With twelve grisly stories of coming-of-age terror, carnival cruelty and fairground frights, this collection brings together the best and most exciting talents in the horror community. Roll up! with the following stories:"Mirrors" by Robin Grieve"Candy Apple Smiles" by Christopher Robertson"The Cyclone Sisters' Travelling Circus" by Angela Sylvaine"Anna and Abby" by L. Pine"The Prop" by Nikki R. Leigh"The Viperess of Las Cruces" by C.W. Blackwell"The Golden Tickets" by Roxie Voorhees"Dance With Us" by Kelly Brocklehurst"No Strings" by Jamie Stewart"Family Outing" by Briana Morgan"Mirrored" by Dave Musson"Smile at All the Good Times We Had" by Spencer HamiltonWith a foreword from the editors.

    But three months ago, he ran through the wrong door and found himself trapped in the city of Meridian – a literal necropolis, concealed from the modern world, made up of forgotten places and populated entirely by the dead. As the only living, breathing resident, Jake has struggled to scrape out an existence while waiting for the Necropolis Police Department to decide his fate, and it’s not looking good. But when an unusual string of crimes hits the city, Jake’s overseer and tormentor, NPD Detective Marsh offers him a deal: Jake’s life in exchange for helping them solve the worst series of crimes in the necropolis’ history. Someone, or some thing is killing the dead, and if Jake can’t figure out who’s responsible, he could be next. Necropolis PD is a hidden world fantasy that combines mystery, horror, magic, and more than a little humor. This book is perfect for the living and recently-departed alike.

    For centuries we have been raised as food for those who need our life’s blood in order to survive. But I’m done being a pawn in the sick and twisted lives of the beautiful blood drinkers. Determined, I will do whatever it takes to end the reign of the beautiful ones. Fortunately, I’m not alone in this war. With the help of other escaped chosen ones, and the mysterious and stunning Thanatos, I will discover a way to destroy those who wish us harm. But first, I must give up everything that matters and do the hardest thing of all…learn to trust myself. They took my friends, my family, and will take my life if given the chance. I won’t let that happen. I am a chosen one. The Chosen Ones Series: The Beautiful Ones: Free Short story Prequel The Chosen Ones: Book 1 The Forsaken Ones: Book 2 This books contains kissing, cursing and violence. It is best for ages 15 and up.

    Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.

    Afraid of being thrown into an isolation chamber, Michael goes home, but quickly falls violently ill. By the time he recovers and returns to work scary things are happening. Everyone who has come into contact with that patient is being systematically killed. On the run, he accidentally infects a woman living in the shadows of the underworld. She becomes ill as well, but survives. Then they begin feeling younger-and younger. Why would the government want to suppress something like this? After barely escaping federal gunmen, the two of them set out to discover what kind of infection they are harboring even though it might mean the end of their freedom.

    But he came back with a gift. He could see ghosts. These five short stories bridge the gap between what happened in the immediate aftermath of the crash to his arrival in Crowsmoor, Cornwall, where his help has been summoned in an effort to prevent the return of an ancient evil. Beginnings charts his progress from his first encounter with a ghost to his becoming a recognised investigator into all things paranormal. For readers of the series, these five short stories will be familiar territory. If you haven’t yet met Mike, Beginnings can be read as a stand-alone collection of short stories. Or it may just invite you into Mike’s paranormal world.

    a mother who mysteriously disappears, a stranger who stalks her around London, and even the noble English Grandmother who kicked Saira and her mother out of the family. But when an old graffiti tag in a tube station transports Saira to the 19th Century and she comes face-to-face with Jack the Ripper, she realizes she needs help after all. Saira meets Archer, a charming student who helps her blend in as much as a tall, modern American teen can in Victorian England. He reveals the existence of the Immortals: Time, Nature, Fate, War and Death, and explains to Saira that it is possible to move between centuries – if you are a Descendant of Time. Saira finds unexpected friendships at a boarding school for Immortal Descendants and a complicated love with a young man from the past. But time is running out for her mother, and Saira must embrace her new identity as she hides from Archer a devastating secret about his future that may cost him his life.

    When a young girl is snatched on her way home from school, Matty's police detective father knows that every minute counts. For the first time - but not the last - Detective Roger Turner enlists his son's unique help.With over 130,000 copies sold, the Matt Turner Series launched author Michael Siemsen to bestseller status. The Dig (Book 1) and The Opal (Book 2) hint at the troubled psychometrist's shocking childhood, using his ability to "read" an object's history to help his father solve the worst kinds of crimes. Only now, with the short story Matty are we offered a firsthand glimpse into a young Matt's first case - tracking down a kidnapped girl named Joss Lynn Leland.

    Men and women with abilities science cannot explain. Heroes and monsters. Both beloved and feared, the Titans are the new superpowers in the post-Wave world.Into this changed world are thrust Mercy Garner and her crew, trapped in time for fifty years and thought to be dead. They were the first to detect the Wave, the first to be hit by it, and the last to discover the changes the Wave brought to their world.

    Or a curse. He thinks of them as minor psychic abilities. When Sam is hired by an attractive young nun named Camille Paradisi, he agrees to help discover the identity of a serial killer  in order to prevent Camille’s pastor from being exposed for not reporting the man after a confession – thereby allowing another murder to occur. While Sam’s psychic abilities increase as he investigates the case and gets closer to Camille, he realizes that the enigmatic nun is not revealing the complete truth.Camille shares an old journal anonymously mailed to the church, which she believes may have been authored by the killer/confessor. The journal, which begins in Argentina in the 1940’s,  purports to tell the life story of a man with mind control  and other special powers who claims to be  a descendant of the fallen angels cast out of heaven by God. As Sam  learns more about the murders, the journal author, and Camille, he begins to realize the so called “Rosslyn Ripper” case may have ancient implications beyond his imagination.

    I'm a witch working for a division of the government you've never heard about. The world's not what everyone thinks it is--unless you think that our world's a pawn in a game of chess between Heaven and Hell, and riddled with as much magic and wonder as it is with evil. In that case, the world is exactly what you think. My place of employment--the Office of Preternatural Affairs--takes a modern approach to an ages-old problem. It used to be that inquisitors would burn demons and the people in league with them. Now we get warrants, perform arrests, put the suspects on trial, and send guilty parties back to the Hell from whence they came with the travel forms filled out in triplicate.  This stuff I do with the OPA, it saves lives on most days.  Most days, I said. ABOUT WITCH HUNTThere are scratches on Cèsar Hawke's arms, a discharged Glock on his coffee table, and a dead woman in his bathtub. Yeah, maybe he brought the waitress home for some fun--he was too drunk to remember it--but he knows for a fact that he didn't kill her. He's an agent with the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He doesn't hurt people. He saves them.  The cops disagree. Now Cèsar is running. Isobel Stonecrow speaks with the dead. She brings closure to the bereaved and heals broken hearts. But when she talks to the wrong spirit, the OPA puts a bounty on her head. Tracking down Isobel is the last case assigned to Cèsar before he bolts. If he finds her, he can prove that he didn't kill that waitress. He can clear his name, get his job back, and bring justice to all those wronged families. She's just one witch. He's bagged a dozen witches before. How hard can one more be? ABOUT SILVER BULLETFormer private investigator Cèsar Hawke has one rule: He doesn't deal with dead bodies. That's why he enlisted with the Magical Violations Department in the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He's happy tracking down witches that commit petty crimes, but he leaves the homicides to other agents.  Except that he's been assigned to a new team--a team that handles special investigations--and the job has suddenly changed. Now Cèsar has to deal with dead bodies. He also has to deal with necromancers, murderous cults, and demons that can stop a man's heart with fear.  This isn't the job he signed up for, but it's the job he needs to do.  If he survives the first week.  ABOUT HOTTER THAN HELLTOWNA killer is mutilating bodies in Los Angeles. Agent Cèsar Hawke is on the case, but the murderer is ahead of him--way ahead of him.  Wiping the memories of the dead so that the team's necrocognitive can't talk to them? Done. Preventing magical reconstruction of the crime scenes? Oh yeah. And the murders keep getting more brutal while Cèsar struggles to catch up. The best way to heat up a cold case is to go to Helltown, where Los Angeles's most powerful evil hides out, but even those demons are afraid of the murderer. Their fear adds one more question to the growing pile of unknowns:  What kind of bad guy is too hot for Helltown?

    Earth as we know it has been forever damaged by an arcane storm that fused our world with distant realms of madness and terror. Things that once existed only in our nightmares stalk the earth.Now, humanity is threatened by one of its own.Eric Cross, an enlisted warlock in the Southern Claw military, is part of an elite team of soldiers and mages in pursuit of a woman known as Red -- a witch whose stolen knowledge threatens the future of the human race. The members of Viper Squad will traverse haunted forests and blighted tundra in their search for the traitor, a journey that ultimately leads them to the necropolis of Koth.There, in that haven of renegade undead, Cross will discover the dark origins of magic, and the true meaning of sacrifice...Experience a dark and deadly new world in the debut novel of the "Blood Skies" series from author Steven Montano.

    

    . . ." 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.

     Paranormal at its best! Join Jo Mason and Webb London and the entire team of vampire Navy SEALs as they embark on a journey that is packed with action, intrigue, suspense, and romance. On the Edge of Humanity:When sixteen-year-old Jo Mason’s twin brother is kidnapped by a group of rogue vampires, she learns the only way to save him is to activate her dormant vampire gene. But turning vampire might not be as easy as she thinks, especially when she’s trying to stay alive. On the Edge of Eternity:New vampire Jo Mason is struggling to adjust to her new life. All she’s interested in is doing the things that teenagers do, date, go to movies, and hang out with friends. But her DNA is in high demand, and her number one enemy will do anything to get his hands on Jo. On the Edge of Destiny:Life has never been better for Jo Mason. Her powers are growing, and so is her relationship with the handsome Vampire SEAL, Webb London. Nothing can burst her bubble. Not her upcoming trial for the death of her nemesis, Blake Turner. Not even her enemy who is still trying desperately to get his hands on Jo's DNA. Until she has a recurring dream that involves Webb’s future. But with an important SEAL mission looming to rescue a comrade, Webb can’t trust in an old myth that dreams could be the window to the future. Not when a life is on the line. Not even if it’s his own.On the Edge of Misery:The search for Webb London and his team have all but died. The vast terrain of Alaska’s mountains makes finding anyone impossible, especially with winter on the horizon. But Jo Mason hasn’t given up in trying to find the love of her life. She’s made it her mission to sleep as much as she can since her dreams are a window to the future. Only she can’t seem to fall into a deep enough sleep. The stress of losing Webb has taken its toll on her. But she may not have to dream at all. Not when one phone call gives her hope that Webb could still be alive. The problem is the only way to know for sure that Webb is breathing is to trade her life for his. And for Jo, that’s an easy decision until the caller demands she must come alone. Only she can’t make one move without her father, her brother, or any of the military guards knowing. So she’ll have to do the impossible to save Webb.On the Edge of Infinity:Vibrant and powerful vampire, Jo Mason has had a rough road her entire life. She's been in foster care, assaulted, bullied, and in a twist of fate beyond all imagination, has lost her humanity. But immortality isn’t that much different than being a human. She still has a bully who’s making her life miserable. Only he’s a hundred times more powerful than anyone she’s encountered. With her supernatural powers stronger than ever, she shouldn’t have a problem defending herself or even her loved ones. But no amount of supernatural abilities can save her when she’s staring death in the face once again. Navy SEAL, Webb London knew the minute he laid eyes on Jo he would marry her one day. But with her father in jail for murder, a mole within the SEAL team, and learning that the humans within CIA want to build super soldiers using vampire DNA he doesn’t have time to think about marriage or his future. He and the SEAL team can’t let the humans get their hands on any vampire DNA. But the list of growing problems is the least of his worries when he finds himself pleading for Jo’s life.