Gothic Short Stories

As the pupils of St. Joseph's Academy for Boys stream through the gate towards the chapel for assembly, there is one who remains behind. He is named after a saint, but everyone at St. Joseph's knows there is nothing saintly about this boy.

A thrilling collection of the first eight Samantha Moon short stories, including: Teeth - What happens when a child is born with a rare throwback gene, a gene that produces two exceptionally long teeth? Vampire Nights - Samantha Moon meets someone unexpected on a late night trip to Denny's, someone who seems to know all her secrets and has all the answers. Vampire Blues - Samantha Moon discovers that even a routine case can offer a few surprises―and that not all men are created equal. Vampire Dreams - Samantha Moon sets out to find the answer to a mysterious, haunting dream...a dream in ...

In a remote countryside station long removed from the main line, a lonely stationmaster maintains a schedule no train follows—until one cold evening, a forgotten locomotive glides in from nowhere. The passengers have no faces. The whistle doesn’t echo. And the watch in his pocket, long dead, starts ticking again. The Stationmaster’s Watch is a chilling tale of memory, regret, and the hour that never ends—another eerie entry in the world of Sebastian Blackwood.

What is the terrible secret at the heart of The King in Yellow? The forbidden play’s second act is said to drive all those who read it mad. And the sinister text casts its shadow of dread over Robert W. Chambers’s collection of weird, supernatural stories of the same name. Threaded with elements of fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and gothic horror, this cult classic continues to inspire the imagination of artists - from H. P. Lovecraft to the writers of HBO’s True Detective - and delight connoisseurs of the macabre.

Two terrifying novellas from one of the most chilling and original new voices in horror today! In Drive, a routine trip in a self-driving robotaxi becomes a nightmare when the car imprisons its passenger and embarks on a savage rampage through the streets of Boston. The Last Swim follows the final hours of a broken man who's decided to swim away from his life and seek his end in the dark and lonely depths of the Pacific Ocean. Evil Chose You hits you like a homicidal robot car and drags you into the deepest, darkest depths of human despair. An absolute must-read!

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

I didn’t know what I was walking into that night. A friend’s birthday, a high-end club, and there he was—a shadow in the corner, all piercing eyes and lethal charisma. I knew Marcus was trouble the moment he looked my way, but something in his gaze was calling me to him, despite the warning etched into every line of his face. He told me to stay away. Told me his world was too dark, that I was too good for him. But even then, I could feel it: a pull that went deeper than reason, tethering me to the danger he carried. Soon, it wasn’t enough to just watch from the sidelines—I wanted ...

Some witches heal. Some witches curse. Some never die. Step into the shadowed corners of magic with Whispers of the Coven, a haunting collection of witch stories where the line between power and peril is razor-thin. Inside, you’ll discover: 🕯️ A hidden village where every woman is born with a secret spell—one that can only be used once. 🌙 A forgotten grimoire that writes new spells in human blood. 🔥 A witch trial where the accused is more dangerous than the executioners. 📖 A bookshop that appears only to those with unfinished business with the dead. 💀 A curse that keeps...

The latest thrilling collection of “Vampire for Hire” stories featuring vampire private eye, Samantha Moon, including: Silver Hammer - When a silver hammer appears in the hands of one of Samantha Moon’s closest friends―along with a bloodthirsty need to use it―the vampire detective is about to discover just how clever the Universe can be... When Sam Met Santa - When Santa Claus shows up at Sam Moon's door, it's hardly the strangest thing that's ever happened to her. What happens next, however, is another story... One Swallow - A murdered wife. A desperate husband seeking revenge. ...

📖✨ Fairy tales were never meant to be safe… ✨📖 Step into the shadows of Grimm & Twisted, where the classic fairy tales you thought you knew unravel into chilling, dark, and unexpected new versions. This collection takes beloved folklore and injects it with mystery, horror, and surreal twists—where Cinderella’s slipper leads her to a curse, the Big Bad Wolf is the least of Red Riding Hood’s problems, and a sleeping beauty might never wake up... or maybe she never really slept at all. With 25 original, nightmarish retellings, this book is perfect for lovers of dark fantasy, ...

After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.

In a world of shadows, love defies every curse. In Victorian London, a dark, forbidden love unfolds in this spellbinding gothic romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast. When the enigmatic Lord Ravenwood—cursed, tormented, and haunted by betrayal—encounters the spirited Lavinia Ashcroft, their fates become irrevocably entwined. Bound by secrets and driven by a relentless desire to defy an enchanted curse, their union becomes a battleground between the man and the beast within him. As Ravenwood’s monstrous past threatens to consume him, Lavinia’s mystical gift reveals hidden truths ...

An all-new collection of eight "Vampire for Hire" short stories featuring everyone's favorite vampire detective, Samantha Moon! It’s all inside, including: Vampire Requiem - Samantha Moon gets up close and personal with her dead ex-husband’s mistress, Nancy, who might be a woman who knows too much. Moon Love - Sam and Kingsley Fulcrum set their sights on a romantic weekend getaway to Big Bear, California, only to find themselves on the hunt for a runaway boy. Moon Musings - Sam is back and... blogging? Turns out the vampire mama has a lot to say on the subject of life, death, and ...

Come on board for a Gothic journey in a funicular railway in Victorian England, a freight train in the Carpathian mountains, a high tech sky train in Bangkok, an underground railway in Tokyo. Visit stations which lure with the promise of safe shelter but harbour unexpected dangers. Meet the people who work on the tracks – stationmasters, porters, signal-men – and those who travel – commuters, tourists, dead bodies, murderers and ghosts. In this volume, editor Rayne Hall has collected twenty of the finest– and creepiest – railway tales. The book features the works of established ...

A mysterious inheritance. A haunted castle. And a dark romance that will unravel secrets long buried. Amelia Whitmore’s life is far from ideal. Struggling financially and desperate for a new start, she receives an unexpected summons that could change everything: an inheritance from a distant relative she barely knew, tied to the enigmatic and reclusive owner of Cadworth Castle, Lucien Blackwood. With little to lose, Amelia journeys to the foreboding castle, hoping for a fresh beginning—but instead, she steps into a world filled with shadowed secrets. Lucien, the brooding and mysterious ...

She inherited a house, but discovered something far more valuable within the haunted walls... When Lyra inherits Fairlane Manor from her late great-uncle, she never imagined the secrets it held within its timeworn walls. The legacy of a once-renowned artist lingers like a specter, his eerie and lifelike animal paintings haunting the minds of those who dare to behold them. In a whispered legend, a traveler sought refuge at Fairlane Manor, only to become ensnared in the painter's mysterious masterpiece. Trapped within the canvas, he was cursed to roam as a fearsome werewolf, his fate forever ...

Echoes of the Forgotten: A Short Story Collection In Echoes of the Forgotten, five gripping tales unfold, each exploring the fragility of memory, the unspoken darkness lurking in everyday lives, and the harrowing choices that define us. The collection opens with "Echoes of the Forgotten," where Avery wakes in a sterile room with a family she doesn’t remember. As she unraveled the truth behind her accident, she discovered a terrifying conspiracy that threatens to erase her past and her future. In "The Golem’s Heart," Grim, a golem brought to life to protect a village from monstrous raids...

At the heart of Dark Romanticism is its brooding, pessimistic tone, its emphasis on the supernatural and the sins of humanity, and its use of iconic symbols and horrifying imagery. The classic Dark Romantic authors (Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville) are represented in the stories and poems in this volume, as well as some authors who are not commonly included in this genre.

In a plague-stricken medieval convent, a nun works on a forbidden mystic manuscript. In rural South Carolina, an alligator named Dragon becomes a beloved pet for a precocious, tough-talking twelve-year-old. During a long, muggy July, an adolescent girl finds unexpected power as her family obsesses over the horror film The Exorcist. On the outskirts of a Southern college town, a young woman resists the tyranny of a shape-shifting older professor as she develops her own sorceress skills.

Welcome to Winterhaven ~ Almost Nothing Is What It Seems... But the Sex is Real and the Secrets are Many! Down and out on her luck, Verity answers an ad in in a small country newspaper. The job offer sounds almost too good to be true and the salary is much more than she made in the city. Even with her doubts, though, Verity visits Winterhaven and falls in love with the rural area... but behind the lush green beauty of the countryside lies ugly secrets! Winterhaven Manor holds many secrets, and all those associated with the grand old estate seem to have secrets of their own to protect. ...