Horror Fiction Short Stories

Cassandra Khaw's dynamic and vibrant debut collection, Breakable Things, explores the fragile and nebulous bonds that weave love and grief into our existence. This exquisite and cutting collection of stories showcases a bloody fusion of horrors from cosmic to psychological to body traumas.

"Perfect deadpan marks the opening of Ali Simpson’s The Monster'" writes Susan Merrell of The Southampton Review in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading.

The hands of the clock freeze at midnight, and the witching hour is upon you. Demons shriek in the shadows, and the wind groans through the halls of a haunted mansion. The shadow of death looms over you, and you feel a chill creeping down your spine.... Scare Street is proud to present Night Terrors, Volumes 4-6 in a single collection. A ghoulish gathering of diabolical delights, featuring 43 tales of supernatural horror for your listening pleasure.

There are secrets beneath the waves ... older than mankind, and hungry still. In this salt-soaked collection, H. P. Lovecraft conjures horrors from the deep: ancient beings that slumber beneath black seas, forgotten isles lost to time, and coastal towns whose bloodlines trace back to something not entirely human. Each tale explores the terror of isolation—geographical and existential—as characters find themselves adrift in waters not meant to be charted. Whether wrecked on a strange shore or pulled downward by unseen forces, the fate is the same: madness, revelation … or worse.

Arthur Roth is a lonely sixth-grader with a head full of big ideas and a gift for getting the hell kicked out of him. It's hard to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.

An addict searching for his next high instead comes upon a beautiful and mysterious woman who leads him from the darkness in his soul to the possibility of real hope. How can he hold on when he can’t even be sure she’s really human.

Push past the curtains of the rational, safe world and explore the un-nameable horrors living in the darkest corners of our conscience. This is the realm of monsters and shifting shadows, where a single wrong step can plunge you into a terrifying, irreversible fight for your life. A mannequin is stored in the back of your rented basement room. Sometimes its dust cloth falls off. Sometimes you feel it watching you. And sometimes it moves while you're asleep....

When Desdemona Harris gets a mysterious invitation to test a new dating app named Charm'd, she jumps at the chance. Soon after, strange things start happening, and Des begins to wonder - who is swiping left on her?

Edith Nesbit is best known as the author of children's classics, such as The Railway Children. She was also a renowned author of ghost stories and othertales of terror, the macabre and the supernatural. In this collection of spine-chilling narratives, Nesbit presents us with a truly masterful set of tales of love which reaches out beyond the grave, ghosts, eerie incarnations, evil deeds and uncanny happenings. Perfect bedtime listening.... if you dare!

When her husband dies unexpectedly, Maggie Royal is struck with sinister visions that foretell danger for her and for her five-year-old daughter. Her mother and grandmother were said to have “the sight,” but it was never like this. With no one alive to turn to, Maggie must move quickly to uncover the meaning of her visions before her candle is snuffed out.

The first issue in the second century of Weird Tales features a new HELLBOY story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Editor Jonathan Maberry has built a collection of cosmic horror that will destabilize your worldview.

An arcade game glitch reveals a sinister secret. A kidnapped man finds himself trapped in an elaborate and deadly labyrinth. A sinister mastermind unleashes a deadly pandemic where a simple yawn becomes a gruesome death sentence. A chance fall into an abandoned cellar plunges a man into a nightmare of serial killers and ancient horrors. A sleep-deprived new father faces a terrifying question: is his newborn daughter a supernatural monster, or is he losing his grip on reality? A rare Nazi-era synthesizer proves to be a gateway to mind-bending horrors.

Karen is an art student attending her first overnight summer camp. She loves being around other artists. Her days are spent drawing, meeting new friends, and fluttering over a super-hot guy who seems to have the same feelings for her. Everything seems to be going well, until she discovers her roommate's unique method for creating art.

Three boys investigate a mysterious thicket. What will they find? Forgotten junk? Frogs? An abandoned bike? What starts out as a fun way to waste away a few boring hours soon turns into a day of terror.

Twelve-year-old Rosario and his parents have arrived at Devil's Creek for a weekend of camping and family fun. The boy's parents have a surprise for Rosario, a secret. But the eyes of the crows are watching. And Devil's Creek holds a secret all its own.

Nature is beautiful...until it tries to eat you. Jaxon is just your average janitor, but when he's caught in the crossfire between advanced science and terrorism, he ends up running for his life and watching the world around him get swallowed whole. Mother Nature takes revenge, and Jaxon has nowhere to go!

His name is a byword for unspeakable horror and dread. Across ten stories this dark master holds a fascinating lure for all of us. Word by word, line by line we are drip-fed stomach-churning terror of a mesmerizing kind…

Thirty-four years ago, on October 31, poor Hannah Talbott took part in a scavenger hunt gone violently wrong. The mean girls made sure of it. To this day, for a haunted local mother, the most unsettling Halloween costume of all is an urban legend they call Hannah-Beast. It’s a reminder of the past she can’t forget. Especially tonight when it’s come back, so close to home.

Behold the Void includes nine stories of terror that huddle in the dark space between cosmic horror and the modern weird, between old-school hard-edged horror of the 1980s and the stylistic prose of today's literary giants.

The bold investigators of Arkham Horror are humanity's best hope against monstrous terrors from beyond the void in this second collection of extraordinary eldritch novellas.