The rural town of Old Hickory. Tennessee was a quiet, picturesque community...until the O'Sheas came to town. Becoming the new proprietors of the town's only funeral parlor, with the help of their charming patriarch, Square McManus, the Irish family was wholeheartedly accepted by the local town folk. The thing began to happen. Strange things...horrible, unspeakable things...in the dead of night. The sighting of wolfish beasts congregating around an open grave in the town cemetery.

The Soft Whisper of the Dead is the first of the Oxrun tales to be placed in other than a contemporary setting. The first in a trilogy of historical horror novels, it is the account of the evil Count Braslov's attempt to subjugate the Oxrun population to his vampiric will.

We've all seen them - the stubborn tail-gater who follows too close, for too long...the wild driver who weaves through lanes on a crowded highway...the driver who causes accidents but is never a victim of one. These are the jackals, hunters who follow the nation's highways and byways, preying on the weak and unsuspecting. Jim Scott's been hunting jackals for some time now. They took someone he loved, once, and he's never forgiven them. And Jim doesn't fight alone.

Writer Ben Mears has returned to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot with the hope that moving into a delapidated mansion, long the subject of town lore, might help him get a handle on his life and provide inspiration for a new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work.

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache, and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances.

Photographer Jo Ellen Hathaway thought she'd escaped the house called Sanctuary long ago. She'd spent her loneliest years there, after the sudden, unexplained disappearance of her mother. Yet the sprawling inn on an island off the Georgia coast continues to haunt her dreams. And now, even more haunting are the pictures someone is sending her: strange close-ups and candids, culminating in the most shocking portrait of all - a photo of her mother - naked, beautiful, and dead.

Rosie Daniels leaves her husband, Norman, after 14 years in an abusive marriage. She is determined to lose herself in a place where he won't find her. She'll worry about all the rest later. Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things finally start to happen. Meeting Bill is one, and getting an apartment is another. Still, it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Norman is a cop, with the instincts of a predator.

Famed sculptor Clare Kimball has commanded the attention of the New York art world, but troubling memories from childhood have drawn her home to Maryland, to the town where she grew up and where her father died so long ago in circumstances never really explained. Nothing much has changed in Emmitsboro—except Cameron Rafferty, the onetime high school bad boy turned town sheriff. The only hint of Cam’s wild nature is the light in his eyes when he looks at Clare. In Cam’s strong arms Clare is seduced into falling in love—and believing that her small-town world is safe.

Everyone thinks fourteen-year-old Violet is a murderer. After a summer-night swim with her best friend, Ainsley, Violet is found confused, wandering in the forest - and Ainsley’s never seen again. But without a body, murder charges won’t stick, so Violet is sent away. After more than a decade in a psychiatric ward, Violet returns to her broken-down hometown of Normal, Alabama, to claim her dead mother’s inheritance and help her overworked sister care for their unstable, alcoholic father.

After surviving a car crash that left her widowed at 22, Kathleen has retreated to a remote corner of a state park, where she works flipping burgers for deer hunters and hikers. But when a stranger appears in the dead of winter, Kathleen is intrigued. He says he's a student visiting from Uzbekistan, and his worldliness fills her with curiosity about life beyond the valley. After a cautious friendship settles between them, the stranger confesses to a terrible crime in his home country, and Kathleen finds herself in the grip of a manhunt - and face-to-face with secrets of her own.

On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loves, and the world as he knows it.

To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape - a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour.

Fired from her job as editor-in-chief of a New York fashion magazine, Zora Hughes travels to a South Dakota Indian reservation. She hopes to find answers to lifelong dreams her psychiatrist calls genetic memories. Zora dreams of a female ancestor who fled life as a slave and was aided in her journey to freedom by a Sioux warrior who would become her husband. On the reservation, Zora meets Captain John Iron Hawk who aids and sometimes hinders her in her quest to find answers to the murder of her forebearer.

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?

On the eve of their 40th wedding anniversary, the Seagraves are among the most envied couples in their community, and still deeply in love - until the night Lydia Seagrave picks up a gun and shoots her husband. Confronting a tangle of family lies in the wake of this shocking tragedy are the three Seagrave sisters.

Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in trouble; she just doesn't know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco's most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused, and a little bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha's good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter.

The facts are public knowledge: five people have been murdered. Each has died from a blow to the head. And the media-dubbed Prince Charming killer has left a “calling card” with each victim. A single thornless rose. But there’s another fact...one that the police haven’t made public. Something no one, except the killer and the police, should know. But Gabriel Donner does - and he can’t figure out why. All he knows is that he’s begun hearing voices, sleepwalking and dreaming vividly of the murders...as they happen.

When Victor Holland came flying out of the night, he ran straight into the path of Catherine Weaver's car. Having uncovered a terrifying secret that leads all the way to Washington, Victor is running for his life - and from the men who will go to any lengths to silence him. Though Victor's story sounds like the ravings of a mad-man, the haunted look in his eyes - and the bullet hole in his shoulder - tell Cathy a different story.

hnny Harris is home again, his too-tight jeans and damn-your-eyes belligerence honed to perfection by a ten-year stretch in federal prison for murder. Now he’s out on parole and ready for the job Rachel Grant has promised him to help him begin a new life. Unlike the rest of the town, Rachel has always believed in her former student’s innocence. But one thing has changed. The sullenly handsome boy she remembers is still sullen, still handsome - but no longer a boy.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

The last thing NYPD Sergeant James "Slade" Sladerman needs is to babysit a spoiled heiress. But Jessica Winslow's antiques shop is suspected of being used by an international smuggling ring, and Slade is being sent undercover to investigate - and keep Jessica out of trouble.

Famous criminal defense attorney Jackson Moore thought he had left his bad-boy past behind him — but his childhood sweetheart had different plans for him. Rachelle Tremont thought she could forget her tragic small-town history by writing about it in her nationally syndicated column. She hadn't counted on Jackson Moore's return, or on the way her blood ran hot at the sight of him. He was determined to discover the town's secrets with Rachelle — and in doing so, uncover some secrets of their own.

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

London Danvers was kidnapped as a child from her wealthy family. Over the years, many women have claimed to be her, trying to lay claim to the long-lost heiress's inheritance. Among them is Adria Nash, who has arrived in Oregon claiming to be London - but, unlike the others, she's different: she knows personal details only London could have known. And there is someone who does believe her - who is watching her every move, waiting to see how she runs, how she screams, and how she dies....

On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loves, and the world as he knows it.

Jack Vines has the Victorian home of his dreams - or so it seems until he discovers an intriguing beauty lurking in the shadows. Stunned, he finds they share the house but live a century apart. The realization leads him to questions so disturbing it changes both their lives forever. She is a prisoner of the past, shrouded in a world of dark mysteries. He holds the keys that will protect their future. But first, he must solve the mystery concealed for nearly 100 years.

"Something is murdering my men." Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. When an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find something that's both powerful and terrifying. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore - who just happens to be Jewish - to shed some light on the mysterious happenings.

There are things in the darkness, things much worse than the tracks and abandoned pieces of equipment that trip the children up and gash at their feet and legs, things that brush silently past them, touching their faces before disappearing again....

So young, so sweet. She appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of traffic, on a busy day. A teenager with no past, no family - no memories. So blond and beautiful. Carol and Paul were drawn to her - she was the child they’d never had. A dream come true. And then Carol’s nightmares began - the ghastly sounds in the night…the bloody face in the mirror…the razor-sharp ax.