An anthology of dark short stories, eerie and surreal, chilling and melancholy...

THE GIRL INSIDE MY HEART
A man rolls into town on his Harley and seven graves open up. Six are filled, but who is the seventh one for?

THE GOOD MAN, THE BAD MAN, AND THEM BOOTS
A boy's parents are killed. He is given in to the care of the old man in the alligator boots--the one they call Wolfman, who spends his days chewing on chicken-bones-that-aren't-chicken-bones.

When someone dies in town, the Wolfman is always there. Always.

HARVESTERS
A boy discovers he can "pick the minds" of his friends which eventually leads him to Manzy Rammerford. She always opens the door to her ramshackle home naked, and her mind is a cesspool which drags him in and takes more than just his innocence.

...and many more dark and chilling tales.

A disturbing story based on a true haunting the author himself experienced.

In 2016, John Davidson and his family moved to Skipton Road, a quiet cul-de-sac situated within the heart of a northern industrial town. They had no idea of what evil terrors awaited them. Things seemed normal at first, apart from the pungent smell of rotten flesh in their kitchen, recurring scratch marks along the walls, and an overwhelming sense of always being watched by someone or "something". Overtime, through a series of vivid nightmares and intrusive whispers, the Davidsons came to learn of a malignant menace that still dwelled within their new home – a witch named Sabina, who sought out vengeance upon those whom had betrayed her in life, along with an ancient demon... Sabina's ‘Master'. Throughout these horrific events, John struggled against his growing depression, his new reliance on alcohol, and the overall strong desire to keep his family from falling apart – which it was. This terrifying period in their lives would forever haunt the Davidsons, as it did with countless other victims before them.

In reading this book, you will bear witness to an actual haunting that took place, its lasting effect on those involved, and one that many people can verify. Some, including the author, would argue that Sabina and the ancient demon do exist... it's up to you as the reader to decide.

Set in the North East of England. Names of characters and certain places have been changed to protect identities.

No memory. No pulse. No clue.

The undead private eye everybody calls "Braineater Jones" has an axe to grind. Somebody plugged him and dumped his corpse in a swimming pool.

Worse yet, his memory's gone. He has no idea who killed him or why.

But he's damn sure going to find out.

With a smartass severed head as a partner, Jones hangs up his shingle in the city's undead quarter. When he's not solving cases (poorly) Jones is always looking to keep his flask full.

Prohibition is in full swing, and the dead need alcohol to function. Without liquor they become mindless, flesh-munching ghouls. (In a word: braineaters.)

Everything will probably be fine. The investigation into his own murder probably won't point Jones toward the city's most important bootlegger.

And even if it does, it's not like he'll risk cutting off the hooch just to seek justice for himself, right? No one man's life is worth unleashing a cannibalistic orgy of violence. Right?

Cracking this case will be a tall order, but one thing's for sure: whatever happens, Braineater Jones isn't getting out of this one alive…

Loyalty Kane is a boy with a heavy secret to bear. His life has never been a happy one, but the bags beneath his eyes, and his stooped shoulders, are signs of a burden greater than unhappiness. The solace he finds in school will soon be gone, as summer rushes toward him. Loyal fears and loathes the hot summer months that most children love.

His teacher worries about him. Reverend Harring worries about him. But when Loyal's friend, Lisa--Reverend Harring's young daughter--is brutally murdered, the whole town is rocked by shock and grief. Through their own pain, Miss Collins and Reverend Harring try to reach out to Loyal. Even Lisa's surrogate older brother tries to help the boy.

The more Loyal attempts to push them away, the more determined they become to help him. None of the adults know just how dark Loyal's secrets are, or what horrors their prodding will reveal. The burden, carried for years on the hunched shoulders of a solitary ten-year-old, might be heavy enough to crush them all.

After a prank lands him in serious trouble, Malcolm Hernandez, a sixteen-year-old boy, is shipped off to live with his grandparents while his mother attempts to save him from expulsion and criminal charges. Malcolm believes the stay will be easy--a vacation with milk and cookies and tales from the past. His hopes, however, are shattered when he bumps heads with his grandfather, Ronald O'Donnell--a stern, violent man with a sinister past.

Ronald plans on disciplining his grandson in order to 'save' him from himself. He is not afraid of abusing him, either. He will physically, emotionally, and mentally break him.

Jon Athan, the author of The Abuse of Ashley Collins, invites you to stay at grandfather's house to witness true human horror.

After a string of violent murders occur in their town, the senior class of Redwood High School is terrorized by a masked killer. Charlene Sanchez, a popular senior, believes everyone is a target--and everyone is a suspect. When videos of the murders begin to surface on social media, Charlene enlists the help of her closest friends and races to find the serial killer. Can she stop the killer before he stops her?

Jon Athan, author of Butcher Road and Camp Blaze, brings you another violent slasher inspired by the classics.

Thomas is a free-range, organic, 100% natural vampire. But when the EPA threatens his blood-farming operation, and the mosquitoes on which it depends, Thomas has to do more than send a strongly worded Facebook post.

This young vampire has to bite the power.

A new humorous short story from the author of Dragon Removal Service.

This Bram Stoker Award–winning collection is “certain to stick in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
 
Includes “Big Momma,” a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Short Story
 
Here are six of Joyce Carol Oates’s most “frightening—and deeply disturbing—short stories” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the titular story, a boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll after her tragic death. As he grows older, he begins to collect “found dolls” from surrounding neighborhoods . . . each with its own sinister significance.
 
In “Gun Accident,” a teenage girl is delighted to house-sit for her favorite teacher, until an intruder forces his way inside—changing more than one life forever. The collection closes with the taut tale of a mystery bookstore owner whose designs on a rare bookshop in scenic New Hampshire devolve into a menacing game with real-life consequences. “At the heart of each story is a predator-prey relationship, and what makes them so terrifying is that most of us can easily picture ourselves as the prey, at least at some time during our lives” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).
 
“Everything she writes, in whatever genre, has an air of dread, because she deals in vulnerabilities and inevitabilities, in the desperate needs that drive people . . . to their fates. A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around.” —Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times Book Review
 
“One of the stranger parts of the human condition may be our deep fascination, and at times troubling exploration, of the darker aspects of our nature . . . No other author explores the ugly, and at times, blazingly unapologetic underbelly of these impulses quite like Joyce Carol Oates in The Doll-Master.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
“In her new collection . . . [Oates] relishes moments of gothic melodrama, while rooting them firmly in grindingly ordinary American lives.” —The Guardian
 
“Oates convincingly demonstrates her mastery of the macabre with this superlative story collection . . . This devil’s half-dozen of dread and suspense is a must read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Got Vampires? Ghosts? Monsters? We Can Help!

Your one-stop-shop for Urban Fantasy's finest anthology of the supernatural. 14 sleuths are gathered together for the first time in all-original tales of unusual cases which require services that go far beyond mere deduction!

Featuring new stories by: Tanya Huff, C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, Simon R. Green, T. A. Pratt, Chris Marie Green, Lilith Saintcrow, Rachel Caine, Jackie Kessler, Carrie L. Vaughn, Julie Kenner, C. J. Henderson, Laura Anne Gilman, Justin Gustainis and Caitlin Kittredge.

Meet Alex, he has it all, good friends, a beautiful home in the country and a good job in the city, for all accounts Alex has a pretty normal life. Then, events beyond his control spiral his life into a nightmarish fight for survival, not only against wave after wave of undead horror, but against isolation, starvation and insanity.

Ancient Enemy - it wants things . . . you have to give it what it wants.

Seven hundred years ago the Anasazi people built massive cities in what is now the southwestern United States . . . and then they vanished.

Stella, an archaeologist specializing in Anasazi culture, and David, a mysterious Navajo boy, are on the run from something terrifying. As they flee up into the snowy mountains of Colorado, they are carjacked by criminals escaping a botched bank robbery. Caught in a blizzard, they must take refuge in what they believe is an abandoned cabin. It's at this cabin where they will face horrors beyond their imagination.

If someone screams in the forest and no one is around, will they regret ever making a sound?

Stepping into the forest, you're surrounded by the natural grandeur of a world which has no need of you. The silence is so heavy that you can hear your blood thundering through your veins. The stir of dry leaves in the darkness could be your friend finding his way back, but it sounds more like a primordial monster stalking its prey. And the lights between the trees? And the haunting songs which lure you ever deeper?

It's time to admit that you aren't afraid of being alone in the woods. You're afraid of not being alone.

Journey through the minds of 22 horror authors who have teamed up to reveal the most terrifying aspects of the forest. Over 400 pages of original supernatural and psychological horror stories include: ghosts, demons, serial-killers, true stories and unsolved mysteries, unique monsters, classic myths and legends, and above all else, a profound respect for the terror hidden within the mysterious trees.

Being dead is hard when you need to work. When Alice's appetite awakens in the middle of the workday no teen or Uber driver is safe. Things get really bad when she finds out she's the harbinger of the coming fleshpocalypse. Then monsters show up wearing human bodies like poorly fitted, inside-out winter coats with the stuffing coming out and she has to decide if she's going to fight for humanity or be first in line in the all-you-can-eat people buffet.

A second after the elevator nearest the old man dinged Lazarus knew something was wrong. He drew his Glock, looking at something that wore clothes and had human skin.

What looked like a squid had burrowed into the person's chest, tentacles lashing wildly about. Lazarus raised his gun, a second and a third figure emerging from the elevator before he could fire. One had a cone-like head with a collar of thick flesh encircling it at its base that pulsed like the throat of a frog. The other had the parts of a woman in the wrong orientation. She was hunched over, her head and neck reset on the top of her upper back. Her knees were bent backward like a goat's.

The first figure turned its upper body back and forth. The third figure leapt upon a heavyset woman, bashing its narrow shoulders into the fallen nurse like a battering ram. The woman screamed, her breaking bones loud enough to be heard across the room. Lazarus aimed and shot the conehead right between its compound eyes. Its head erupted, a spray of thick reddish purple hitting the wall behind it. It went down, its body flopping violently on the floor.

Tentacle man got down on all fours and began galloping in Lazarus' direction, violently shouldering fleeing people out of his way. Lazarus fired, certain he'd hit him, but the man-thing just kept coming. Lazarus shot him again before realizing too late that he should have been running.

Someone shoved him aside just as the creature leapt at him. Alice seized it beneath a nest of squiggling tentacles and yanked it back to the floor. Something appeared wrong with her hand. Her eyes were blank as the man-thing kept reaching for Lazarus, scurrying after him in vain. She opened her mouth wide and something definitely not a tongue shot out, lopping off one of the creature's eyestalks and piercing the squid-like mass.

The man-thing slid to the floor, lifeless. Alice turned to Lazarus. "Maybe we should stick together," she said.

The third creature stood as if on cue and whipped a purple tongue around before leaping the nurse's station and charging them. Lazarus aimed for one knee, clipping it twice. Again Alice stepped in front of him and her hand did something he couldn't see. The creature squealed briefly before going still.

Lazarus didn't want to think about what she had done. He didn't want to see her hand, now slick with grayish chunky gore from the body of that unholy thing on the floor. His bullets weren't enough, giving him only a peace of mind that his fists wouldn't.

As he stepped around the nurse's station his thought was confirmed. He hadn't killed the first one he'd shot. It was gone, crawled off somewhere and they were going to have to deal with it. He looked up at the old man by the elevator who seemed calm as ever, smoking his cigarette. He gave Lazarus a thumb's up as he puffed away with oxygen tubes up his nose.

Lazarus shook his head as he walked over to the old man. "Old timer, those cigarettes are gonna be the death of you."

"I hope so, y'know?" the old man said. "Got any?"

"Nah, I don't smoke."

"Wasn't askin' for you, y'know? Wanna suck down as many of these as I can before they get me."

Nothing exciting ever happens in a small town…
Especially in the sleepy Florida beachside stretch known as Hammond Beach, nestled between Daytona Beach and St. Augustine. Free from corporate businesses and a slew of tourists descending upon the quaint former fishing village, Hammond Beach is like a painting.
Locals run the businesses on Main Street. Even when a new coffee shop opens, the owner hires only Hammond Beach locals, including manager Betty. She's born and raised in Hammond Beach and knows everyone.
But when the latest and greatest coffee is put out, Green River Blend, strange things begin to happen to the residents of Hammond Beach…

From the master of extreme horror, Edward Lee, author of over fifty books that have redefined the boundaries of depravity in fiction, comes a novel that brings together all of his most extreme characters into one epic, gut-wrenching masterpiece of terror.

Plagued by nightmares of torture and intense violence, a writer suffering from trauma-induced memory loss seeks to solve the mystery of his missing past. The only clue is a single page of an unfinished manuscript found in an old manual typewriter, in a fleabag motel, in a small West Virginian town called Luntville. It is here that the writer will seek answers, believing that if he finishes the book he was writing, his memories will return.

But Luntville is not just some bumfuck town in the sticks. It is a place where the locals make extra cash by filming necro porn, a place where vigilantes practice a horrifying form of justice they call dead-dickin', a place haunted by the ghosts of serial killers, occult demons, and a monster called the Bighead. And as the writer attempts to make sense of the town and his connection to it, he will be challenged in ways that test the very limit of his sanity.

Deadite Press is proud to present White Trash Gothic, the first book in a series of highly anticipated novels for fans of redneck nightmares and backwoods terror which invokes Edward Lee's many classic gross-outs while exploring even more revolting and disturbing new directions.

Hunter Jensen always dreamed of a big family house in the country. Thanks to the success of his latest novel, he's finally able to make his dreams a reality in the tranquil town of Hargrave, North Carolina. Life is beautiful until his daughter Crystal tells him about the girl who lives in her closet. Her imaginary friendship is only the first of many disconcerting events that threaten to fracture his dream of country living into a nightmare straight out of his novels.

Does an invisible girl truly conjure the sobs that haunt the hallways at night? Is she to blame for the bizarre noises in the darkness? Or has his daughter's vivid imagination simply crept into his own?

As Hunter seeks to uncover the secrets long buried in the town's shadows, he begins to fear a force more sinister than anything he's ever imagined is drawing him and his family toward their demise.