The Haunting of the Desks: A Sparks & Bainbridge Short Story


Allison Montclair - 2021
    

Thirty Scary Tales


Rayne Hall - 2013
    Please note: these stories have been previously published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies as well as in the Six Scary Tales collections.British English.

Black Cocktail


Jonathan Carroll - 1990
    Michael is the sort of friend whose funny tales and charm can pull you out of the lowest depths and make life good once more. Along comes Clinton Deix, a friend of Michael's, who tells Ingram that most of those stories are lies. It isn't long before Ingram doesn't know who to believe, and what most confuses and upsets him is that both say they are old school chums. But Michael is in his late thirties while Clinton is still fifteen...

The Plummeting Old Women


Daniil Kharms - 1989
    These texts are characterized by a startling and macabre novelty, with elements of the grotesque, fantastic and child-like touching the imagination of the everyday. They express the cultural landscape of Stalinism -- years of show trials, mass atrocities and stifled political life. Their painful, unsettling eloquence testify to the humane and the comic in this absurdist writer's work. The translator Neil Cornwall gives a biographical introduction to his subject, enlarged upon by the poet Hugh Maxton in a contextual assessment of the writing of Flann O'Brien, Le Fanu and Doyle, and of their shared concerns with detective fiction, terror and death. Daniil Kharms 91905-42) died under Stalin. Along with fellow poets and prose-writers of the era -- Khlebnikov, Biely, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky and Pasternak -- he is one of the emerging experimentalists of Russian modernism.

The Ghost in Mr. Pepper's Bed


Sigrid Vansandt - 2016
    When poor Mr. Pepper wakes up to the loving snuggles of a ghostly femme fatale, his dead wife isn’t happy and does her best to kick the interloper to the curb. That’s when the park's owner calls in Sonya Caruthers, local ghost whisperer. Sonya’s on the job to convince the ghoulish home wrecker to rest in peace somewhere other than Mr. Pepper’s bed. But when human bones are uncovered at the site of the RV park's new pool, the police get involved. They aren’t crazy about a spirit therapist sticking her nose into their murder investigation. Sonya has to move fast. Ghosts can turn dark if they're left to wander. She’ll need all the help she can get from her two best friends, Lord Fitswilliam Dunbar, a dead but definitely high-spirited Scottish Laird, and her adorable little dog, Willard. These two don’t always get along, but when dealing with the living and the dead, they’ve got Sonya’s back. Come share in the hometown hijinks. Don’t forget to bring a healthy appetite for good food, romantic entanglements, and some lighthearted adventure. There’s always room for one more at Sonya’s kitchen table. This cozy mystery series contains no graphic violence, sex, or strong language. The Genre is: humorous cozy mysteries / cozy mystery culinary / female detective cozy mystery series / women amateur sleuth / British detective mystery MARSDEN - LACEY COZY MYSTERY SERIES Two Birds With One Stone (Book 1) Murder Travels in Threes (Book 2) Pudding Poison & Pie (Book 3) Death Drinks Darjeeling (Book 4) THE WILLOW VALLEY SERIES The Ghost in Mr. Peppers Bed (Book 1)

Horror At Halloween: Part One


John Gordon - 2011
    Nobody can really explain it. You just have to understand that bizarre things happen there. They just do. Weird things. The kind of things you don’t even want to dream about in your worst nightmares.Trick-or-treat is crazy enough, with ghosts and goblins and witches and warlocks and all manner of other horrors roaming the streets. But in Oxrun Station, the masks aren’t always made of rubber.In his new hometown, British teenager Sam Jones discovers that a legendary backwoods bogeyman has risen from the grave to seek revenge against those who put him there . . .The fabric of the cosmos is unravelling and dark and dangerous things are leaking across the borders . . . For five unsuspecting teenagers, their lives will never be the same again as they discover the hidden terrors lurking beneath the surface of their quiet town and experience the most horrifying Halloween of them all . . .This year in Oxrun Station, THE TRICK IS TO STAY ALIVE!

A Cold Place For Dying


Kristopher Triana - 2021
    Having lost his wife, Joe Whitaker is spending the day hunting deer with bow and arrow in the mountains of New England. He finds a sense of peace getting back to nature, and even leaves his phone in his truck, wanting to free himself from the everyday world for a few hours. But no sooner does he enter the woods than his peace is interrupted by Nicole, a frantic woman running barefoot through the snow. She claims she was kidnapped and had managed to escape, but the man who imprisoned her is now on her tail and won’t stop until she’s his hostage again.Joe wants to help Nicole, but when he comes across Dan, the man pursuing her, he’s told Nicole has a serious mental illness and is delusional. Dan claims he isn't her kidnapper - he’s her husband. As a snowstorm bears down on the mountain, Joe soon finds himself in a deadly triangle with a mysterious man and a panicked woman, not knowing who to trust. If he makes the wrong choice, it might just cost him his life.

The Canterville Ghost


Oscar Wilde - 1887
    The family -- which refuses to believe in him -- is in Wilde's way a commentary on the British nobility of the day -- and on the Americans, too. The tale, like many of Wilde's, is rich with allusion, but ends as sentimental romance...

Tampa Bait


Edgar Winner - 2012
    Because if you do, you may find out what happens when a former cop with a gun and nothing to lose decides to push back

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories


Jeffrey Ford - 2002
    One tale recounts the author's search for a Kafka story that can only be found in an elusive and quite possibly cursed edition. Other stories feature humans dressing in full-body protective exoskins in the personas of old Hollywood movie stars to barter old Earth movies for an alien aphrodisiac and a young boy coming to terms with creation and moulding his own man out of detritus from a nearby forest. In the title story, a great fantasy writer loses touch with the world he has created and pleads with his young assistant to help him visualise the story's end and enable him to complete his greatest novel ever.

The Zombie Night Before Christmas


H. Parker Kelley - 2010
    Get ready to have a holly jolly zombie holiday with this monstrously funny mash-up that subverts all that tiresomely good Christmas cheer. Clement C. Moore's verses are tweaked and twisted, turning a once-cozy fireside read-aloud on its (now brainless) head. To complete the sacrilege: hilarious renderings of zombie stockings (undead legs ) hung by the chimney with care, and St. Nick attempting to repel a full-out, flesh-devouring zombie attack. One thing's for sure--Santa and his eight tiny reindeer will never be the same

Gil's All Fright Diner


A. Lee Martinez - 2005
    . . .Duke and Earl are just passing through Rockwood county in their pick-up truck when they stop at the diner for a quick bite to eat. They aren't planning to stick around--until Loretta, the eatery's owner, offers them one hundred dollars to take care of her zombie problem. Given that Duke is a werewolf and Earl's a vampire, this looks right up their alley.But the shambling dead are just the tip of a particularly spiky iceberg. Seems someone's out to drive Loretta from the diner, and more than willing to raise a little hell on earth if that's what it takes. Before Duke and Earl get to the bottom of the diner's troubles, they'll run into such otherworldly complications as undead cattle, an amorous ghost, a jailbait sorceress, and the terrifying occult power of pig Latin.And maybe--just maybe--the End of the World, too.Gory, sexy, and flat-out hilarious, Gil's All Fright Diner will tickle your funny bone--before ripping it out of its socket!

The Businessman


Thomas M. Disch - 1984
    His wife was dead, and no one suspected him of the murder. His mother-in-law was dying, and would probably leave him an inheritance. With both of them gone, Bob could live the good life. But then Bob's wife came back from the grave . . . and she brought her mother with her.

Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories


Susan Gabriel - 2015
     Whether white or black, living or dead, down home country or upscale urban, Gabriel’s characters are quirky, poignant and deep. They include: A Gullah woman using folk magic to cast her latest spell. A girl coming-of-age dealing with death in 1940s Tennessee. A wealthy Savannah matriarch with gastrointestinal issues guarding family secrets. A good ol’ boy observing himself shortly after his death. An agoraphobic woman striking up a unique friendship with the girl across the street. And a band of seventy-year-olds finding healing in a mountain stream. Written in the tradition of Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, the eight short stories in Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories are all rooted in the southern landscape—from the steamy coast of Georgia, to the current day Atlanta suburbs, to the ancient Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Pull up a rocker on the front porch, take a sip of your sweet iced tea and lose yourself in these original stories of soulful southerners and their sultry landscape.

iZombie, Vol. 1: Dead to the World


Chris Roberson - 2010
    Once a month she must eat a human brain to keep from losing her memories, but in the process she becomes consumed with the thoughts and personality of the dead person – until she eats her next brain. She sets out to fulfill the dead person’s last request, solve a crime or right a wrong.Our zombie girl detective is joined by a radical supporting cast: her best friend Eleanor, who happens to be a swinging ’60s ghost, a posse of paintball blasting vampires, a smitten were-dog and a hot but demented mummy.Collects issues #1-5