Dark Fantasy Short Stories

Collecting four novellas into one volume, The Cambion Cycle sees Harker and his cohorts battling bigger threats, teaming with legends of folklore, and trying to save the world from a demonic horde. All with snark, flair, and heaping helpings of bloodshed and mayhem.

Viking magic is real, not all knights are honorable, and ancient magic comes with a price in these incredible epic fantasy tales. Bonus: Included are 17 bonus stories not available anywhere else, bringing this collection to many hours of incredible storytelling. These tales don’t have a happy ending. Dark, gritty fantasy at its finest.

The End is Coming. An extinction-level asteroid is cannonballing toward Earth. In humanity’s final hours, a lucky few earn a one-way ticket to the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. Making that leap of faith might mean survival, but it comes with a steep price tag: “Travelers” will forever be stranded as digital avatars inside a fantastical world filled with vicious monsters, all-powerful AIs, and cutthroat players. Let the games begin....

Welcome to another kind of terror as Peter Straub leads us into the outer reaches of the psyche. Here the master of the macabre is at his absolute best in seven exquisite tales of living, dying, and the terror that lies in between.

Set in a remote Norwegian fishing village during a brutal winter, this tale follows ten-year-old Klaus Eriksson as he cares for his younger brother Nils while their father is away on a dangerous voyage. When a mysterious visitor arrives on Christmas Eve during the worst storm anyone can remember, Klaus must confront both ancient folklore and the true meaning of love and sacrifice. A haunting exploration of Christmas that delves beyond traditional holiday cheer to examine the deeper themes of family, responsibility, and what it truly means to be good.

An incubus disguised as a high school girl puts a disturbing spin on the teacher/student fantasy. An engineer creates a robot with unexpected consequences during the end of the world. A man becomes the pet of alien invaders. From stories of aliens in other worlds to those living among us, these tales will move you out of your comfort zone and open you up to experiencing something - or someone - completely different.

Beyond the veil of the known universe, in the silent corridors of abandoned ships and forgotten cities, something stirs. Echoes of the Forgotten gathers six haunting tales of cosmic dread, temporal paradoxes, and human frailty—a collection where the familiar becomes terrifying, and the past refuses to stay buried. A hollow captain lures an unsuspecting crew into a trap set by something unseen. On the Moon’s barren surface, scientists hear their own voices foretelling doom.

From Jay Bonansinga, author of The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury and The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, comes a collection of short stories and novellas that span a number of genres.

I've tracked down ten authors who have, at some point, participated in the act of cannibalism. I've collected one short story from each writer and combined them here for your amusement and observation. Isaac Cone presents “Margaritaville”, Jimmy Buffet’s hit song reinterpreted as a southern gothic. Sandeyu Yamamoto writes “Antiquing” about a family with a rare type of OCD where they haunt the object they most obsessed over.

A collection of eight horror stories created by New York Times best-selling novelist Scott Sigler, author of horror/thrillers Infected, Contagious, Ancestor, Nocturnal and the young-adult Galactic Football League series.

Seabury Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of the pulp magazine Weird Tales' original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey.

In a world of criminals, thugs, con artists, cheats, and swindlers, there must be a man to stand against the powers of darkness and corruption. A man not afraid to walk the mean streets—whether they be those of 1930s Los Angeles, an ancient fantasy realm, or some far-flung planet of a future star empire. He is a man who knows that a “good man” is not always a “nice guy”. But when the chips are down, he understands that a hero does the right thing, even if it means losing everything.

"Dancers in the Dark" is set in the Sookieverse and features Sean and Layla. Dancer Layla Rue Le May's childhood prepared her to handle just about anything, including her aloof partner, Sean McClendon, a 300-year-old, redheaded vampire. Even so, when she somehow acquires a stalker, Layla Rue is surprised to find that Sean is the only one she can trust.

From the haunted hills of Roman Britain to the sewers of occupied Warsaw … in the bloodied streets of Revolutionary Paris, and the anarchy World War II Shanghai … out of the wilds of America, India, Africa and Europe … down the long savage darkness of the centuries, monsters have fed upon us. They are shapeshifters, vampires, sorcerers and spirits—things named only in myth, and things for which we have no name. They are our demons, our reflections, our desires and our nightmares. And all too often, they are … only human.

Meet the Caanlin, a race of shape-shifting humans of dark skin that can become leopards. Enslaved by the Salesicans, a half-breed joins a revolt in Leopard of Night. In Sight For Jaygas, a man attempts to find a purpose in his tribe. A breeder finds love and shame in Disgraced. Sythara of the Hicaanlin leads a group of warriors toward certain doom. Finally, how the Caanlin War is envisioned.

Beast Hunt invites you to step into the claws, wings, and scales of the creatures humanity has feared for centuries. From mighty dragons to forgotten forest spirits, from mechanical monstrosities to cursed beings of the deep—these are the stories of the unseen, the unheard, and the misunderstood.

In these marvelously inventive stories, Samantha Hunt imagines numerous ways in which human lives might be altered by the otherworldly: an FBI agent falls in love with a robot built for a suicide mission; a young woman unintentionally cheats on her husband when she is transformed into a deer; two strangers become lovers and find themselves responsible for the resurrection of a dog; a woman tries to start her life anew after the loss of a child but riddles that new life with lies.

Dreamy fantasy stories have actually been a trend. They’ve inspired millions. As opposed to the lengthy novels, these stories are short but cut to the chase in an instant. They light up the weird and the uncanny, the marvelous as well as the fantastic: All the things we know are going beyond the reasonable and instantly realistic - into looking-glass, beyond the songs of the impossibly haunting violin, with the twisted trees of the ancient timbers.

For an imperial assassin, assignment as a courtesan in the Floating World seems like a waste of her talents...until killers target her clan sisters. In the legendary Floating World, wars are waged with wit, the strongest soldier can be bound with threads of silk, and flesh is the currency by which life, death, and freedom can all be purchased. Half-elf Jie bemoans her temporary assignment as a Night Blossom in the most sought-after house, even if it's the perfect cover for her real work as an assassin in the emperor’s service.

A decade of blood stained his hands. None of his victims had ever weighed down his conscience. He was merely the tool, the living weapon wielded by his employers. His victims had begged for their lives, had cursed him with their dying breath, and stared in uncomprehending disbelief. But none had ever been calm in their final moments. None had ever stared up at him with such serenity.