Three stories, three ghosts: a picture in a tower depicts a dangerous woman; a young woman marries an older man and arrives at his house, only to find that his dead wife is still there; and a dead man walks through a house every night, because sometimes the dead do come back.

    Inspired by Alfred Noyes's famous poem, and spanning subjects from the strictly human to the supernatural, this book will take readers on an adventure they'll never forget.v • The Highwayman • (1946) • poem by Alfred Noyes11 • Wreckers, Rooks, and Books: An Introduction • essay by Jennifer Roberson17 • Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride • novelette by Esther M. Friesner [as by Esther Friesner]41 • Kid Binary and the Two-Bit Gang • short story by Michael A. Stackpole61 • The Moonlight Flit • short story by Rosemary Edghill79 • The Bandido of Pozoseco • short story by Kate Daniel97 • We Met Upon the Road • short story by Doris Egan [as by Jane Emerson]117 • Where Angels Fear to Tread • short story by Laura Anne Gilman137 • Diana's Foresters • short story by Susan Shwartz155 • Fool's Gold • novelette by Doranna Durgin177 • Highwayscape with Gods • poem by Lawrence Schimel183 • The Bishop's Coffer • short story by Janny Wurts199 • The Abbot of Croxton • short story by Melanie Rawn215 • The Dowry • short story by Kathy Chwedyk227 • The Rest of the Story • short story by Bruce D. Arthurs247 • Watch for Me by Moonlight • short story by Lois Tilton259 • The Forest's Justice • short story by Josepha Sherman273 • Highway to Heaven • short story by Laura Resnick287 • Rogue's Moon • short story by Teresa Edgerton307 • Ghost Rot • novelette by Jo Clayton331 • For King and Country • short story by Deborah J. Ross [as by Deborah Wheeler]347 • A Slight Detour on the Road to Happyland • short story by Ashley McConnell365 • Though Hell Should Bar the Way • novelette by A. C. Crispin and Christie Golden387 • By the Time I Get to Phoenix • short story by Jennifer Roberson395 • The Lesser of ... • novelette by Dennis L. McKiernan

    They represent more than 150 year's worth of writing, and include the greats: H.P. Lovecraft ("The Terrible Old Man"), Ambrose Bierce ("The Stranger"), Lafcadio Hearn ("A Dead Secret"), Oscar Wilde ("The Sphinx Without a Secret"), and J. Sheridan Le Fanu ("The Ghost and the Bone-Setter"). Best of all, a variety of human emotions and behavior come to the fore, from avarice (August Derleth's "Pacific 421") to revenge (Thorp McCluskey's "Black Gold"), from jealousy (Steve Rasnic Tem's "Daddy") to honor (Edith Nesbit's "John Charrington's Wedding") to love (Darrell Schwietzer's "Clocks"). Using a minimum of elements, each ghost story in this collection will entertain, captivate, and evoke a powerful response in readers. So be warned: you might not want to read these while you're all alone in the house...

     Includes a preview of Christopher Fowler’s upcoming Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery, Bryant & May and the Burning Man!  The streets of London are covered in twinkling lights and freshly fallen snow, but the mood inside the Christmas department of Selfridges is decidedly less cheery. Bryant and May have arrived there to investigate the death of an eleven-year-old boy who inexplicably fled the store after a routine visit to Santa’s Wonderland. Their only clue is a torn scrap of blue cloth discovered at the scene. Now, Bryant and May are making a list of suspects, but they’d better check it twice to catch a shifty culprit in disguise.  Praise for Christopher Fowler’s brilliant Peculiar Crimes Unit novels   “Fowler, like his crime-solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive.” —Entertainment Weekly   “Delectably droll . . . brainy and pure.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times   “Fowler reinvents and reinvigorates the traditional police procedural.”—The Boston Globe  “May and Bryant make a stellar team.” —The Wall Street Journal   “Fowler has few peers when it comes to constructing ingenious and intricate plots.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    For official purposes, these agents do not exist. They are sent out on missions to spy on terrorists, hack into crucial documents, and gather intel on global threats—all without gadgets or weapons. It is an exceptionally dangerous job, but these agents have one crucial advantage: adults never suspect that teens are spying on them. James is the latest CHERUB recruit. He’s a bit of a troublemaker, but he’s also brilliant. And CHERUB needs him. James has no idea what to expect, but he’s out of options. Before he can start in the field he must first survive one hundred grueling days of basic training, where even the toughest recruits don’t make it to the end.Class ADrugs, cars and guns! Keith Moore is Europe's biggest cocaine dealer. The police have been trying to get enough evidence to nail him for more than twenty years. Now, four CHERUB agents are joining the hunt. Can a group of kids successfully infiltrate Keith Moore's organisation when dozens of attempts by undercover police officers have failed? James Adams must start at the bottom, making deliveries for small time drug dealers and getting to know the dangerous underworld they inhabit. He needs to make a big splash if he's going to win the confidence of the man at the top.

    Lost Tribe features stories and commentary from a brilliant mixture of critically acclaimed and emerging writers.Steve AlmondAimee BenderGabriel BrownsteinJudy BudnitzNathan EnglanderJonathan Safran FoerMyla GoldbergEhud HavazeletDara HornRachel KadishGloria DeVidas KirchheimerBinnie KirshenbaumJoan LeegantMichael LowenthalEllen MillerTova MirvisPeter OrnerJon PapernickNelly ReiflerBen SchrankSuzan ShermanGary ShteyngartAryeh Lev StollmanEllen UmanskySimone Zelitch

    She has uncovered a deadly secret but will anyone believe her? Can she stay alive long enough to persuade them she is right?

    He had just lost the man he was trailing and then got into a crazy highway chase with a Cadillac. Now he just wanted to get some sleep. But his thoughts of sleep ended when a screaming brunette woke him with her screams and a hand covered in blood. It looked like a murder, but where was the victim? And Lew Archer only had one suspect―an imaginary blonde that nobody seems to have seen.

    5,000 words (16 pages).For Bafion, there is no farther to fall. Once a banneret, officer, and gentleman, he is none of those things now. He is a swordsman who has slipped through the cracks of society and is eking out an existence as a thug for hire.Bafion is presented with the opportunity to reclaim some of what was lost to him, but to do so will mean facing part of his past that he would rather forget.The Swordsman of Tanosa is a swashbuckling fantasy short story set in the same world as the Society of the Sword trilogy.

    Many of the events in his life, and the characters whom he knew, are described in his books: this is the story of the man who wrote them.

    Today, as he passes the door, he glances at its peeling paint. Moments later he stops dead in his tracks. He returns to the spot, and all he sees is an ivy-covered wall. The door has vanished! He unwittingly embarks on an exciting trail of events with twists, turns, quantum entanglement and temporal anomalies. It becomes an unbelievable adventure to save humanity which you’ll be unable to put down. The Door is an intriguing and unique science fiction mystery from the pen of Tony Harmsworth, the First Contact specialist who writes in the style of the old masters. Discover the astonishing secrets being concealed by The Door today!

    They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death. They have only one hope: The ‘Rescue Project’ was designed to feed the black hole in the center of the galaxy until it becomes a quasar, delivering much-needed energy to humankind during its last breaths. But then something happens that no one ever expected—and humanity is forced to look at itself and its existence in an entirely new way. Hard Science Fiction.

    Following his invitation to "browse through my gallery", readers will find ghoulish ghost stories "designed to frighten and instruct" -- instruct, that is, about the strange existence ghosts must endure! Stories include Miss Emmeline Takes Off by Walter Brooks; The Valley of the Beasts by Algernon Blackwood; The Haunted Trailer by Robert Arthur; The Truth About Pyecraft by H.G. Wells; The Isle of Voices by Robert Louis Stevenson; and more. Parents and kids can't help but chuckle at Hitchcock's comment, "I don't want to appear disloyal to television, but I think reading will be good for you." Contains some very spooky two-color illustrations by Fred Banbery.

    

    When their only way out was into the magic-infested chaos of the Pelagir Hills, Tarma was worried, but then Kethry's enchanted sword Need led them to their new employer, and things got truly strange.From Crossroads & Other Tales of Valdemar.