A young man finds out from a fortune teller that there’s always a price to be paid. A rich man doesn’t quite have the 25th high school reunion experience he expected. Beware of strangers on a train. A dog may not be man’s best friend. An aging hitman takes a trip down memory lane.

    Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)

    Konrath: "Crouch is one of the best thriller short story writers I know. He uses words like an artist uses a paintbrush; to hurt, to stun, to shock, to provoke, to touch. This collection also features my very favorite short story of all time. Not just my favorite by Crouch, but the best one I've ever read by anyone. It's called "Unconditional." It is flat-out brilliant and unforgettable, and that one tale is worth the price of this entire collection." From the author of DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS comes this complete collection of short stories and novellas. *69 - Tim and Laura West receive a bizarre voicemail on their answering machine that seems to have unintentionally recorded a brutal murder. But what happens when the killer realizes their mistake? This story develops over one terrifying evening, and this young couple will never be the same. REMAKING - Tragic events unfold in a snowy, sleepy Colorado town. From the first scene, in which a man sits alone in the cold, watching a father and son in a diner, you know something is about to go horribly wrong. You may think you know what's happening, but in this thrilling, heartbreaking story, nothing is as it seems. ON THE GOOD, RED ROAD - A group of four hard men trying to reach a remote 19th Century mining town become stranded in an early blizzard and resort to drastic, terrifying measures, to stay alive. SHINING ROCK - An older couple encounter a strange and menacing visitor during a camping trip in the North Carolina mountains. Friendly at first, this stranger seems to know them, seems to know their secrets, and as things escalate, they become convinced that they may never leave these mountains alive. PERFECT LITTLE TOWN - Ron and Jessica Stahl are a power couple from California, on a Christmas holiday in Colorado. When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone, they're charmed by the quaint tourist town. But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. The Stahls couldn't have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret. SERIAL - The classic horror short I wrote with J.A. Konrath, in which we turn our attention to the twin golden rules of hitchhiking: # 1: Don't go hitchhiking, because the driver who picks you up could be certifiably crazy. # 2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be a raving nutcase. So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Nutcase #2? THE NEWTON BOYS' LAST PHOTOGRAPH - At 25 words, the shortest story I ever wrote. But it packs a wallop. THE METEOROLOGIST - Peter, a disgraced meteorologist and chronic wanderer, has traveled the country for years in his Winnebago, in search of the only thing that gives his life meaning. He's just arrived in the middle of nowhere-Hokie, Kansas-for the same purpose, but when he meets a waitress named Melanie, another sufferer, he's faced not only with his first real human contact in years, but perhaps someone who can save him. UNCONDITIONAL - A conversation between two people-devastating, tragic, and beautiful. THE PAIN OF OTHERS - Letty Dobesh, a gorgeous, degenerate thief, is fresh out of the clink and back to her old tricks-in this case, burglarizing suites at a luxury hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. But when she's surprised by returning guests on her last room of the day, she's forced to hide in the closet to avoid getting caught, and inadvertently overhears a hitman being contracted to murder the wife of a wealthy lawyer. This 60,000-word short story collection also contains a foreword by J.A. Konrath and introductions to each story by the author. BLAKE CROUCH is the author of four novels and numerous short stories, including "Serial" which he co-wrote with J.A. Konrath and has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. He lives in southwest Colorado, where he is at work on a new book. His website is www.blakecrouch.co

    ‘Going Green’ gets a whole new meaning when a shadowy evil haunts an eco-lodge. And a young boy's mother must protect him from a terrifying monster unleashed upon their home…Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three macabre morsels for your reading pleasure. These pulse-pounding tales are filled with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until you reach the bitter end. And they’ll leave you wondering just how safe you really are, under the warm covers of your bed. They say bad luck comes in threes. But that’s just a silly superstition… isn’t it?

    All things unknown and unknowable are coming to light... Strange creatures wander the dark canopies of Germany's Black Forest. A young boy harbors something both dark and divine within him. A man learns to control his dreams, only to find an ancient evil imprisoned within them. Something lurks in the shadows of a woman's house, and it wants her baby. All of these things and more in this riveting new collection of 18 terrifying cosmic and paranormal tales. Get it now and discover the terrors that lurk within.

    In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.

    A party girl’s addiction gives birth to a monster within. Man’s best friend must fend off a woman’s greatest nightmare…Scare Street is proud to present eleven chilling tales of the supernatural, in one monstrous volume. Horror authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy, and many more unite to bring you a terrifying collection of short stories, each one guaranteed to haunt your dreams. And each one more chilling than the last.Once you start reading you won’t be able to stop. Because when these authors sink their teeth into you, it’s already too late.The only way to escape from these nightmares… is to wake up screaming.

    . . ? Find them all here in Holly Black’s amazing first collection.In her debut collection, New York Times best-selling author Holly Black returns to the world of Tithe in two darkly exquisite new tales. Then Black takes readers on a tour of a faerie market and introduces a girl poisonous to the touch and another who challenges the devil to a competitive eating match. Some of these stories have been published in anthologies such as 21 Proms, The Faery Reel, and The Restless Dead, and many have been reprinted in many “Best of ” anthologies.The Poison Eaters is Holly Black’s much-anticipated first collection, and her ability to stare into the void—and to find humanity and humor there—will speak to young adult and adult readers alike.A Junior Library Guild Pick. Illustrated by Theo Black.Holly Black is the author of Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults) and two related novels, Valiant (Norton Award winner) and New York Times bestseller Ironside. Her latest novel, Black Heart is the third of a new series, The Curseworkers. She and Tony DiTerlizzi created the best-selling Spiderwick Chronicles. Holly lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Theo, in a house with a secret library.

    Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Featuring tales from such writers as Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll, Poe’s Children is Peter Straub’s tribute to the imaginative power of storytelling. Each previously published story has been selected by Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction.

    Magpies whisper to lonely drivers late at night. Trees can make wishes come true - provided you know how to wish properly first. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants, straightening shower curtains and worrying about frayed carpets. A teenager's growing pains are sometimes even bigger than him. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, Cornish folklore slips into everyday life. Hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wrecker's lamps, standing stones and baying hounds, and relationships wax and wane in the glow of a moonlit sea. This luminous, startling and utterly spellbinding debut collection introduces in Lucy Wood a spectacular new voice in contemporary British fiction. Lucy Wood has a Master's degree in Creative Writing from Exeter University. She grew up in Cornwall. Diving Belles is her first work.

    One of the morgue's corpses is missing. Your friend wants to meet late at night, but they're not acting like themselves. Immerse yourself in the macabre, the gothic, and the chilling with this collection of fifty short stories.

    Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. Marley untying the bandage that holds his jaws together. The hideous children--Want and Ignorance--beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The heavy ledgers Marley drags by his chains. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Bestselling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.Absinthe & angels by Kelley Armstrong --Christmas in Barcelona by Scott Smith --Fresh as the new-fallen snow by Seanan McGuire --Love me by Thomas E. Sniegoski --Not just for Christmas by Sarah Lotz --Tenets by Josh Malerman --Good deeds by Jeff Strand --It's a wonderful knife by Christopher Golden --Mistletoe and holly by James A. Moore --Snake's tail by Sarah Langan --The second floor of the Christmas hotel by Joe R. Lansdale --Farrow Street by Elizabeth Hand --Doctor Velocity: a story of the fire zone by Jonathan Maberry --Yankee swap by John M. McIlveen --Honor thy mother by Angela Slatter --Home by Tim Lebbon --Hiking through by Michael Koryta --The hangman's bride by Sarah Pinborough

    Lansdale is your man. In his first collection of short stories, the gruseome and outrageous cult classic "The Drive-In" pilots a wildly thrilling, violent and vivid roller coaster ride to Hell and beyond...plumbing the eerie depths of his remarkable imagination to create horrors unique and unsettling - dark products of twisted genius that weave the grisly fabric of nightmares. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! (back cover copy)CONTENTSFish NightThe PitDuck HuntBy Bizarre HandsThe Steel ValentineI Tell You It's LoveLetters From The SOuth, Two Moons South Of NacogdochesBoys Will Be BoysThe Fat Man And The ElephantHell Through A WindshieldDown By The Sea Near The Great Big RockTrains Not TakenTight Little Stitches In A Dead Man's BackThe Windstorm PassesNight They Missed The Horror ShowOn The Far Side Of The Cadillac Desert With Dead Folk

    The first story in this collection has been adapted to film (Dark Water, Walter Salles), and another, "Adrift" is currently in production with Dimension Films.

    She has a good life as a music teacher now, and might rekindle her relationship with her one true love. However, the number 314 haunts her, and threatens to bring her back to the day that her brother disappeared. When a reporter shows up, just days before March 14th, Alma realizes that her past is coming back to haunt her. What happened on March 14th, at 3:14, 16 years ago? No one but The Skeleton Man can remember.