Behind a dusty Georgia carny show... In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta... Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite.Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden....

    Whoever settles, never leaves. Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear. The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past. This chilling novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in mainstream horror and dark fantasy.

    Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.

    Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today.

    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.

    Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story 'Sardonicus', considered by Stephen King to be 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written', to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. These stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere.Haunted CastlesHaunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell's masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of 'Sardonicus', 'Sanguinarius', and 'Sagittarius'. The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy); the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, perverted, and completely entrancing, Russell's Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful.RAY RUSSELL was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific. After the war, he attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and eventually joined the editorial staff at Playboy, where he published such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Robert Bloch, and Charles Beaumont. His best-known work, 'Sardonicus', was called by Stephen King 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written'. He died in Los Angeles in 1999.GUILLERMO DEL TORO is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer, most famous for his Academy Award-winning film,Pan's Labyrinth, and the Hellboy film franchise. He has received the Nebula, Hugo, and Bram Stoker awards and is an avid collector and student of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.

    Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder is a collection of supernatural detective short stories by author William Hope Hodgson.

    Collected in this chilling volume are some of the famous Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo's best stories—bizarre and blood-curdling expeditions into the fantastic, the perverse, and the strange, in a marvelous homage to Rampo's literary 'mentor', Edgar Allan Poe.

    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

    And what they tell him is horrifying.In the Balkan mountains of Rumania, a terrible evil is growing. Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.The vampire's human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire's mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead. Dragosani works not for Ferenczy's freedom but world domination. He will rule the world with knowledge raped from the dead.His only opponent: Harry Koegh, champion of the dead and the living.To protect Harry, the dead will do anything--even rise from their graves!

    Ghosts, ghouls, incubi: all have one thing in common. They know Booth for one of their own . . .

    Tilly's seance --Mrs. Amworth --In the tube --Roderick's story --Reconciliation --Face --Spinach --Bagnell terrace --A tale of an empty house --Naboth's vineyard --Expiation --Home sweet home --"And no bird sings" --Corner house --Corstophine --Temple --Step --Bed by the window --James Lamp --Dance --Hanging of Alfred Wadham --Pirates --Wishing-well --Bath-chair --Monkeys --Christopher comes back --Sanctuary --Thursday evenings --Psychical mallards --Clonmel witch burning.

    . . When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury. But with her husband dead just weeks after their marriage, her new servants resentful, and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her husband's awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure —a silent companion —-that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. The residents of The Bridge are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as simple superstition--that is, until she notices the figure's eyes following her.A Victorian ghost story that evokes a most unsettling kind of fear, this is a tale that creeps its way through the consciousness in ways you least expect--much like the silent companions themselves.

    There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From bloody horror to supernatural creatures to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for any reader looking for a thrill.Fans of TV’s The Walking Dead, True Blood, and American Horror Story will tear through tales by these talented authors:Stefan BachmannLeigh BardugoKendare BlakeA. G. HowardJay KristoffMarie LuJonathan MaberryDanielle PaigeCarrie RyanMegan ShepherdNova Ren SumaMcCormick TemplemanApril Genevieve TucholkeCat Winters

    The pale and secretive Lavinia wanders through the woods, Asenath is a precocious teenager with an attitude, and the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nitocris has found a new body in distant America. And do you have time to hear a word from our beloved mother Shub-Niggurath?Defiant, destructive, terrifying, and harrowing, the women in She Walks in Shadows are monsters and mothers, heroes and devourers. Observe them in all their glory. Iä! Iä!TABLE OF CONTENTS“Bitter Perfume” Laura Blackwell“Violet is the Color of Your Energy” Nadia Bulkin“Body to Body to Body” Selena Chambers“Magna Mater” Arinn Dembo“De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae” Jilly Dreadful“Hairwork” Gemma Files“The Head of T’la-yub” Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia)“Bring the Moon to Me” Amelia Gorman“Chosen” Lyndsey Holder“Eight Seconds” Pandora Hope“Cthulhu of the Dead Sea” Inkeri Kontro“Turn out the Lights” Penelope Love“The Adventurer’s Wife” Premee Mohamed“Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961″ Sharon Mock“The Eye of Juno” Eugenie Mora“Ammutseba Rising” Ann K. Schwader“Cypress God” Rodopi Sisamis“Lavinia’s Wood” Angela Slatter“The Opera Singer” Priya Sridhar“Provenance” Benjanun Sriduangkaew“The Thing in The Cheerleading Squad” Molly Tanzer“Lockbox” E. Catherine Tobler“When She Quickens” Mary Turzillo“Shub-Niggurath’s Witnesses” Valerie Valdes“Queen of a New America” Wendy N. Wagner