The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories


Jeff VanderMeerWilliam Gibson - 2010
    Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here... but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled. The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

Bedbugs


Ben H. Winters - 2011
    ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee.Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment.Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up.Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs... or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.

Edge of Shadows


Cege Smith - 2011
    Darkness has been a constant companion since her parents’ untimely death, and she harbors a secret that never fails to remind her that she’s different.Ellie's protective bubble includes nothing but her coffee shop, her few friends, and her dog. The attention of a handsome young doctor, David Mitchell, pushes her out of her comfort zone, and Ellie warms to the idea that she may have found another risk worth taking.Then one of Ellie’s friends abruptly leaves town; entrusting her home to Ellie’s care. The house has its own mysterious past that draws Ellie into a new darkness. Her ex-husband resurfaces with premonitions of Ellie’s death. And suddenly Ellie’s life is being turned upside down yet again, and even David can’t help her make it right.Ellie is running out of time. Something old and evil has awakened and it wants Ellie all to itself. She must solve a century-old mystery and keep a grip on her sanity in order to survive.

Echo


Thomas Olde Heuvelt - 2019
    Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia—but he remembers everything.He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps.He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.He remembers: something was waiting for them...But it isn’t just the memory of the accident that haunts Nick. Something has awakened inside of him, something that endangers the lives of everyone around him…It’s one thing to lose your life. It’s another to lose your soul.FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING SENSATION THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT comes a thrilling descent into madness and obsession as one man confronts nature—and something even more ancient and evil answers back.

Coven


Edward Lee - 1991
    Seductive angels of murder, madness, and horrors beyond imagining. COVEN Bathed in moonlight, they feed their darkest hungers in a festival of perversion and death, demented orgies that serve a cruel, unspeakable will... COVEN They are irresistible sirens in black, corrupting the living and raising the dead. Now the silent town of Exham will surrender to their loving embrace, their haunting beauty, and their ravenous need for human flesh. Surrender--and die... COVEN Beauty is only skin deep. More like a revved-up gross-out '70s B-movie, COVEN revels in its ultimate editorial no-no: it's science-fiction dropped into a contemporary horror plot, something that horror editors seem to never buy. Maybe this one sold...because it works. Originally entitled THE WOMEN IN BLACK, this "turgid," original take on the There's Something Fucked-Up At The College plot highlights Lee's gross-out skills early on and demonstrates that pulp horror writers really can create fresh, well-developed, easy-to-realize characters. Cameos of Lee's then-favorite beers--during his beer-snob days--appear in abundance, and Lovecraftian symbols abound (it's fun just picking them out), but wait till you meets the gals in this book. This is the only existing novel that Lee wants to sequelize.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks


Jason Arnopp - 2016
    No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed.Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account.Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed - until now.

Hell: The Possession and Exorcism of Cassie Stevens


Tom Lewis - 2018
    When she’s revived 20 minutes later, unsettling changes begin to occur. They’re in the shadow she sees from the corner of her eye, and the face in reflections, and the whispers in her mind… and awaking at night to the cold unseen presence of something in her room…But the changes aren’t just around her – they’re inside her.Something ominous followed Cassie back from beyond death. Something infinite in hatred and horror. And it won’t stop till she’s dead.

You Are Invited


Sarah A. Denzil - 2020
    Irene Jobert is the most famous influencer in the world, and now Cath will be one of the five participants chosen to stay with Irene in a renovated Transylvanian monastery.The catch? Their every move will be live-streamed to millions of people around the world. Patrons pay for constant access to their favourite social media stars: Irene, the model; Nathan, the gamer; Jules, the blogger; Daniel, the fitness guru; and Cath, the writer.Nestled halfway up a mountain, the five are isolated, with nothing but the internet to connect them to the world. That is,until eagle-eyed live-stream followers all around the globe notice a sixth participant. A dark figure lurking in the background.They thought they were alone. Perhaps they were wrong.

Frozen Charlotte


Alex Bell - 2014
    Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lilias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died.

The Moth Diaries


Rachel Klein - 2002
    The object of her obsession is her room-mate, Lucy Blake, and Lucy's friendship with their new and disturbing classmate. Ernessa is a mysterious presence with pale skin and hypnotic eyes. Around her swirl dark secrets and a series of ominous disasters. As fear spreads through the school, fantasy and reality mingle into a waking nightmare of gothic menace, fueled by the lusts and fears of adolescence.And at the center of the diary is the question that haunts all who read it: Is Ernessa really a vampire? Or is the narrator trapped in her own fevered imagination?

My Heart Is a Chainsaw


Stephen Graham JonesStephen Graham Jones - 2021
    She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges… a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

Suspect Zero


Richard Kadrey - 2013
    What he finds is much greater and much worse than he ever could have imagined.

The Bank of the River


Michael Richan - 2013
    Instead, knockings and grisly apparitions begin to haunt him, relentlessly tormenting him at night. With a recent divorce and a son in college, he is left alone to deal with the ghosts lurking in the shadows of his house. Steven is determined to find a rational explanation. His father Roy offers to help, and soon Steven discovers Roy has dormant supernatural skills. Steven’s natural skepticism clashes with Roy’s “gift,” but soon Steven finds himself assisting Roy as he battles the forces inside his home. Together they unearth something much more sinister and evil than either expected: ghosts are just the beginning of the problem!The Bank of the River is a fast-paced and thrilling horror novel that explores evil, ghosts, disturbing creatures, and the supernatural gifts a father and son use to fight them. The Bank of the River is the first book in The River series.

Afraid


Jack Kilborn - 2008
    . . Welcome to Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Miles from everything, with one road in and out, this peaceful town has never needed a full-time police force. Until now . . . A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate. As residents begin dying in a storm of gory violence, Safe Haven's only chance for survival will rest with an aging county sheriff, a firefighter, and a single mom. And each will have this harrowing thought: Maybe death hasn't come to their town by accident . . .

Collected Ghost Stories


M.R. James - 1931
    R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre. This collection contains some of his most chilling tales, including A View from a Hill, Rats, A School Story, The Ash Tree, and The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. Read by BAFTA and Emmy-award winning actor Derek Jacobi, and with haunting and evocative music, these tales cannot fail to send a shiver down your spine.