the Silver Key (1932)The Horror in the Museum (1932)Out of the Aeons (1933)The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast (1933)The Horror in the Burying-Ground (1933)The Slaying of the Monster (1933)The Tree on the Hill (1934)The Battle that Ended the Century (1934)“Till A’ the Seas” (1935)The Challenge from Beyond (1935)The Diary of Alonzo Typer (1935)The Disinterment (1935)The Night Ocean (1936)In the Walls of Eryx (1936)Collapsing Cosmoses (1938)Bothon (1946)

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror


Chris Priestley - 2007
    But as the stories unfold, a newer and more surprising narrative emerges, one that is perhaps the most frightening of all.

The Shadowkiller


Matthew Scott Hansen - 2007
    In the thick of the woods not ten yards away stood a creature, manlike, apelike . . . some sort of hairy humanoid, like a gorilla standing upright on long legs. Motionless, it stared at Ty, and Ty froze dead in his tracks."Jesus Christ, this is Bigfoot.""BIGFOOT IS ANGRY."When careless campers unleash a raging forest fire, they inadvertently set in motion a blood-drenched spree of revenge. Motivated by the immolation of his family, a nearly eleven-foot-tall, preternaturally strong superprimate begins stalking the mountains northeast of Seattle, hunting the "small two-legs" he blames and leaving an eerie trail of missing people . . . but little else.As people begin vanishing from nearby forests, former software magnate Ty Greenwood risks everything to find out why. Tormented by his encounter with a Bigfoot three years earlier, Ty's past now collides with what he suspects is happening. But this time he doesn't realize that the stakes are far higher.In his search for two missing lawyers, Snohomish County Sheriff's Detective Mac Schneider discovers a "spectacularly" large footprint. Is it another hoax or is there really something to fear in the woods? Despite mounting evidence, Mac fears ridicule and is reluctant to reveal that the myth might in fact be a terrifying reality. Complicating everything for him is Kris Walker, a gorgeous but ruthless television reporter bent on getting the story at any cost.Joining the quest is an old Native American actor with a troubling secret: Ben Campbell has a mystical connection to the beast. And while Ben's link withthis fearsome and intelligent being haunts his dreams and could spell his doom, it may also prove to be the only key to stopping this ferocious, inhuman killing machine. Can they end his deadly rampage before he destroys everything they hold dear?Just when you thought it was safe to go into the woods . . . "The Shadowkiller" will give even the most hard-core skeptic a reason to think twice before going camping.

The Penguin Book of the Undead


Scott G. Bruce - 2016
    Ghost stories as we know them did not develop until the late nineteenth century, but the restless dead haunted the premodern imagination in many forms, as recorded in historical narratives, theological texts, and personal letters. The Penguin Book of the Undead teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath.Spanning from the Hebrew scriptures to the Roman Empire, the Scandinavian sagas to medieval Europe, the Protestant Reformation to the Renaissance, this beguiling array of accounts charts our relationship with spirits and apparitions, wraiths and demons over fifteen hundred years, showing the evolution in our thinking about the ability of dead souls to return to the realm of the living--and to warn us about what awaits us in the afterlife.