How did he allow the other person to die? How did he help the other person to hang himself to death? He was terribly upset about this. The moment his eyes saw a rope in any form he used to remember everything.........

    And when a face in the mirror confronts her with a dire warning, she realizes her life is at risk. Has she awakened a curse—or been struck by madness? “Queen Joanna” presents a haunting twist on the legend of Bloody Mary. This short story originally appeared in the From the Indie Side anthology.

     Every teenage girl has a diary in which she vents her frustrations with siblings and parents. But a zombie apocalypse? This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things During the Zombie Apocalypse is a comedic adventure about a teenage girl, her frustrating family, two high-spirited dogs, and a neighborhood of loveable rednecks coming together to survive a zombie outbreak.

    

    She is searching for a new girl to join her ranks, at least temporarily. Neva Mulroney falls into Ophelia's clutches, but she's got a few tricks of her own.

    Now, collected together for the first time in a single volume, are three of his finest tales of the West. The texts have been restored to their original appearances in magazines.In “The Lion Hunter and the Lady,” Cat Morgan is plying his trade—trying to bag a mountain lion alive in order to sell it to a circus or zoo. As he and Long John William try to lure the cat from a tree, they’re interrupted by a lynch posse, the leader of which accuses Cat and Long John of running off his horse herd—and they intend to hang them right where they stand!“The Trail to Peach Meadow Cañon” tells of Mike Bastian, who has been raised by an outlaw chief, Ben Curry, and trained in frontier skills by Curry’s most trusted associates.Jed Ashbury was stripped and forced to run the gauntlet by the Indians in “Riding for the Brand.” Able to outfit himself from the contents of a covered wagon that had been attacked and left behind, Jed also learns what the mission of those killed in the attack was and determines to push forward with it—regardless of the consequences.Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns—books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians—are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Those two little words can mean so much. But how will things end...and will it hurt? That’s what we really want to know. Delve into the darkness and join us at the end of the world. From a blighted sky to an invasion from beyond, from untethered time to one person driven beyond the edge of sanity, from a child’s game to an unseen apocalypse...it’s all imagined here, and imagined darkly. Inside The Ways We End is a combination of new stories and previously published anthology tales, now re-imagined without word limits, including Cottage of Hunger, The Mergens, The Mountains of Five, The Bridge, Rock or Shell, and A Mother So Beautiful.

    She is to solve the clue in the envelope to find the next clue. Each clue will lead to another until she finds her husband and her anniversary surprise. Excited to celebrate their day, she solves the first riddle and finds the next clue. As one clue leads to another, the tasks become harder and the clues hint at a more devious plan. A terrible reality dawns on her as she realizes she must complete the game to its end to save her marriage and possibly her life. Rachel’s adventure is not the celebration she imagined, and the creator of the game has a different prize in mind. At the end of the game, he waits for her to complete his revenge. But who created the game? Why does he seek revenge? And who will be waiting for her at the end of her Scavenger Hunt?

    When Frank, Shelley and their two young children move into the home of their dreams, they discover a problem with the cellar.It doesn't take them long to find out why the house was sold at a knock-down price.

    Shielded from humanity, the Otherside is watched over by the BTCO, a highly secret government agency, whose members all possess 'The Knack', a genetic anomaly that allows them to see this other world. Franklyn 'Bermuda' Jones is the BTCO's finest agent, the only human to have passed to the Otherside and returned. Gifted with the ability to physically interact with both worlds, Bermuda reluctantly stands between both worlds, pining for the life he had to leave behind and the daughter he can no longer see. Teamed with Argyle, an enigmatic Otherside warrior, Bermuda is assigned the case of a missing woman who has vanished under mysterious circumstances.As Bermuda delves further into the disappearance, he uncovers a threat that could destroy the truce between two worlds...and finds himself in a race against time to safeguard humanity's very existence. Discover a new world in this fast-paced urban fantasy packed with thrills, action and the odd one liner.

    However, though I think some of them are great, some aren’t, and some are profoundly dated. I am aware that there are those out there, who will just buy these without a second thought, so I have to edit, be selective, and I damned well have to show some respect for my readers. Kindle in this respect can be a danger for a known writer, because you can publish any old twaddle and someone will buy it. Time and again, I’ve had fans, upon hearing that I have this and that unpublished in my files, demanding that I publish it at once because surely they’ll love it. No they won’t. A reputation like trust: difficult to build and easy to destroy. I’ve therefore chosen stories other people have published here and there, and filled in with those I really think someone should have published. Here you’ll find some Polity tales, some that could have been set in the Polity (at a stretch) and some from the bleak Owner universe. Enjoy! Neal Asher 04/06/18

    That all changed when Eric Edgar Cooke launched his one-man crime wave, a spree of senseless killing that shocked Perth, changing the city and its inhabitants forever. Read the horrific account of Cooke's killings as well as the stories of many other Australian serial killers – doing it because they had the urge and ... because they enjoyed it too much to stop. Contents: Eric Edgar Cooke, William the Mutilator Macdonald, Paul Charles Denyer, Ivan Milat, The Snowtown Murderers, John Wayne Glover, Peter Dupas, Catherine and David Birnie

    R. James is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.According to James, a story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself: 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"

    or at least I did until my life became one. My name is Stone and this is my story. Let me take you on a trip back to when I had only one voice in my head, MY OWN!”And with just those few words the doors to the Funhouse Of Horrors opened to the world. Young Jacob, while on a family picnic, stumbles upon an old abandoned house in the woods just a week before Halloween. The wretched dwelling is being prepared to be used as a one-night only Haunted House! A strange worker, known only as Ole Scratch, sees Jacob 'Jake' Stone and gives him a book with two tickets inside that change his life — or what's left of it after the ghosts are done with him! And the ghosts are NEVER done with Jake. As he grows, so does the terror. Deciding that the ghouls and goblins are never going to take a hint, and leave him to rest in peace, Jake Stone decides to become a ghost writer. It would seem that the living impaired have a lot to say. Yet legend has it, that all who read Stone’s tales of woe, begin to see the dead everywhere they go! Enter if you dare... into the Funhouse of Horrors!"CARNIVAL COMICS" and "FUNHOUSE OF HORRORS" are Registered Trademarks.

    While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.The husband stitch --Inventory --Mothers --Especially heinous --Real women have bodies --Eight bites --The resident --Difficult at parties