Dark Horror

New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live - and die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody - he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city's sidewalks.

When Diya Burman's best friend, Angie, dies unexpectedly, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Grief costs her friends, family and even her job. But that's ok, because now she's got a new job: working at Slough & Sons, a family firm that deals in cleaning up after the recently deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Hoarded trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination.

In the dark underbelly of our world, there's a black market in arcane things - living and dead. Angela Gough has been pulled into this world, making her a criminal on the run. In London she encountered the Kin-satyrs and centaurs, Nephilim and wraiths, hunted and slaughtered for their body parts. Fleeing back to the United States, Angela discovers that the Kin are everywhere, and they are tired of being prey. When her niece Sammi is struck by lightning, she is drawn toward the mysterious Folded Land and its powerful and deadly ruler.

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.

Wounds is a confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella from Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in The Visible Filth to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table”, Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.

When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination - now leaking out of his own brain - Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick's dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.

Once he was a hero of the Great War, and then a member of the dreaded Black House. Now he is the criminal linchpin of Low Town. His name is Warden. He thought he had left the war behind him, but a summons from up above brings the past sharply, uncomfortably, back into focus. General Montgomery's daughter is missing somewhere in Low Town, searching for clues about her brother's murder. The General wants her found, before the stinking streets can lay claim to her, too.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter, sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined "Writers' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months", and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of "real life" that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.

Since the beginning of time, the angelic forces of the High Heavens and the demonic hordes of the Burning Hells have been locked in eternal conflict for the fate of all Creation. That struggle has now spilled over into Sanctuary - the world of men. Determined to win mankind over to their respective causes, the forces of good and evil wage a secret war for mortal souls. This is the tale of the Sin War - the conflict that would forever change the destiny of man.

For 300 years, Sister Autumn has incited wars, burnt villages, killed kings, and released plagues at the bidding of the grimoire. When an order from the grimoire sends Agatha to the Kingdom of Merveille, she already anticipates the worst. Unless she wants to face the wrath of the Goddess, Agatha must keep her head down and do as she's commanded. But when the grimoire orders her to marry a pompous prince and play the role of a peasant "accepted" by vicious aristocrats, she finds herself at the center of a war between the classes and an age-old prophecy.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

Since the beginning of time, the angelic forces of the High Heavens and the demonic hordes of the Burning Hells have been locked in the Eternal Conflict for the fate of all Creation. That struggle has now spilled over into Sanctuary - the world of men. Determined to win mankind over to their respective causes, the forces of good and evil wage a secret war for mortal souls. This is the tale of the Sin War - the conflict that would forever change the destiny of man.

Darkness, both literal and psychological, holds its own unique fascination. Despite our fears, or perhaps because of them, listeners have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness, and the supernatural, and no more so than today when a wildly imaginative new generation of dark dreamers is carrying on in the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft and King, crafting exquisitely disturbing literary nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss - and linger in the mind long after.

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.

It looked like another ordinary day in Los Angeles. Then night came...Evil as old as the centuries has descended upon the City of Angels - it comes as a kiss from the terrifying but seductive immortals. Slowly at first, then by the legions, the ravenous undead choke Los Angeles with bloodthirsty determination - and the hordes of monstrous victims steadily mount each night.

Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things, but twisted forms…unholy shapes. And there are rumors of a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more. It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

A rogue master vampire hits town, and Anita gets caught in the middle of an undead turf war. Jean-Claude, the Master Vamp of the city, wants her for his own - but his enemies have other plans. And to make matters worse, Anita takes a hit to the heart when she meets a stunningly handsome junior high science teacher named Richard Zeeman. They're two humans caught in the crossfire - or so Anita thinks.

On a snowy New Year's Eve, Fennrick negotiates one last hurrah in a seedy internet cafe, but at the stroke of midnight, he receives a tantalizing invitation: "You have been invited to join the Tutorial." And when presented with the available difficulty levels, he makes the obvious choice: Hell. Soon, Fennrick finds himself in frenzied, violent combat, and it's a toss-up as to which he'll lose first: his life or what little sanity he has left. With his criminal record, estranged family, and nonexistent future, he's ready to accept death.

Yet another brilliant entry in Kenemore’s zombie canon - Cap’n Hook meets the undead. Set in the Caribbean of the eighteenth century, the epicenter of piracy, voodoo, and the dark arts, The Code of the Zombie Pirate reveals all the secrets to selecting, customizing, and managing a motley crew of pirates-cum-zombies.

From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique! No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 4 contains more than twenty stories. Listener beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!