Dark Horror

When Robin Griffiths embarks upon the restoration of a stained-glass window in a thirteenth-century church, little does she comprehend the stakes involved. The more slivers of glass she pieces together, the more she realizes things are not what they appear to be in the seemingly cozy hamlet of Bilbury.

Centuries ago, Sebastian Wroth was turned into a vampire - a nightmare in his mind - against his will. Burdened with hatred and alone for ages, he sees little reason to live - until an exquisite, fey creature comes to kill him, inadvertently saving him instead. When Kaderin the Cold Hearted lost her two beloved sisters to a vampire attack long ago, a benevolent force deadened her sorrow - accidentally extinguishing all of her emotions. Yet whenever she encounters Sebastian, her feelings emerge multiplied.

Par cette réécriture horrifique du conte célèbre Raiponce, engouffrez-vous au coeur d’un abîme où les masques de monstre et de victime couvrent le même visage ; où tous, y compris les sauveurs, n’échappent pas aux règles qui dictent l’abomination humaine. Un incendie mortel dans un hôpital psychiatrique pour enfants. Des jeunes femmes qui disparaissent de manière inexpliquée. Une adolescente capturée à son tour par un être défiguré qui se plaît à lui brosser sauvagement les cheveux au creux d’une mine désaffectée.

Welcome to Saturday Fright at the Movies, where the projector is stuck on mayhem and thirteen B-movie tales are lurching off the screen. In the flickering light of this hallowed multiplex, you'll witness outrageous creature features and gritty found footage, nostalgic popcorn slashers and haunted VHS tapes. Run screaming down the aisles with intergalactic zombie unicorns, tentacled rock-gods, brat-packs of unearthly trick-or-treaters, a goo-monster with an existential crisis, and one starry-eyed coroner as he meets-and-greets his favorite masked maniac.

My husband. My villain. We started with death and blood. We started with games and carnal pleasure. Adrian and I shouldn’t have been together. He’s wrong. I’m wrong. What we have is the epitome of disaster. Yet, it’s impossible to stop. My husband will either destroy me or I’ll destroy him.

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

A bet turned into a disaster. Sebastian Weaver is the star quarterback and the college’s heartthrob. Rich. Handsome. Bastard. Everyone’s attention flocked toward him, and all the girls dreamed of being with him. Not me. At least, not until he made a move on me. See, I thought I was stronger than Sebastian’s charms. I thought I could survive being his target. I thought wrong. Little did I know that he will make my most twisted fantasies come true. Fantasies I didn’t know existed...

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother's union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches.

A student’s investigation into a secret cult leads to madness.

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor with her sisters and their father and stepmother. Once there were 12, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that her sister's deaths were no accidents. The girls have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn't sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts.

The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales - both never-before-published in print or audio - that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition. Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.

The government said the Variants were dying off.... That the beasts would be extinct in a matter of years.... That the Allied States had returned to prosperity and freedom.... The government was dead wrong. Deep under the cities, the Variants weren't just hiding, they were breeding. While the human survivors of the Extinction Cycle built outposts and brought back industries, the monsters were building something of their own.

Vitus Adamson has a second chance at life now that he's no longer a zombie. But after killing his brother, Jamie, Vitus lands in prison on murder charges. Jamie's death exposes secret government projects so deep in the black they cannot be seen - without Vitus, that is. Sprung from jail, the government hires Vitus to clean up Jamie's messes, but tracking down his brother's homemade monsters gone rogue is easier said than done. The first of them is a convicted killer assumed to be safely behind bars.

Reais, a fractured abyss ruled by thousands of contesting Demon Lords no stranger to chaos, happens to be the birth place of a new chaos, a new threat. Punished for disbelief in a mortal life, a soul curses Deities for its unfair imprisonment and psychological torture. Set free by witless demons, this soul sees an opportunity for vengeance.

Doc has finally gotten Adrian Gionta’s scent, and he won’t stop until he catches his prey. Gionta is far more than a painter of souls though, and he’s had plenty of time to prepare for the oncoming storm that is Doc Holliday. It will take more than a mere mortal to save the thousands of people trapped in Gionta’s paintings. Thankfully, Doc’s no mere mortal, but will even he be enough....

England, 1881. Hereford Cathedral stands sentinel over the city, keeping its secrets, holding long forgotten souls in its stony embrace. Hecate Cavendish speeds through the cobbled streets on her bicycle, skirts hitched daringly high, heading for her new life as Assistant Librarian. But this is no ordinary collection of books. The cathedral houses an ancient chained library, wisdom guarded for centuries, mysteries and stories locked onto its worn, humble shelves. The most prized artifact, however, is the medieval world map which hangs next to Hecate’s desk.

Julie Crews is a coked-up, burnt-out 30-something who packs a lot of magic into her small body. She’s trying to establish herself as a major psychic operative in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs to claw her way to the top. Desperate to break the dead-end grind, Julie summons a guardian angel for a quick career boost. But when her power grab accidentally releases an elder god hell-bent on the annihilation of our galaxy, the body count rises rapidly.

I’m one of four Willow daughters. He’s the first-born son of the Scafoni family. And we have history. For generations, the Scafoni family have demanded a sacrifice of us. A virgin daughter to atone for sins so old, we don’t even remember what they are anymore. But when you have as much money as they do, you don’t play by the rules. You make them. And Sebastian Scafoni makes all the rules. The moment I saw him, I knew he would choose me. Even though the mark on my sheath declared me unclean.

Do you dare step through the red door? Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn’t know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man. But now Spencer is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can’t fully remember.

The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . Such tales of the dark and the unknown have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows.