Book picks similar to
Faster by Calvin Demmer


horror
short-story
short-stories
fiction

Ararat


Christopher Golden - 2017
    The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that many quickly come to believe is really Noah’s Ark. When a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses. The artifact tempts their professional curiosity; so they break it open. Inside, they find an ugly, misshapen cadaver—not the holy man that they expected, a hideous creature with horns. A massive blizzard blows in, trapping them in that cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain…but they are not alone.

Rosemary's Baby


Ira Levin - 1967
    But by the time Rosemary discovers the horrifying truth, it may be far too late!

Stay Awake


Dan Chaon - 2012
    Now, in Stay Awake, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his masterly Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award.In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection—and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations.A father’s life is upended by his son’s night terrors—and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of “empty-nest syndrome”; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes—on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there’s something off, something sinister, in his late parents’ house.Dan Chaon’s stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm—in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

The Twisted Ones


T. Kingfisher - 2019
    After all, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself. Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale. From Hugo Award–winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.

The Ice Twins


S.K. Tremayne - 2015
    When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the past—what really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall


Katie Alender - 2015
    Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females—an insane asylum nicknamed “Hysteria Hall.” However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself.But the house still wants to keep “troubled” girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia gets trapped.And that’s when she learns that the house is also haunted.Ghost girls wander the halls in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia finds that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, as well, harbors shocking truths within its walls—truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free.But she’ll need to act quickly, before the house’s power overtakes everything she loves.From master of suspense Katie Alender comes a riveting tale of twisted memories and betrayals, and the meaning of madness.

The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories


Kevin Brockmeier - 2021
    Kevin Brockmeier's fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive--or, as it happens, not to be.

The Nightmare Room


Chris Sorensen - 2018
    New York audiobook narrator Peter Larson and his wife Hannah head to his hometown of Maple City to help Peter's ailing father and to put a recent tragedy behind them. Though the small, Midwestern town seems the idyllic place to start afresh, Peter and Hannah will soon learn that evil currents flow beneath its surface. They move into an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town—a house purchased by Peter's father at auction and kept secret until now—and start to settle into their new life. But as Peter sets up his recording studio in a small basement room, disturbing things begin to occur—mysterious voices haunt audio tracks, malevolent shadows creep about the house. And when an insidious presence emerges from the woodwork, Peter must face old demons in order to save his family and himself.

Please Remain Calm


Courtney Summers - 2015
    Rhys is determined to reunite with Sloane until he discovers people who might need him more--people who offer him the closest he'll get to everything he's lost, if they can just hold on long enough. Rhys thinks he has what it takes to survive and find the girl he lost, but in a world overrun by the dead, there are no guarantees and the next leg of his journey will test him in unimaginable ways ...

We Need to Do Something


Max Booth III - 2020
    An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM IFC MIDNIGHT, STARRING SIERRA MCCORMICK, VINESSA SHAW, AND PAT HEALY.A family on the verge of self-destruction finds themselves isolated in their bathroom during a tornado warning.Includes an introduction from Sean King O'Grady (director of the film adaptation) and a brand-new afterword from Max Booth III.

Extraction


Douglas Preston - 2012
    In New Orleans' French Quarter, the Tooth Fairy isn't a benevolent sprite who slips money under your pillow at night....he's a mysterious old recluse who must be appeased with teeth--lest he extract retribution. When young Diogenes Pendergast loses a tooth, however, his skeptical older brother Aloysius is determined to put the legend to the test...with dire consequences. *Includes a special preview chapter of Preston & Child's new full-length novel TWO GRAVES, available December 11, 2012.

Anna's Sister


Amy Cross - 2021
    The same farm where her sister now lives all alone.As soon as he reaches the farm, Stephen can tell that something's wrong. Anna's sister is behaving strangely, and the land surrounding the farm is clearly dying. The old farmhouse has changed, from a happy family home to little more than a ruin. And Anna's sister seems very keen to get hold of the ashes...

The Hollow Ones


Guillermo del Toro - 2020
    A rookie FBI agent in dangerous, uncharted territory. An extraordinary hero for the ages.Odessa Hardwicke's life is derailed when she's forced to turn her gun on her partner, Walt Leppo, a decorated FBI agent who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer. The shooting, justified by self-defense, shakes the young FBI agent to her core. Devastated, Odessa is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what most troubles Odessa isn't the tragedy itself-it's the shadowy presence she thought she saw fleeing the deceased agent's body after his death. Questioning her future with the FBI and her sanity, Hardwicke accepts a low-level assignment to clear out the belongings of a retired agent in the New York office. What she finds there will put her on the trail of a mysterious figure named John Silence, a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity's best and only defense against unspeakable evil.

Alex


Adam J. Nicolai - 2011
    A bereaved father. Alone with his loss, Ian Colmes has driven away everyone he loves. But when he begins to see his dead son again, is it because the boy is reaching out from beyond? Or has Ian's anguish finally given way to dementia?With a masterful hand, suspense newcomer Adam J Nicolai paints a picture of grief, madness, and the furious strength of a father's love for his son.

Terrifying Tales


Edgar Allan Poe - 2014
    Here, in one volume, are his masterpieces of mystery, terror, humor, and adventure, including stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, and The Pit and the Pendulum, to name just a few, that defined American romanticism and secured Poe as one of the most enduring literary voices of the nineteenth century.