R. James is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.According to James, a story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself: 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"

    To get away and relax with friends, forget everything happened, get her life back on track.A stop to seek shelter from a passing storm changes everything. With the weather too intense to continue travel, they pull their Jeep up to the only home around in hopes that the farmhouse's owner would let them rest awhile until the tornado warning passes and the winds and rain have settled. But when the owner of the property answers the door with a shotgun aimed to fire and orders them inside, Samantha can only watch, unseen, as her friends are taken inside to meet an unknown fate.As the only hope for her friends getting out alive, Samantha must figure out what to do, and do it soon. The storm is only getting worse.CALM BEFORE THE STORM is a suspense thriller, a fast-paced journey of horror for a dark and stormy night.

    A sequel to a #1 bestselling horror anthology Don't Scream, featuring hideous doppelgangers, terrifying apps, lurking monsters, and more. Read... if you dare.

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    A time machine's lesson comes too late. Christmas trees save a lost soul's life. Ten million people live in one man's breath. ...Or Midnight: Murder returns to an infamous moor. Asylum workers find what is worse than insanity. A shunned grave's secrets gain fatal exposure. Nighttime terrors turn all too real. These and other stories comprise a compilation of bittersweet warmth and creeping horror, subtle illumination and dark vistas. Gregory Miller's Scaring the Crows is a genre-spanning collection of short fiction at its finest. Read it at noon...or midnight.

    From the painted faces of a child's nightmare to discovering what we really put in our bodies in the name of health. Here are 10 tales to read with the light on.TALE #1 - "Roll up, Roll up"TALE #2 - "Late Shift"TALE #3 - "You call that music?"TALE #4 - "Whose face is this anyway?"TALE #5 - "Pink Bow"TALE #6 - "Careful what you wish for"TALE #7 - "Recycling can be hazardous to your health"TALE #8 - "Mommy's little soldier"TALE #9 - "Trick or Treat"TALE #10 - "You are what you eat"

    In this strange place, only a select few people ever leave the city limits and even then, they leave reluctantly. This is what fifteen and a half year old Benjamin Granault faces as, through a string of amazing events, he finds himself living in a town where he can never talk about modern technology or current events, a place where being an outsider can cost a person his life and being part of the community may very well cost more. Follow the adventures of Benjamin Granault in ‘50sVille, the strangest town Indiana has ever been unaware of.

    In the mist.An apprentice mortician moves his family to the small town of Sotherton to provide them with a better life. Little did he know the dark secret the town and its people harbored. The town sat on the edge of a mist-shrouded forest with a deadly secret. Something lives in the trees, in the mist and it’s jealous. Jealous of all those who have flesh.Disembodied is a preview story from the author’s upcoming collection Creatures and Crypts due out in late 2011. Creatures of the living and the dead gather in a volume of over 70,000 words to stalk their prey…humans. 20 stories set the scene for a cast ranging from the Grim Reaper, shambling zombies and restless spirits, to unimaginable monsters that only inhabit the shapeless darkness and the author’s imagination. Join them as they wreak havoc on their unsuspecting victims and celebrate with a victory dance on hollowed bones.

    But he's keeping a secret that may unlock a darker destiny. FINAL REPORT “Entry One has been breached. Time to get this show on the road. They have no idea the kind of Hell I've prepared for them. May God have mercy on my soul.” MY FATHER’S SON A Delta Green agent with a mysterious past may learn more than he ever wanted to know when his current case leads where he never dared to go. THE DARK ABOVE In the face of madness and horror, two lonely Delta Green agents reach out to each other. Can they really afford such fragile bonds when the secrets of the night surf roll in? THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT An agent’s disappearance pulls a Delta Green team into a vortex of horror in this novel of personal apocalypse. The secrets they uncover threaten to ignite a war between the Delta Green conspiracy and its bitterest enemy, Majestic-12 — secrets buried within time itself. Foreword by Kenneth Hite.

    Something that threatens the whole of humanity. Something is going viral. 20 Minutes. 20 People. 20 stories that will make you want to stay inside and never greet another human being again. This is a short novella about a viral outbreak in a small town in the Lake District and shows how quickly disease can spread amongst the population. This isn't the Coronavirus. But it's just as scary. Humans. Viruses. Panic. Fear. There goes the countryside...

    One of 2012’s HWA Lifetime Achievement Award Winners, Rick Hautala has a writing career that spans more than three decades. From Moondeath, his first novel published in 1980, to the republication of his best-selling novel The White Room (DRP, 2012) and his forthcoming “Little Brothers” novella Indian Summer (CD Publications, 2012), his novels and short stories have entertained millions of readers around the world. Now comes Glimpses, a career-spanning “best of” collection that brings together twenty-four stories, including eight from each of Rick’s critically-acclaimed collections Bedbugs and Occasional Demons, and eight previously uncollected stories. And Glimpses delivers what it promises—quick glimpses into the deepest shadows of our lives, around unfamiliar corners of streets we think we know, and down the darkest alleys of strange cities where readers will have to face their worst fears and their most unnerving nightmares. Of course, Glimpses wouldn’t be a Rick Hautala collection if it didn’t included gorgeous original artwork—a wraparound cover and eight new illustrations—from award-winning artist Glenn Chadbourne. So whether it’s in a haunted schoolhouse or an abandoned lighthouse, an iron bridge that spans a fast-moving river or a World War I battlefield, prepare yourself because you never know what you may catch a glimpse of … and by then, it may already be too late.

     Featuring stories by Amy Cross, Mike Duke, Matthew Brockmeyer, Lex H. Jones, J.C. Michael and Kevin J. Kennedy.

    Even the high cost of tuition can’t damper her enthusiasm. Luck continues to be on her side when she finds the perfect place to live, a beautiful house that is close to campus and within her meager budget.But when Shelly moves into the large Victorian house at 1020 Sycamore Lane, strange things begin to occur. Unexplained noises that wake her up at night and a flowery odor that fills her bedroom at odd times. When she sees a frightening apparition emerge from her basement, she finally concedes that it is not her imagination playing tricks on her. It isn’t long before Shelly realizes her dream of attending Pennwood has become a nightmare. She turns to the only person who can help, Dr. Larry Barnett, Pennwood University’s only parapsychologist. Together they embark on a journey to discover the identity of the spirit haunting Shelly’s house. But as the haunting escalates and events turn violent, it soon becomes apparent that it will take more than Shelly and Dr. Barnett to put the spirits at 1020 Sycamore Lane to rest.

    However, though I think some of them are great, some aren’t, and some are profoundly dated. I am aware that there are those out there, who will just buy these without a second thought, so I have to edit, be selective, and I damned well have to show some respect for my readers. Kindle in this respect can be a danger for a known writer, because you can publish any old twaddle and someone will buy it. Time and again, I’ve had fans, upon hearing that I have this and that unpublished in my files, demanding that I publish it at once because surely they’ll love it. No they won’t. A reputation like trust: difficult to build and easy to destroy. I’ve therefore chosen stories other people have published here and there, and filled in with those I really think someone should have published. Here you’ll find some Polity tales, some that could have been set in the Polity (at a stretch) and some from the bleak Owner universe. Enjoy! Neal Asher 04/06/18

     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?