Short Horror

"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger...." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922", the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

At World’s Edge: Seven Liminal Stories from the Edge of Reality Beyond the borders of maps and memory lie worlds that obey no known rules. In this haunting anthology of speculative fiction and dark fantasy, seven stories explore what happens when reality thins—where time unravels, identity dissolves, and the familiar becomes unrecognizable. From a girl who returns from a doorless frame altered by the realm she crossed, to a lighthouse powered by memory guarding against something older than night, these tales are eerie, poetic, and charged with slow-blooming dread. Each story is a ...

The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The creepers include: TOP OF THE WORLD: A dangerous hybrid of several species of animals has escaped from its cage at a remote research facility in the Arctic during a prolonged blizzard. THE ASYLUM: Paranormal investigators are sent to an abandoned mental institution when a teenager disappears after visiting it for a good scare with his buddies on Halloween. THE DEVIL'S DIARY: A horror author rents a creepy cabin to cure a bad case of writer's block and finds a journal written by a serial...

Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . . Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . . John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead.

Step into the chilling world of "The Bavarian Beast," the spine-tingling new adventure featuring Father Thomas O’Neill! Join Gretchen as she embarks on a treacherous journey back to her home in Oberammergau, only to find herself ensnared in a dark nightmare among the towering Alpine woods. As twilight descends, the familiar path transforms into a labyrinth of shadows and sinister growls, revealing menacing wolf-like creatures that are anything but ordinary. Can she outsmart these predatory beasts, or will she become their next victim? Prepare for a gripping tale of survival, fear, and the...

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The creepers include: THE MALL OF THE DAMNED: During the zombie apocalypse, a masked assassin with unusual skills terrorizes five survivors seeking refuge in a mall. SHADOW OF A DOUBT- There's something Timothy is not telling about the fatal accident that took his sister's life. METAMORPHOSIS: A young teenager is repulsed when she looks in the mirror and pursues black magic to become beautiful. ANOTHER DAMN DAY IN VEGAS: Two detectives have a particularly grisly day chasing bad guys. ...

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The nightmares include: CARMEN: A horror novelist employs a man-eating plant to eliminate his most offensive critic. THE READING: After a reading by a fortuneteller, Emma believes her traveling companion is not who she says she is. HUMAN AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS: After four centuries, a vampire, who is bitten by a white dove is becoming human. THE CONNECTION: Marge is receiving calls from her daughter who drowned over a year ago and is buried in the Greenacre Cemetery. MR. CREEPY: Molly's ...

"Dripping With Blood" is a spine-chilling tale of survival, where the fight for life becomes a desperate battle against time and an unseen enemy. Will anyone manage to escape the clutches of the relentless hunter? Or will the darkness claim them all, leaving the forest dripping with the blood of the fallen? Prepare to be gripped by fear and suspense in this pulse-pounding thriller that will haunt your every thought long after you've turned the last page.

"Crooken Sands" is a short fantasy/horror tale by the author of Dracula. The story follows a London merchant on a mysterious adventure in Scotland.

What if the mind wasn’t just the observer of reality… but the instrument that shapes it? Dr. Evelyn Cross was once a rising star in cognitive science—brilliant, skeptical, and fiercely dedicated to unlocking the secrets of consciousness. But when she discovers a set of forbidden research manuscripts by the mysterious Dr. Nathaniel Armitage, her life spirals into an obsession that will shatter everything she thought she understood. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with occult symbology, Armitage's work hints at a hidden architecture beneath thought itself—an ancient lattice of ...

This collection, from an acclaimed master of dark fiction, consists of 21 tales. Some are straight genre entries, others are stories of psychological terror, and a few are shorts that include science-fiction elements. The first 18 are short stories written solely by Rick Hautala; the final three are collaborations with Jesse and Matti Hautala, Matthew J. Costello, and Jim Connolly.

Developed from a personal interest in American witchcraft, Raffaelle Pezzella has brought together a gifted group of authors whose interests lie in a similar field. Here you will find a wealth of interesting short stories that draw as much on historical documents as they do folklore, classic novels, and short stories or even modern cinema. In his previous volumes of short stories, Raffaele Pezzella, through his measured curation has developed a back catalogue of wonderful stories from a magnificently diverse group of writers. His volume of Lovecraftian tales, The Black Stone: Stories for ...

Susan Harris lived in self-imposed seclusion, her mansion featuring numerous automated systems controlled by a state-of-the-art computer. Every comfort was provided. Her security was absolute. Until her security system is breached - from the inside. In the privacy of her own home, and against her will, she will experience an inconceivable act of terror and become the object of the ultimate computer’s consuming obsession: to learn everything there is to know about human flesh.

A carnival of horrors, outer space, heaven: these are just a few of the locations visited in this collection of short stories. Though I’ve always found long form fiction to be easier to write, like many other authors, I started by writing short fiction, where words are precious and each pithy sentence must do the work of an entire chapter. Please join me in my early journey through the abbreviated worlds of the short story.

I am sixteen years old, and my teacher believes I might be the most powerful supernatural in the mortal realm. It’s quite a burden. Not least because I must fight so hard to avoid using magic to silence the bitches at school. Do you wonder what would happen if I let my control slip? Today is the day I find out.

Three terrifying novels in one collection from master of horror, Lee Mountford. The Demonic: A woman returns to her childhood home to lay to rest the ghosts of the past. But in this house, the ghosts are real. The Mark: A satanic cult. A woman's brutal assault. Can one woman face her darkest fears before a demonic entity is unleashed? Forest of the Damned: A group of paranormal researchers investigate the infamous Black Forest.... What they find is far beyond even their worst nightmares.

Shea receives a call that completely upends her existence and forces her to return to Sundown, the town she thought she had left behind. Tensions increase as she deals with her brother Donovan's untimely death, and long-buried family dynamics start to show again. Shea's return brings back memories of a town with a troubled past that is racially divided as she makes new connections with her childhood friend Marcus, the town's new police chief, and her elder brother Jay, who is now mayor. The repercussions of the past challenge the ties between family and friends. Angelo, Andy to his friends,...

A chilling collection of psychological suspense and literary horror from the multiple award-winning author of the national best seller The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts. A masterful anthology featuring 19 pieces of short fiction, Growing Things and Other Stories is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay’s fantastically fertile imagination.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The creepers include: HOUSE OF HORRORS: Tom and his wife relocate to a house owned by a notorious serial killer to afford the home of their dreams. THE PLAGUE SHIP: Jack and Emma are on a luxury cruise where a virus turns the passengers into ravenous ghouls. THE RANSOM OF RADCLIFF: Two small-time crooks experience obstacles when they kidnap a billionaire vampire's son THE MAN WITH TWO LIVES: After a devastating auto accident, a wealthy man resorts to a full body transplant, but the only ...