A famous short story

    . . Tommy O'Brien once hoped to leave his run-down industrial hometown. But marriage and fatherhood have kept him running in place, working a job that doesn't even pay the bills. And now he seems fated to stay for the rest of his life. Tommy's just learned he's going to die young- and soon. But he refuses to leave his family with less than nothing-especially now that he has nothing to lose.Over a couple of beers with his best friends, John and Sherm, Tommy launches a bold scheme to provide for his family's future. And though his plan will spin shockingly out of control, it will throw him together with a child whose touch can heal--and whose ultimate lesson is that there are far worse things than dying."A powerful, unique novel with a fascinating plot and characters, and echoes of Stephen King's working-class voice."--Ed Gorman

    Perhaps your best friend is dating her, getting himself into debt by taking her out to fancy restaurants and buying her expensive gifts. Yet you see her for what she is... Or maybe he's the guy who has perfectly good excuses for not finding a job, so he lets his live-in girlfriend support them. She works hard to keep a roof over their head and food on the table...and in the meantime, she's running herself ragged emotionally and financially. Of course you know people like this. Everybody knows at least one. They're not who you think they are. They are charismatic, sexually attractive, and they'll completely drain you emotionally, financially, and physically. And then they'll move on to the next person. Don't let that next person be you. They're not human. They're something else...something too terrifying to imagine...

    It was one of many rules imposed by her cold, distant father. Now, in a final act of desperation, her father has exorcised his demons. But when Laurie returns to claim the estate with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, it’s as if the past refuses to die. She feels it lurking in the broken moldings, sees it staring from an empty picture frame, hears it laughing in the moldy greenhouse deep in the woods…At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, Abigail, she can’t help but notice her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door. Who died next door. With each passing day, Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts more disturbing. Like her father, is she slowly losing her mind? Or is something truly unspeakable happening to those sweet little girls?

    Worse yet, the drafty old mansion they’ve rented is infested with flies, spiders, and other pests Paige doesn’t want to think about.She chalks it up to her rural surroundings, but it’s harder to ignore the strange things happening around the house, from one can of ravioli becoming a dozen, to unreadable words appearing in the walls. Soon Paige’s little brother begins roaming the house at all hours of the night, and there’s something not right about the downstairs neighbor, who knows a lot more than he’s letting on. Things only get creepier when she learns about the sinister cult that conducted experimental rituals in the house almost a hundred years earlier.The more Paige investigates, and the deeper she digs, the clearer it all becomes: whatever is in the house, whatever is causing all the strange occurrences, has no intention of backing down without a fight.Found in the aftermath, Diary of a Haunting collects the journal entries, letters, and photographs Paige left behind.

    Liam is a bachelor professor of folklore and he's incurably superstitious. When people start getting murdered, it seems that Liam's demons are real.

    Each of them would pay dearly. Who would go willingly to a place of such evil? What dark enticements draw the fated guests? What appalling destiny awaits them? Martin Burden, the small-town beauty who had learned how to please men, but not well enough to keep up her New York City lifestyle; Edward Knox, a kind man with a bad habit of losing other people's money at the races, and his dear, sensitive wife, Elinor; Brian Dutton, the cut-throat businessman who watched his brother die beneath the ice of a frozen lake; Hamilton Temple, the once-great magician still searching for true magic; Julia Heine, the fading, lonely alcoholic, forever dreaming of a new life and of being young again; and the little boy, Tad, who came to the house on a dare, only to be hunted as a sacrifice to Stauf's monstrous evil. Seven guests will become entwined in a dark inferno tonight...

    They play Russian Roulette with seven footprints to world domination--and lost. They had become subject to the Collector of Infernal Revenue--Satan. The Master Player of games would glut his lust with souls and gain world power through diabolical manipulations. But into his collection comes James Kirkham, an American explorer determined to prove that the steps are stacked.

     Joe DeRouen’s Good Fortune teaches us a valuable lesson about why you should be very careful when you hold someone’s fate in your hands. It may come back to haunt you, just as it does for Grimsley Harkness, who dares to wish for more than he deserves. Celia Kennedy’s Nothing Scares Me takes readers on a test of endurance. Lost in the Florida Everglades, Ardith Deblois, wife, mother and intrepid adventurer, fights for her life. Enveloped within the humid swamplands is a perilous maze full of obstacles and adversaries. Which is the greater impediment, the humans that hunt her or the deadly animals and poisonous plants she hides amongst? Can she fight through fatigue and dehydration to save herself? Nothing Scares Me. True or not? Zeece Lugo’s Five Stories Up finds us on October 31st, 1966, and night is falling over the city. Below, the groups of little ghosts and goblins stream in and out of the front stoops and basement bodegas, running, laughing, white blankets flapping in the wind, their candy treasures tightly held in hand. But above, in the dark rooftop of Sonia's building, something pale and evil watches her, and beckons... Angie Martin's "Sold" follows a paranormal team as they investigate the home of a serial killer for their live Halloween night televised show. In Heather Osborne's Will You Remember Me? past and present collide when ghosts from witch trials of long ago come to life. It's up to Sierra to lay things to rest. In Leonie Rogers' Roast Pumpkin, Anna discovers that going trick-or-treating in her new home town is more of an out-of-this-world experience than she'd ever imagined. CJ Rutherford's 'Treaters' tells the story of Jaz. Who would believe the world would end on Halloween night? Can Jaz, a retired U.S. Marine, battle loss, grief, demons, and loneliness, to survive the end of the world? In Jada Ryker’s Dead Eye, Alex takes Marisa to an unusual Halloween party in an isolated Kentucky community… with a murderer ready with deadly tricks, rather than treats. In Jalpa Williby’s Beauty and the Beast, Kelsey’s entire family perishes in a fire on a dreadful Halloween night. Overcome by grief and guilt, she decides to end her pain once and for all. Will the mysterious stranger be her savior, or will he ultimately cause her tragic demise?

    A remote fishing trip in the Canadian wilderness promises relaxation and fun for four friends.But after catching a fish that should have been released on a secluded lake, the horror truly begins.And something has followed them back to the Outpost.

    Awe meets ache. Terror becomes transcendence. Regret gives way to rebirth. Fifteen short stories and one poem span nearly every twisted corner of the horror and dark fiction genres:A woman experiences an emotional reckoning inside a haunted house. A father sees his daughter rescued after a cold case is solved, only to learn the tragic limits of his love. A man awakens a vengeful spirit and learns the terrible price of settling scores. A boy comes of age into awareness of a secret universe of Lovecraftian scale. A young woman confronts the deathly price of existence inside a German concentration camp during the Holocaust. And much, much more…Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories features the most celebrated voices in dark fiction, as well as a number of exciting, new talents, including: Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Tremblay, John F.D. Taff, Lisa Mannetti, Damien Angelica Walters, Josh Malerman, Christopher Coake, Mercedes M. Yardley, Brian Kirk, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Amanda Gowin, Richard Thomas, Maria Alexander and Kevin Lucia. With a foreword from Cemetery Dance magazine founder Richard Chizmar.

    It's been thirteen years since siblings Jennifer and Jackie Nailer nearly lost their very souls to the enchantments of Eleanor Grimm. The Victorian mansion where Eleanor once conjured her wicked schemes now belongs to Jen and her husband. The couple is converting the former mortuary into a bed and breakfast and artist colony to create a nurturing environment for the baby they're expecting--and hopefully to purge the house of its evil. But although Eleanor's body has been laid to rest, her spirit still lingers in the mind of the youngest Nailer sibling, Steve. A mere infant when Eleanor was thwarted in her attempt to possess his body, Steve has now come of age--ripe for plucking and easily manipulated. With Eleanor guiding his every move, Steve is compelled to help her gather victims and perform the rituals that will place her soul into Jennifer's unborn child. Only Jackie, tormented for years by nightmares of the horrors Eleanor inflicted upon him, is aware of his brother's possession. And only he knows what must be sacrificed if anyone in his family is to survive... Grimm Reapings

    Three people were killed and one pupil, Carly Johnson, disappeared. Now a diary has been found in the ruins of the school. The diary belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly’s identical twin sister. But Carly didn’t have a twin . . . Re-opened police records, psychiatric reports, transcripts of video footage and fragments of diary reveal a web of deceit and intrigue, violence and murder, raising a whole lot more questions than it answers.Who was Kaitlyn and why did she only appear at night? Did she really exist or was she a figment of a disturbed mind? What were the illicit rituals taking place at the school? And just what did happen at Elmbridge in the events leading up to ‘the Johnson Incident’?

    He couldn't explain the morbid impulse that gripped him. Then it happened again when a playful race with a passing jogger spawned an animalistic urge. Now only the gruesome thrill of the hunt could satisfy his terrible hunger.

    No one is sure if this “Camp Slaughter” place is real or not. But a group of college kids renting out a cabin deep in the woods of Pennsylvania will soon realize the truth. They’ll realize the danger, too. Or rather, the cannibal out in the woods will bring the danger to them…