The landscape of death becomes the new frontier for scientific exploration. With remarkable deftness, Rogers draws together the disturbing and the diverting in twenty-two showcase stories that will guide you through terrain at once familiar and startlingly fresh.

    Short story from "If it bleeds".

    Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways.Contributors include Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morge”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

    They might both be competing, but only one can win the Kiss Off Challenge.NoraWhen I get assigned to work the kissing booth at the annual New Year’s Eve festival, I’m tempted not to show. But then Reid Blanchett, the closest thing I have to a nemesis, issues a challenge. Whoever can get the most kisses during our shift wins, and I have no intention of letting him add another tally to his long line of wins.ReidI didn’t expect Nora to accept my challenge. The last thing I want to do is watch her pucker up and pass out kisses, even if it is for a good cause. Those kisses should be mine, and I’ve only got one shot to prove it to her.This year, make the ultimate resolution to fall in love with the sexiest book boyfriends around.Midnight kisses, parties in the city, cozy cabins, and all the taboo sexiness you can handle.Strap on your slippers, and get cozy, because these men are coming to you.

    . . ." The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal. Stories is a groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction and affords some of the best writers in the world—from Peter Straub and Chuck Palahniuk to Roddy Doyle and Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O'Nan and Joyce Carol Oates to Walter Mosley and Jodi Picoult—the opportunity to work together, defend their craft, and realign misconceptions. Gaiman, a literary magician whose acclaimed work defies easy categorization and transcends all boundaries, and "master anthologist" (Booklist) Sarrantonio personally invited, read, and selected all the stories in this collection, and their standard for this "new literature of the imagination" is high. "We wanted to read stories that used a lightning-flash of magic as a way of showing us something we have already seen a thousand times as if we have never seen it at all." Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man's descent into evil in "Devil on the Staircase." In "Catch and Release," Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan." Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams's "The Knife." Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in "The Therapist." A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman's novelette "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains." As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.

    they really turn up the heat!Ask anyone and they will tell you: Paolo Perso is living the dream. His cooking show is number one, his new retail sauce line is about to launch, and his 5-star restaurant in Los Angeles is so popular you have to know someone just to get a reservation. So why does he feel like someone deflated his soufflé?Marina Trovato has worked hard to get where she is. A long-time assistant producer for The Eating Channel, she's just been given her big break: Producer of her own project; a special series of cooking shows featuring Paolo Perso, celebrity chef. But when the cameras start rolling, it's clear this show will end up going from the frying pan into the fire... unless she can whip it all into shape!Will Paolo’s performance prevent Marina's career from reaching her climax, or can she put the flavor back into his sauce?

    

    A woman is left struggling to survive after a bear attack leaves her alone in the wilderness. A writer desperately tries to complete his book while being harassed by a relentless spirit. A poem of warning from a traveling salesman. A young boy disappears after hearing his mother calling to him from the woods and returns later that night acting strangely. This horror anthology features both supernatural and realistic situations that will make you double-check your locks at night. Before you tell yourself that these 15 original stories are just made up, rest assured knowing that one of them is inspired by true events.

    Each story is accompanied by a ghastly illustration from the mind of Andy Sciazko... the kind of illustrations that will disturb you in the best way possible.

    The author has put together promising stories for every alphabet that are guaranteed to scare you out of your wits and question the presence of the supernatural.Pick up the book as the night crawls by for feeling those chills creeping up your skin and your heart beating out of your chest.

    Lovecraft's classic stories, among them some of the greatest works of horror fiction ever written, including:

    Go figure. I've always known I was adopted. It never mattered much...until my birth mother died. I inherited a new power from the mysterious woman. But now she’s dead and I, despite the fact that I have exactly zero training, I’m the next time-traveling assassin. Don’t get excited. The job sounds glamorous, but it comes with a huge learning curve and plenty of mishaps. Then there’s having to actually assassinate people. That part sucks. It could be worse. I could still be working retail.

    A father hears strange voices on his daughter's baby monitor. A trio of gravediggers faces a swarm of supernatural creatures. A group of teenagers puts a mausoleum legend to the test. A husband and wife take a stroll through a corn maze that they'll never forget. Tales From Valleyview Cemetery contains seventeen interconnected tales of terror -- legends of a town and cemetery entrenched in occult practice, macabre history, and a demon elemental waiting for his people's return. A collection of short horror stories written in the vein of the "Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark" books.

    But their dream home turns into a living nightmare when an otherworldly power abducts their child. With local authorities convinced the Maples are crazy, the frightened parents turn to Lindsy and Mike Foster, a team of paranormal investigators who seek to uncover the truth behind the haunting.

    Desperate to win back his father’s approval, the boy hatches a plan involving his father’s love of slasher films. If the boy can become a real-life slasher right out of the movies, it just might be an opportunity to make his father proud again, no matter what the cost.In Iain Rob Wright’s “The Reckoning,” the year is 2035 and people live inside their individual worlds. Amelie’s ‘pod’ is a marvel of tech-centric existence, taking care of her every need. But when a serial killer that the press have named ’The Reckoning’ comes calling for Amelie, her futuristic living space turns deadly.In William Malmborg's "Billy's Blade," a budding serial killer bites off more than he can chew when he tries to stab Stacy Collins to death on the Prairie Path. A ruthless investigative journalist, Stacy goes on the offensive, goading the killer with unflattering articles, all in hopes of sparking a second encounter. Will Billy and Stacy meet again?Jeff Strand’s “Twentieth Anniversary Screening” recounts the grisly events surrounding the terrible slasher flick THE ROOFER, remembered only because an obsessed fan tried to reenact the murders as they played out on the screen. When the same theater shows the film twenty years later, will the warnings that this is a really, really bad idea be justified?