Paranormal Horror Fiction

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.

Erika est une étudiante ordinaire, enfin presque ! Invivable, puérile et pleine d'humour sarcastique, c'est avec surprise qu'un homme la connaissant vient la voir un soir. Rapidement elle apprend qu'elle est une sorcière ! Mais les bonnes nouvelles ne s'arrêtent pas là ! À peine a-t-elle pu se faire à l'idée qu'elle meure. Transformée en vampire par un proche, elle va désormais devoir dompter ses pouvoirs incontrôlables. Si seulement personne ne cherchait à la tuer... Rapidement Erika perd pied.

Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers - Mr. Crepsley - is a vampire! Steve confronts the vampire after the show finishes - but his motives are surprising!

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults, and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us.... Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly 80 years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge.

There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it's unwise to walk. Sunshine knew that. But there hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and she needed a place to be alone for a while. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone. She never heard them coming. Of course you don't, when they're vampires.

There's a maniacal murderer on the loose, brutally slaughtering young women with a ferocity that rivals that of vampires Harry Koegh has spent his life combatting. The Necroscope's been asked to solve the crimes...asked by the dead spirits of the madman's victims. Harry cannot turn down a request from the dead...even if it costs him his soul. In the climactic battle with the vampires, mankind prevailed and purged the vampires from earth - thanks to Harry, his team of psychically-gifted spies, and Faethor Ferenczy, long-dead "father" of the world's vampires, who betrayed his own kind.

In 525 BC, the Persian king Cambyses sent 50,000 soldiers across the conquered Egyptian desert to take an oasis city not far from where the Libyan border stands today. According to Greek history, a hurricane-force sandstorm struck near the end of their 600-mile trek. The army - all 50,000 men - vanished without a single trace. Fast forward to 1986. A British archaeological team, sent to the edge of the Great Sand Sea to exhume evidence of the incident, has also gone missing.

In a perfect world where everyone destroys everything and eats human flesh, one zombie has had enough: Buck Burger. When he rebels at the natural disorder, his marriage starts deteriorating and a doctor prescribes him an anti-depressant. Buck meets a beautiful green-haired pharmacist fairy named Fairy_26 and quickly becomes a pawn in a cold war between zombies and supernatural creatures.

It’s the best time of the year in the mountain village I call home, known for its Krampus lore and festive enthusiasm during the holidays. From the outside looking in, my life is perfect. I live in a winter wonderland, I’m engaged to the town’s beloved “honied ham man” and I run the town’s most precious flower shop. No one would ever know my fiancé is an abusive psychopath who’s threatened to kill me if I ever try to leave him. It’s a secret I’ve always kept hidden, my burden to bear. The only person who sees right through the mask I wear is my Christmas tree vendor. He follows me, watches me.

On the frozen shores of Sweden, a freak lightning storm reveals the skeleton of a giant man, his bony fist gripped tight to the shaft of an ancient iron hammer. It's not every day that the remains of a Norse god and his war hammer appear on a beach, and the occult detective called Hellboy knows that whatever is coming next won't be pleasant.

Chuck Dutton built Music City Salvage with patience and expertise, stripping historic properties and reselling their bones. Inventory is running low, so he's thrilled when Augusta Withrow appears in his office offering salvage rights to her entire property. This could be a gold mine, so he assigns his daughter, Dahlia, to personally oversee the project. The crew finds a handful of surprises right away. Firstly, the place is in unexpectedly good shape. And then there's the cemetery, about 30 fallen and overgrown graves dating to the early 1900s.

In Sandman Slim Stark came back from hell for revenge. Once again all is not right in L.A. Lucifer is back in Heaven, God is on vacation, and an insane killer mounts a war against both Heaven and Hell. Stark’s got to head back down to his old stomping grounds in Hell to rescue his long lost love, stop an insane serial killer, prevent both Good and Evil from completely destroying each other, and stop the demonic Kissi from ruining the party for everyone. Even for Sandman Slim, that’s a tall order. And it’s only the beginning.

Darren, the vampire's assistant, gets a taste of the city when he leaves the Cirque du Freak with Evra the snake-boy and Mr. Crepsley. When corpses are discovered - corpses drained of blood - Darren and Evra are compelled to hunt down whatever foul creature is committing such horrendous acts. Meanwhile, beneath the streets, evil stalks Darren and Evra, and all clues point to Mr. Crepsley. Can they escape, or are they doomed to perish in the tunnels of blood?

The twin sons of Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, have taken very different paths. Nathan as his father's powers - to talk to the dead, to travel instantly through space. Like Harry, this new Necroscope fights evil wherever he finds it. His twin, Nestor, has become the most horrifying evil imaginable: a shape-shifting, blood sucking Wamphyi Lord! Devoid of human feeling, Nestor and his companion, the beautiful, malevolent Wratha the Risen, hunt without mercy.

On December 31st, 1981, high atop a snowy mountain peak in the rugged interior of British Columbia, Canada, ninety-eight beautiful people eat, drink, laugh, and dance inside the opulent grand ballroom of the Sinclair Resort Hotel. The clock strikes twelve, 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, never to be seen again.

When Bonnie Grayduck relocates from sunny Santa Cruz California to the small town of Lake Woebegotten, Minnesota, to live with her estranged father, chief of the local two-man police department, she thinks she's leaving her troubles behind. But she soon becomes fascinated by another student - the brooding, beautiful Edwin Scullen, whose reclusive family hides a terrible secret. (Psst: they're actually vampires. But they're the kind who don't eat people, so it's okay.)

After a devastating loss, Brynn Wilder escapes to Wharton, a tourist town on Lake Superior, to reset, and checks into a quaint boardinghouse. In her fellow lodgers, she finds a friendly company of strangers: the frail Alice, cared for by a married couple with a heartbreaking story of their own; LuAnn, the eccentric and lovable owner of the inn; and Dominic, an unsettlingly handsome man inked from head to toe in mesmerizing tattoos. But in this inviting refuge, a mystery begins to swirl. Alice knows things about Brynn, about all of them, that she shouldn’t.

Mo's latest assignment is assisting the police in containing an unusual outbreak: ordinary citizens suddenly imbued with extraordinary abilities of the superpowered kind. Unfortunately these people prefer playing superpranks instead of superheroics. The mayor of London being levitated by a dumpy man in Trafalgar Square would normally be a source of shared amusement for Mo and Bob, but they're currently separated because something's come between them - something evil.

Jess Carter wasn't looking for a place to belong when she arrived in Banks, Idaho. It was supposed to be a temporary spot to finish out her last year of high school and bond with her dad. Meeting Dom changed everything. Now, the Pack needs her. Dom needs her. And she's figuring out she needs them if they plan to survive what's coming. A challenge has been issued, and if the Pack doesn't respond, they'll be seen as weak.

When Dion Semele moves to Napa, all he wants is to fit in. But something really strange is happening to Dion, and odd-girl-out Penelope understands completely. Something is happening to her, too. You see, they were made for each other. As Dion's new life becomes a twisted nightmare, he learns that maybe he and Penelope were made to raise hell together, too. Soon, they are caught in a battle for control of their souls, as malignant forces plunge Napa into an abyss of debauchery and blood.