Short Horror

Here there be gods and monsters—forged from flesh and stone and vengeance—emerging from the icy abyss of deep space, ascending from dark oceans, and prowling strange cities to enter worlds of chaos and wonder, where scientific rigor and human endeavor is tested to the limits. These are cosmic realms and watery domains where old offerings no longer appease the ancient Gods or the new and hungry idols. Deities and beasts. Life and death. Love and hate. Science and magic. And smiling monsters in human skin.

Actor David Ian Davies' telling of Poe's Gothic horror tale "The Tell-Tale Heart" captures this classic narrative of the unnamed murderer in all its exquisite vileness, its self-effacing insanity that poses rationality where none exists.

Stranded on a desert island, a young man yearns for objects from his past. A local from a small coastal town in England is found dead as the tide goes out. A Norwegian whaling ship is stranded in the Arctic, its crew threatened by mysterious forces. In the nineteenth century, a ship drifts in becalmed waters in the Indian Ocean, those on it haunted by their evil deeds. A surfer turned diver discovers there are things worse than drowning under the sea. Something from the sea is creating monsters on land.

The story of Paxton, an antiquarian and archaeologist who holidays in "Seaburgh" and inadvertently stumbles across one of the lost crowns of Anglia, which legendarily protect the country from invasion. Montague Rhodes James was a noted British mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918) and of Eton College (1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature.

A community where the mortgage is paid with blood. A man with an unhealthy devotion to his couch. A death machine that kills whoever its owner wants. A woman escapes one nightmare to find herself in another living hell. A boy learns more about his father than he ever wanted to know. Bone Chimes, the first collection from Kristopher Rufty, features nine demented tales, including The Night Everything Changed, the prelude to The Lurkers.

A sinister children's show leads to unimaginable horror. A mother and daughter fight to survive an island overrun by malfunctioning animatronics. Footprints on the ceiling of an apartment lead a man to the basement where he discovers something out of this world. A researcher's exploration of a mysterious wilderness site reveals an unusual bone and antler totem.

This year brings 22 more in-your-face stories that break boundaries and trash taboos, transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex, and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect. Some of these quieter tales offer the listener some time to recover from the more disturbing ones preceding.

All Marigold wants to be able to do is write a short story that won’t make her professor tear it to pieces. When she stays up all night, pouring her whole self into her writing, she wakes up to find one of her characters, the gorgeous Jamie, is alive and well. Will they live a happily ever after, or is a book-character-in-the-flesh more of a nightmare than a dream come true?

Master of sci-fi Dan Smith delivers an action-packed thriller as secret organisation The Night House exposes the bloodcurdling truth of what lurks inside Dr Kilgore’s House of Horrors. Deep in the Chihuahuan desert, the Slade family’s trip of a lifetime takes a terrifying turn when their car...

A terrifying new collection of short stories from the master of zombie fiction, Max Brooks, best-selling author of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide and Recorded Attacks.

In this followup to his hugely popular Midnight Storm Moonless Sky: Indigenous Horror Stories, Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us again into enthralling tales that mix reality with dark terror. Within its stories, Whisper at Night and They Will Come reveals ancient theories of the paranormal, post apocalyptic scenarios, impossible wells of grief, and monstrous phobias. Soop scares the wits out of listeners, all the while uncovering overlooked social anxieties and racism affecting Indigenous Peoples across North America.

The King in Yellow is a collection of 10 short stories on supernatural subjects first published 1895. The title refers to a mysterious play which causes derangement in the minds of those who read or see it, and which is mentioned in the first four stories.

An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart. And while the surgeon's jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the soul of a lonely craftsman. Desire meets with impulse and erupts, attracting the attention of the surgeon's neighbor - who is drawn to a decaying residence that is now home to instruments of human torture.

Constance is a fiercely independent high school senior living in rural James City County, Virginia. After their father abandons the family, she and her sister Abigail move into their late cousin's home with their mother, Delilah. Constance quickly becomes frustrated by her new life and her mother’s obsession with their family’s legacy. In defiance, she aspires to make a new life for herself and leave this place forever. But when a life-altering tragedy strikes, Constance is thrust into adulthood and a fight for survival against unimaginable forces.

Stephen King reads three of his classic short stories including 1408, now a feature film! Enter a nightmarish mindscape of unrelenting horror and shocking revelations as the greatest storyteller of our time takes us inside a world of yearning and paranoia, isolation and addiction. It is the...

Drang nach Freiheit, radikale Verblendung, die Leiden des Erwachsenwerdens und der unbezwingbare Lebenswille - das sind die Themen von Kings Novellen in "Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Tod". Dieses Hörbuch enthält vier Geschichten vom Meister des Grauens, darunter "Pin-Up" (Frühling) und "Die Leiche" (Herbst), die als Filmvorlagen für die mehrfach für den Oscar und den Golden Globe nominierten Filme "Die Verurteilten" und "Stand by me" dienten.

Do you think people stop talking once they are dead? Then let this book change your mind. Here are four terrifying stories drawn from real-life events. Four supernatural tales about college days in India. Four surreal narratives that will twist their way into your nightmares.

Novelist Mandy Freeman thinks her dreams have come true when she becomes owner of Summer Cottage, former home of her idol, author Ellen Grace. With her new life starting and love on the horizon, Mandy's future looks bright. But Mandy begins to learn all is not as it seems. A series of disturbing, sinister events force her to delve into the past of its former owner. Mandy finds herself caught in a nightmare that threatens to destroy her....

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.

The most terrifying thing that you can possibly imagine is your own body in the hands of a monster. Or worse, in the hands of another human being. In this definitive anthology of body horror selected by a World Horror Grandmaster, you'll find the unthinkable and the shocking: a couture designer preparing for an exquisitely grotesque runway show; a vengeful son seeking the parent who bred him as plasma donor; a celebrity-kink brothel that inflicts plastic surgery on sex workers; and organ-harvesting doctors who dissect a living man without anesthetic.