Horror Supernatural Suspense

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now armed with his father's mysterious and deadly atheme, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay. Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage.

His name is Bily Rowe. Yesterday, he was just another tragically talented loser that the city had chewed up and spat back down on the streets - a failed musician, failed lover, failed friend. But that was before a young woman was brutally murdered before his eyes. That was before the hideous creatures crawled out of the shadows to call him by name. That was before Billy Rowe discovered the power.

Mass killer Cara Lindstrom is in the wind after a deadly encounter which leaves FBI Special Agent Antara Singh questioning her own sanity and fitness to serve. ASAC Matthew Roarke exiles Singh to Portland to work as an assistant to his old mentor, retiring profiler Chuck Snyder - but a mysterious break-in alerts Singh and Snyder to an active threat revolving around an old case: a series of brutal murders of homeless teenagers on the streets of Portland and Seattle.

The murders were only the beginning. No one knew what went on in the sullen, dark house on the hill, but town cop Kurt Morris intended to find out. The sleepy town of Tylersville, Maryland was being stalked by an unimaginable evil, it had become the haunting-ground for horrors too grisly to be described. Young girls had vanished without a trace. Graves had been opened, corpses unearthed, and carried away. Quiet moonlit nights gave way to a mindless slaughter, and to the sounds of hysterical screams.

Back in Ellsworth High there was definitely no one weirder than Melvin. All the kids made fun of the way he dressed, the way he acted, everything about him. Vicki was the only one who stood up for him, but even she was horrified when he dug up a dead body and tried to bring it back to life with power from a car battery. That was years ago, but Vicki still has nightmares about Melvin. Now she's back in Ellsworth and she knows she'll have to see Melvin again.

This issue of Weird Tales presents a batch of entirely new short stories, flash fiction, poems, and an essay dealing with monsters who defy death, including zombies, vampires, mummies, and various and assorted revenants. There are some real heavy hitters here—bestsellers and names listeners might not yet know … but should. And will.

A young man’s attempts at breaking parole end in a night of horror. A child realizes that his Christmas gift might be a lot more sinister than he originally thought. An editor unveils his client’s sinister plan to cleanse the world of all evil. And a woman’s walk home is accompanied by a strange presence that promises a gruesome end. Scare Street’s authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy, and A. I. Nasser come together to bring you some of the most horrifying short stories in a single collection.

In a thick forest sits a forgotten stone building, The Redwood Asylum. Once inside, the criminally insane, the darkly disturbed, and the eternally confused residents learn one thing very quickly: They are at the mercy of ruthless evil in many forms. At 26, Jessica Rosen starts a new job at Redwood in the hopes of forgetting an insidious past. She quickly realizes, however, that Redwood harbors malevolent secrets and beings in every chilly corner.

Cassie Winslow is 16. She has just lost her mother in a terrible accident. Now, lonely and frightened, she has come to live with the father she barely knows and his new family in tiny False Harbor on Cape Cod. For Cassie, the strange, unsettling dreams that come to her suddenly in the dead of night are merely the beginning. Very soon, Cassie Winslow will come to know the terrifying powers that are her gift. And in the village of False Harbor, nothing will ever be the same.

After a sudden fire leaves Matt's senile and troubled grandmother homeless, she moves in with the family. Her ceaseless demands cause unrelieved tension - and with her comes a shameful secret about her daughters that traps Matt between a dead aunt who haunts him and his own mother, who seeks redemption for her sister's sins - and her own. Matt transforms from a gregarious teenager to a hostile loner prone to fits of rage - tortured by chilling memories and haunted by nightmares.

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.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are attending the re-opening of Tyrone’s Castle, an ancient Cornish inn originally built by smugglers. Over dinner that night, the guests entertain one another with ghost stories inspired by local legends and superstitions. But it would appear that the curse of Tyrone’s Castle has struck for real when one of their number disappears into thin air. And then another....

In 1972, Jeff Rice's novel The Night Stalker introduced Carl Kolchak to the world. This spine-tingling novel of supernatural terror became an instant best seller and served as the basis for the film of the same name. After The Night Stalker became one of the highest rated television movies of all time, a sequel, The Night Strangler, was released the following year to great acclaim. Now, after more than three decades out of print, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler are together in one volume.

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise.

A new night of terror begins with Scare Street’s latest bone-chilling collection. This pulse-pounding volume contains 13 new supernatural tales of terror. And each story brings you deeper into the dark realm of nightmares. As the inky black shadows close in, you realize you are not alone. Something stalks you through this strange netherworld. You hear snarls in the distance. The howling grows louder and louder.

Dustin Graves can’t get a break. Murdering an Old One was only the beginning. Enraged, the Eldest have answered with searing rains of ivory fire from the stars, threatening Valero and the world itself. The madness must be stopped. Ancient gods of prophecy, death, and darkness themselves answer the call for battle. But the secret to saving the world lies closer to Dustin's heart than he knows: a ritual sacrifice, meant to end the suffering. After all...what’s one life against the fate of billions?

Night falls. It came like a malignant shadow with seductive promises of power. And somewhere in the night...a small girl smiled as her mother burned...asylum inmates slaughtered their attendants...in slimy tunnels once-human creatures gathered. Madness raged as the lights began to fade and humanity was attacked by an ancient, unstoppable evil.

A new husband and a new house. Just as well, because Zoe doesn't like old. Back in the 1960s, this house was built to look ultra-modern, with lots of glass and sharp angles. And it was going cheap, perhaps because of the self-inflicted death of a previous owner – notoriously bloody and prolonged.

Cosmo Saville adores his new husband, but his little white lies and some very black magic are about to bring their fairy tale romance to an end. Someone is killing San Francisco's spell casters, and the only person Cosmo can turn to - the man who so recently swore to love and cherish him - isn't taking his phone calls. The only magic police commissioner John Joseph Galbraith believes in is true love. Discovering he’s married to a witch - one with something alarmingly like magical powers - is nearly as bad as discovering the man he loved tricked and deceived him.

Carnaki has a reputation as a ghost hunter. When a house seems haunted by a malignant spirit or a family suffering under a curse, they call for Carnaki, the only man able to help.