But below the surface, there are scars.Then his world changes. For reasons he doesn't understand, Sam is thrust back in time to 1968, the summer he turned thirteen. He meets his parents and his own childhood self.That summer changed Sam's world. Monsters walked the streets of his hometown, and now Sam will come face to face with those monsters again, this time as an adult.Nothing will ever be the same.

    At noon, the murdered child begs for his help. And by nightfall, they have killed a man together and set off into the afterlife, where nothing is what it was, and death is only the beginning of punishment. An eerie story about the nature of death and the self, Midnight Picnic inhabits an American landscape made strange and unfamiliar. From the author of the cult novel Fires, Midnight Picnic is a haunting and disturbing experience.

    Originally available only in limited-edition hardcover, these tales run the gamut from devilish fantasy to twisted courtroom drama to vampire-robot western. Each story has an introduction in which the author relates the background of and inspiration for the story, whether it was drawn from history, literature, or pure imagination. The title story, about a serial killer in Texas in the 1930s, won the 1999 Bram Stoker Horror Award for long fiction.

    At the time it seems like the perfect place to do it, so quiet, so secluded. But they have no way of knowing that they've moved into what was once a sacred site of an old religion. And that the old god is not dead--only waiting. Already the god's dark power has begun to spread, changing and polluting all that it touches. A hideous evil pervades the small town. Soon the dead no longer stay dead. When the power awakens the rotting crew of a ship that sank decades earlier, a nightmare of bloodshed and violence begins for the Stainforths, a nightmare that can end only with the ultimate sacrifice--death.

    His friend and one-time lover, deputy district attorney Allison Roche, wants him to slip into the mind of serial killer Henry Lake "Spanky" Spanning because after successfully damning Spanning to the electric chair for 29 murders, she has fallen in love with him and wants to be sure of his innocence.

    Located beyond life, The Library of Lost Childhood Memories holds the answer. The Librarian is Mr. Wicker—a seductive yet sinister creature with an unthinkable past and an agenda just as lethal. After committing suicide, Alicia finds herself before the Librarian, who informs her that her lost memory is not only the reason she took her life, but the cause of every bad thing that has happened to her. Alicia spurns Mr. Wicker and attempts to enter the hereafter without the Book that would make her spirit whole. But instead of the oblivion she craves, she finds herself in a psychiatric hold at Bayford Hospital, where the staff is more pernicious than its patients.Child psychiatrist Dr. James Farron is researching an unusual phenomenon: traumatized children whisper to a mysterious figure in their sleep. When they awaken, they forget both the traumatic event and the character that kept them company in their dreams—someone they call "Mr. Wicker."During an emergency room shift, Dr. Farron hears an unconscious Alicia talking to Mr. Wicker—the first time he's heard of an adult speaking to the presence. Drawn to the mystery, and then to each other, they team up to find the memory before it annihilates Alicia for good. To do so they must struggle not only against Mr. Wicker's passions, but also a powerful attraction that threatens to derail her search, ruin Dr. Farron’s career, and inflame the Librarian’s fury.After all, Mr. Wicker wants Alicia to himself, and will destroy anyone to get what he wants. Even Alicia herself.

    Includes three previously unpublished stories, and two stories which have been filmed for "The Hunger" TV series: 'The Secret Shih-Tan' and 'Anais.'

    Two of the 14 selections are early works: a negligible, almost plotless humor piece, "But First These Words," and an unconvincing horror story, "The Totem Pole," interesting mostly for its vintageit's from a 1939 Weird Tales. The other 12 date from the past decade and include "The Spoiled Bride," a comic, if rather grim, tale of a future in which men can choose their mates from among the cryogenically frozen; a character study of a psychotic Nazi type who murders a little Jewish girl, "The Rubber Room"; and "Everybody Needs a Little Love," the all-too-predictable tale of a man who takes a store mannequin for a companion. Best in the book are a well-wrought tale of adultery and revenge, "The Night Before Christmas," and a deal-with-the-devil story, "Picture."Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

    In return for promised riches, the diver becomes the servant of Adrian deVille, Lord Varre, the creature who has called to him. It's a bargain the diver will come to regret. Varre enlists him in a hunt for a man named Tyler Hawthorne.Ten years later, in a canyon in the foothills above Los Angeles, Amanda Clarke has become curious about her new neighbor, Tyler Hawthorne. He's not home much, but others tell her that her new neighbor is about her age -- twenty-four. He's also wealthy, handsome, and single.Amanda soon suspects that another description can be added to the list of Tyler's attributes: con artist. When Tyler shows up at the hospice room of her friend Ron and tells the dying man he'll live, Amanda angrily resents Tyler for giving Ron false hope.Until Ron begins to recover.Although Tyler continues to puzzle her, Amanda finds herself drawn to him.Tyler finds himself drawn to Amanda as well, but he has a secret he must keep from her: he's been twenty-four for almost two hundred years.Two centuries ago, he bargained for his life. In exchange, he became a Messenger, one who hears the final thoughts of the dying and conveys those last messages to their loved ones. Since that time, his life has been nomadic and -- except for the companionship of a remarkable black dog -- solitary.The dying also convey messages to Tyler and now they are hinting that his long service may be coming to an end. He begins to hope that he can return to a normal, mortal life and allows himself to grow closer to Amanda, unaware that he is being pursued by an old enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy him and that he can only leave his role as the Messenger behind at a dreadful cost.

    Paul, Minnesota, 1939. The body of a beautiful dime-a-dance girl is found on a hillside, and Police Lieutenant Wesley Horner, struggling and alone after his wife's recent death, heads the investigation into her murder. His chief suspect is Herbert White, an eccentric recluse and hobby photographer who spends his days recording his life in detailed journal entries and scrapbooks. In Mr. White's Confession, Robert Clark illuminates the complex relationships between truth and fiction, past and present, faith and memory.

    But the people of Haven have at last found a warrior to battle the ruthless Sea People attacking them--a warrior imbued with the spirit of the Sun Hound. And if Kyre loses, Haven may not be the only thing destroyed.

    At the heart of each is Angie's daughter, Kaya. Angie's dreams end in death, the spreading of hand-shaped bruises across her daughter's throat. Curtis' dreams end in something else, something closer to obsession than love. Angie is worlds away, trying to keep her drug-shattered mind from falling apart, traveling through an American underbelly filled with inhuman shapes, dark whispers and old friends with empty eyes. Curtis is Kaya's new neighbor. He's getting closer to her, and her mentally unstable grandmother, Colleen. He's had families before, but he'd always made mistakes. Mistakes that led to new names, new towns. But this one time, he swears, things will all work out. He's got so much love to give. Siren Promised Featuring an introduction from author Simon Clark, over thirty illustrations by Alan M. Clark and an afterword by the book's creators, Siren Promised sets a new benchmark in visual and written storytelling.

    It continues after midnight, when a young boy, held captive in a basement, is filled with unearthly visions of fantastic and frightening worlds. How could his kidnappers know that the ransom would be their own souls? For, as the hours pass, the boy's nightmares invade his captors like parasites-and soon, they become real.This audiobook also contains the short stories "Underworld," "O Rare and Most Esquisite," "The Rendering Man," "The Fruit of Her Womb," "The Hurting Season," "Chosen," "The Night Before Alec Got Married," "Only Connect," "The Little Mermaid," "Damned if You Do," and "The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon." You can also listen to the acclaimed novelettes, "White Chapel" and "I am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes."

      Marla Neuborn has found the best post-grad job in the world – as a 'Lamplighter' working on Meditrine Island, an exclusive idyllic paradise owned and operated by a consortium of billionaires. All Lamplighters have to do is tend to the mansions, cook and clean, and turn on lights to make it appear the owners are home. But the job comes with conditions. Marla will not know the exact location of the island, and she will have no contact with the outside world for the duration of her stay.  Once on the island, Marla quickly learns the billionaire lifestyle is not all it is made out to be. The chief of security rules Meditrine with an iron fist. His private police force patrols the shores night and day, and CCTV cameras watch the Lamplighters relentlessly. Soon Marla will also discover first-hand that the island hides a terrible secret. She’ll meet the resident known as the Skin Mechanic. And she’ll find out why so few Lamplighters ever leave the island alive.

    A handsome author strikes up a conversation with an actress in a bookshop in Manhattan, and she knows this is the start of something that will change her life forever.