Short Stories Occult

Since 1941, the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F) has supported fannish activities across America and around the world. One of those activities is our annual short story contest. In honor of this, our 75th anniversary, we present the winning stories from our 2015 contest First Place Sean Gillhoolley – The Bazaar of Forbidden Dreams Second Place Jeff Spitzer – The Last Ordeal of James Willoughby Third Place Kristin Janz – Fabiana’s Fairy Grandmother Honorable Mention Deborah Rocheleau – Track Invasion plus fiction from other Neffers, including Angela Parson Myers, Kent McDaniel...

This anthology details encounters with ghosts, evil spirits, dark entities, malicious beings, and demonic encounters that’ll send a chill of terror tickling up your spine. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There’s almost certainly a ghost or two peeking over your shoulder. These true paranormal encounters are unlike any you’ve heard before. And, if you don’t believe, just know that you don’t have to believe in something for it to exist.

When an author helps the police to identify symbols carved into two dead bodies, he becomes the focus of a murderous cult. He has to become the hunter to survive.

Could you love something so hideous and offensive that it made you ill to look at it? If you travel to a little dive called Violet's Tavern in Pasadena, you are apt to hear that question from Violet herself. But whatever you do, don't give her an answer. And don't tell her your sins. Especially after closing time.

Tonia Brown shoots for the weirder side of horror with this collection of strange tales.

South London gangster Perry Smith doesn’t scare easily, but when four of his associates are brutally ripped apart by a demon called Amy, he calls in Jack Nightingale. Nightingale thinks it’s a wind-up - the gang contacted the demon via an iPad app whilst on holiday. But before he knows it, he’s on his way to Fuengirola, with his assistant, Jenny McLean, to send Amy back to where she came from.

Behind each door lies something strange and terrifying. Here, the normal is made nightmarish, from howls of were-foxes to satanic car-boot sales. Creepy, terrifying and witty by turn, Silverweed Road deals in love, loss, isolation, loneliness, obsession, greed and revenge. As the screw turns with each story, Crook creates a world of pure imagination, constantly surprising, in a setting that is instantly recognisable but other-worldly at the same time.

Open this collection of short stories to meet a chatty ghoul, senior citizens with a unique twist on Sundowner’s Syndrome, a hard-bitten cowhand who rides into Perdition, and a host of others among the sacred, the damned, and everyday man. Tokens of Perdition is your ticket to a roller coaster ride that climbs to inspiring heights, then plunges into dark, sinister depths. Take up your sword and join in this battle of good and evil that runs across time, circumstance, humanity, and beyond. Choose a side.

For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling tales from Agatha Christie. Acknowledged the world over as the undisputed Queen of Crime, in fact she dabbled in her early writing career with mysteries of a more unearthly kind - stories featuring fantastic psychic visions, spectres looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, eerie messages from the Other Side, even a man who switches bodies with a cat....

Christmastide. A time of feasting and good cheer. Gifts, cards, and blazing holly logs. Snow falls while family and friends trim the tree and kiss under the mistletoe. But it isn’t always joyful. It’s the coldest time of year. The days are short, the nights long. Chilling myths lie concealed behind the raucous revelry...The ghoulish events in the frozen workhouse...The undead presence at the costumed ball...The pantomime that became a massacre...The winter goddess with the heart of ice...The thieves who woke the dark side of the festive spirit...

William Hope Hodgson was an early British writer of supernatural and fantasy fiction, becoming an inspiration for later writers such as Clark Ashton Smith and others. This story, from 1907, tells the tale of a series of mysterious deaths and a strange creature at a local water tower.

Adam Soto, author of the debut novel This Weightless World, which Robin Sloan called “the social novel for the 21st century,” returns with Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep. The stories in Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep, strange and unsettling, explore the quiet spaces where the living and the dead alike haunt one another through their choices, dreams, and institutions.

What Price Gory? is the new horror collection from Terry M. West, the critically-acclaimed author of A Psycho's Medley and the filmmaker best known for Flesh for the Beast. What Price Gory? is a collection of weird supernatural stories. Monsters and demons dwell in these tales.

Step into the world of a brilliant grad student who creates a powerful new drug that pushes the imagination to its darkest edge. Shudder with a woman who becomes lost in the catacombs beneath an ancient church, only to discover she's not alone. Feel the back of your neck tingle when an orphan brings a dangerous secret into her loving new home. Cringe as a young boy is seduced by a sinister technology. Cry out with two lovers who encounter a bizarre creature at a secluded beach.

While the world's still choked with monsters - their work is never done. Tireless and dedicated, the Aces scour the globe in pursuit of the creatures that seek to terrorize humanity. For this ongoing mission, they leave no stone unturned - and no monsters alive. Whether it be in far-off wilderness, small-town America, or among the concrete canyons of the big city, Cap'n, Gats, Joker, Digger, and Trill continue to risk their lives at the cost of their own identities to keep us safe from the things that go bump in the night.

Ever fancied taking a trip through the twilight world of the supernatural? Here's your chance to explore a terrifying universe where men fall in love with monsters, a trouble child's nightmares prove to be all too real, a house attracts evil much as a sponge attracts water, and Lovecraftian demons from a time before history make Satanic pacts in order to return from the past.

An anthology of uncanny short stories and poems for late-night enjoyment from the multi-award-winning author of the Hell Holes series and The Secrets of the Hawthorne House. Listen to stories about a very special birthday party, a memorable farmer’s daughter, a collector of unique collectables, the investigation of a Romanian strigoi, an unintended consequence of using voodoo dolls for revenge, and an arsonist considering working in a crematorium. If you liked The Twilight Zone and similar shows, you will love these uncanny little gems.

Welcome to the fourth volume of our best-selling horror anthology, featuring tales of terror and dark, slithering things to chill the marrow and keep even the most resolute of horror fans awake in the small hours of the night. This is the time when the inherently evil and deliciously malevolent come out to explore our earthly realm. Another superlative gathering of the dark and disturbing from some of the best independent authors writing today.

A ruthless killer shows a real hunger for fame. Struggling through the wilderness, an infected man tries to lead zombies away from his family. Hell hath no fury like a woman murdered. Civil War soldiers discover the secrets of a Southern swamp. Can Christmas magic survive the zombie apocalypse? A ship of the dead hunts the living on the high seas. Dinner in a diner takes on divine import. A 200-year-old vampire has a little surprise waiting for his next victim.

This is the first released collection of original short stories by R. Paul Matty. The author's engaging style draws the reader into each detail of actual events in the drama of nature while uniquely creating a greater respect and appreciation for all things wild, inevitably intertwined with changing human culture.