Urban Horror

The world is dead, devoured by a plague of reanimated corpses. In a crumbling city, Sarah, Nathan, and a band of survivors barricade themselves inside a warehouse surrounded by a sea of shambling putrefaction. Days in seclusion blur by, and their food is nearly gone. The group is faced with two possible deaths: creeping starvation, or the undead outside the warehouse. As Sarah stands on the edge of the warehouse roof preparing to step out into oblivion she spots a glimmer of hope.

Meg wants a normal life. Her new artistic style, born in the depression of her mother's death, is poised to take the art world by storm, if she could just overcome the debilitating anxiety caused by the car accident that scarred her boyfriend, Austin. Encouraged by her therapist, Meg pushes outside her comfort zone to befriend Haley, a guest instructor at the university. Haley is everything Meg wants to be: charismatic, confident, and perfect, but when Austin expresses his worry that Haley is changing Meg too fast, Meg kicks him out of her life. Or at least, she tries.

Four years after the events of The Worm and His Kings, Donna Ashton ekes out a life far removed from her troubled past, only to be abducted one December night by a monster in man's skin. Held prisoner by operatives of a clandestine research facility and drugged into a sickened state, each day brings questioning and punishment. Escape should be possible when Donna faces only mortal hands this time, but the more she sees, the worse her mind splinters with horrific understanding.

Call me Drood, Eddie Drood. Some know me as Shaman Bond and most simply don' t want to know me at all. For centuries, my family has been keeping the things that lurk on the darker side of existence as far away as possible from humans like you, without you even knowing we' re there. Unfortunately for us, not everybody appreciates what we Droods do. Recently, I personally managed to survive yet another attempt on my life, but the rest of my relatives weren' t so lucky.

In 1816, Elizabeth's life had been carefully planned for her. A home, a family, a life that she was trained to fill... and had never questioned if she wanted, until the future she expected was stolen from her. In the present day, Heck's hopes and dreams have been destroyed, the life she was fighting for gone in an instant. Amid the devastation of her plans, she's determined to fight for her dreams.

U.S. Marshal Jameson Arkeley, the country’s foremost authority on vampires, taught police investigator and vampire fighter Laura Caxton everything she knows about monsters. After a bloody war visited upon Gettysburg by an army of vampires, Arkeley gave up his own life to save others—except he didn’t exactly die.

It's the end of the 19th century. San Francisco's cobblestone streets are haunted, but Chinatown has an unlikely protector in a young Daoist priestess named Li-lin. Using only her martial arts training, spiritual magic, a sword made from peachwood, and the walking, talking spirit of a human eye, Li-lin stands alone to defend her immigrant community from supernatural threats. But when the body of a young girl is brought to the deadhouse Li-lin oversees for a local group of gangsters, she faces her most bewildering - and potentially dangerous - assignment yet.

M.J. Holliday and her crew interrupt the frantic schedule of their reality TV show, Ghoul Getters, and hotfoot it to New Mexico, where a dreadful demon is waging tribal warfare. Same Whitefeather - M.J.'s spirit guide - urgently needs her help to stop this evil spirit from wiping out the descendants of his tribe. It doesn't take a psychic to predict that M.J.'s going to have a devil of a time making New Mexico a demon-free zone.

Bram Stoker’s masterpiece, in which the instantly recognisable Count Dracula plans to sate his dreadful appetites in England only to be thwarted by an intrepid band of friends, remains an enthralling story. Exploring themes of sexuality, religion, technology and good versus evil, and told through journal entries, letters and telegrams, its cultural and literary significance is undisputed.

In New York, all 17-year-old, social misfit, Warren Brennan wants to do is graduate, get out of his backwoods, western New York town and draw comics for Marvel Comics. But the best-laid plans of chubby nerds who are suddenly thrust into the role of fighting for humanity’s survival often go awry when an odd, overpowering yellow-tinted rainstorm engulfs the world. With it, the deadly virus swiftly spreads around the globe, killing and mutating untold millions, creating an exponentially growing army of the undead.

For the fans of The DaVinci Code - with three generations of extraordinary women keeping alive the ancient Goddess faith. "Whenever you are of need, come to Me when the moon is full and I, Hecate, Queen of all witches, will guide you, my daughter, to your heart's desire."

It had been almost a century and a half since I last encountered anyone from the Order of the Morning Dawn. They were religious fundamentalists with the dual goal of eliminating vampires and witches. Being both a vampire and a witch, I was the embodiment of everything the Order hates. Their first attempt to eliminate me failed. Thanks to the fact that my mentor in the craft was also a necromancer.

Hecate’s social life is looking up. Her sister is getting married, the new brother-in-law-to-be is a really good guy, and his family is helping Hecate fill in the gaps of her knowledge of what the hell she is. Her grandfather’s ghost is convinced that she needs to become a ghost hunter in her family tradition. She has attempted to tell him that her way is more appropriate, but it is hard to get a new idea into the minds of the deceased. When her grandfather’s assistant arrives, Hecate is in for a shock. Not only is he pale as marble, but he is also as solid as the stone as well.

This issue of Weird Tales presents a variety of stories, essays, and poems about cryptids and urban legends. Not to dispel, but to reveal.

After getting caught turning wolf on national television, Kitty retreats to a mountain cabin to recover and write her memoirs. But this is Kitty, so trouble is never far behind, and instead of Walden Pond, she gets Evil Dead.

With their magic diminishing, warring factions of New Orleans witches desperately search for the Book of the Unwinding - a legendary grimoire, hidden by spells, that holds the key to unimaginable powers. As a ruthless struggle erupts in a maelstrom of malevolent magic, psychic Nathalie Boudreau finds her destiny intertwined with that of an exiled witch. Her name is Alice Marin, a vulnerable young woman trapped in a realm of illusion. Only Nathalie can free her, but first she must come to understand and master her own extraordinary abilities.

Magic is seeping out of the world, leaving the witches who've relied on it for countless centuries increasingly hopeless. While some see an inevitable end of their era, others are courting madness - willing to sacrifice former allies, friends, and family to retain the power they covet. While the other witches watch their reality unravel, young Alice Marin is using magic's waning days to delve into the mystery of numerous disappearances in the occult circles of New Orleans.

Legends say that the world was once filled with evil until the mighty Jade Emperor split it into three, Heaven, Hell, and Earth. He banished the demons and left the Sun and the Moon to watch over mankind. But one of those banished, Xuè Lóng the Blood Dragon, was enraged by his punishment and vowed to return and wreak havoc on humanity.

William Maltese's Flicker number one Book of Answers chronicles the rise of one all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful teenage Grand Master Magician, and the battles fought by old and young, by magic (black and white), by demons, beasts, and humans.

This second novel in the acclaimed Greywalker series finds PI Blaine Harper investigating a chilling case as Halloween approaches. After university researchers create an artificial poltergeist, the team leader suspects someone is faking the phenomena. When a student is murdered, Blaine is asked to investigate. Stepping into the spirit world, she realizes the haunting may be very real. But that doesn't necessarily mean a ghost did the killing.