Fiction Horror Thriller

From the UK best-selling author of Abbot's Keep comes a new dimension in terror. Spanning four decades, the dark history of Church Farm House is explored within four interlinking horror stories. Welcome to the nightmare... Benedict Ashforth is the author of the UK best-selling Kindle ghost story, Abbot's Keep.

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

Jane Finch wishes her problems ended with a bad commute and no coffee. But when she and her beloved Great Dane, Schrodinger, emerge from a locked room they discover a city changed for the undead. Zombies are everywhere. Some are endlessly cycling through their last actions, others have turned feral—and hungry. Jane and Schroddie's best chance for survival? Reaching her parents' bunker on the city's north shore. Not an easy commute on foot—when surrounded by zombies. Dodging stray bullets and feral zombies is one thing. But soon Jane realizes one of the zombies is following her.

With electricity coursing through my veins, I am the jolt that could change the world. Elementals are the rarest of all supernatural creatures. Their control over the elements ranks them as the most dangerous beings to ever walk the earth. And I should know. I'm one of them. After spending most of my life locked up, with my elemental ability being exploited as a battery to power the Lycan village, an unlikely ally has set me free. Now, I'm running for my life. But I'm not alone.

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it's served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don't knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing what's buried in the Morrows' backyard. But 19-year-old Michael Morrow isn't like the rest of his family. He doesn't take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees.

Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son, Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday - but Sean does.... Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother.

Eli Gac has been ten moves ahead of Doc since beginning his deadly game of cat and mouse, with Tucker’s life as the prize. Doc is willing to go as far as is needed to save his friend, including sacrificing his own life. But as the battle of wits leaves Doc with no other options, will he be ready to do the unthinkable?

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker - an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: Occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in "The American's Tale" to the bloodsucking wife in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

In the icy darkness of the Arctic Ocean, a violent showdown between ruthless whale hunters and fervent environmentalists ends in explosive catastrophe: both ships sinking into the frigid abyss. Marooned on a desolate island, the survivors, now bitter enemies, are forced into an uneasy truce to withstand the merciless cold. Enter Jane Harper: undercover agent, razor-sharp and unflinching, wielding her wit as deftly as her fists. As she rallies the fractured group, they stumble upon ancient Viking ruins and awaken something primal and terrifying.

Kinsey Thorne, the first female US Navy SEAL candidate has hit rock bottom. Having washed out of the Navy, she turned to every drink and drug she could get her hands on. Until her father and cousins, all ex-Navy SEALS themselves, offer her a way back into the life: as part of a private, elite combat team being put together to find and hunt down an impossible monster in the Indian Ocean. Kinsey has a second chance, but can she live through it?

On December 31, 1981, high atop a snowy mountain peak in the rugged interior of British Columbia, Canada, 98 beautiful people eat, drink, laugh, and dance inside the opulent grand ballroom of the Sinclair Resort Hotel. The clock strikes 12, a cheer goes up, and the music swells; balloons drop and streamers swirl. Then blackness. Fifteen seconds later, the power returns and every living soul inside the ballroom has vanished. Forty years later, preternatural investigator Lively Deadmarsh and his psychic twin sister have been brought in to solve this decades-old mystery once and for all.

Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, with high hopes. But Step's new job with a software company turns out to be a snake pit, and 8-year-old Stevie's school is worse. As Stevie retreats into himself, focusing more and more on a mysterious computer game and a growing troop of imaginary friends, the Fletchers' concern turns to terror.

Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a goodbye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings they're as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip.

Five haunting tales from Benedict Ashforth, the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep.

In the beginning was the Oak, its hungry roots reaching deep into the earth, its gnarled limbs searching the distant heavens. Two hundred years ago, Obediah Magrute worshipped the Oak and died violently beneath it, feeding it with his blood and bone, shouting his chilling curse to the skies. Now, Laura and Mark Avery have come to the bustling little Vermont village.

An infertile couple escape to Italy for a short break but soon understand they are not alone, and that an ancient evil has awoken.

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why?

The dead do not rest till they get what they want. You have arrived in the hills. In here, you are surrounded by dense, menacing forests, enveloped in a deadly silence... You never know what lurks here in the cold, dark night. Do not walk alone after sunset in the hills. A beautiful woman in white haunts the Lonely pathways, looking to enchant and ensnare men... All the people who died in accidents here... They say you hear their screams at night. And the deserted lodges sitting amidst lush greenery and calm streams...

Ryan and Sophie are a golden couple in Melbourne, the charming, salt-of-the-earth country boy and the charismatic, gorgeous social butterfly. When Ryan’s father dies, leaving them the family farm, it seems like a chance for Ryan to get back to his roots and for Sophie to embrace the bucolic country life she always dreamed of. But reality proves very different, and years spent struggling against an implacable drought have pushed their marriage – and finances – to the absolute limit.