horror

David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an overbearing religious community on the isolated mountain Red Peak; and they were a few of the only survivors of its horrific last days. Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. And when a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their stories. As long-repressed memories surface, they begin to recall different images of that final night. Images that raise questions with no easy, or even believable, answers. Together, they will return to Red Peak. But discovering the terrifying truth might make escaping a second time almost impossible.

Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself. But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can't look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things. Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer. Then the killings begin again. Mary's definitely going to find herself.

Gay men disappear from Toronto, and amidst the AIDS crisis, police brutality, and other signs of homophobia over the years, nobody seems to care about it except the gay community, which begins to realize that what has been happening has been going on for a much longer period than seems to be humanly possible, in a novel that also reflects the author's personal experiences.

Showcases the previous year's best offerings in short horror fiction. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Andy Davidson, Tananarive Due, Gemma Files, Jefrey Ford, John Langan, Livia Llewelleyn, Angela Slatter, and others.

It?s been years since Elena and Cathy last saw each other. The summers they spent as children at Elena?s uncle?s home are a distant memory, and their love and affection for each other have been replaced with anger and hatred. Elena is the successful author of a self-help book and has returned to her hometown to sell her uncle?s house. Cathy never left and, intending to write a book, has spent years researching the town legend: the story of Ilsbeth Carter, a woman whom the townspeople drowned in a well after she was accused of being a witch and killing several children. When Elena feels a connection to Ilsbeth and decides to write her own book about her, Cathy?s rekindled ire toward Elena unearths dangerous and frightening mysteries that, eventually, they both wish had stayed buried.

Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they're not alone after all. There's something in the woods that wasn't there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. William won't want them there, and terrible things happen when William is angry. But the creature in the woods is angry, too.

Long ago, Nathan Graves lived in a house in the country with his abusive father; and has never told his family what happened in that house. Long ago, Maddie Graves was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn't; and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now Nate and Maddie are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again, and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own, and a taste for dark magic. This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family; and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this fight: their love for each other.

'Come home.' Vera's mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories; she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren't alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera's childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn't the one leaving notes around the house in her father's handwriting, but who else could it possibly be? There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

After a terrible accident high in the Alps, travel journalist Nick Grevers wakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. But Nick claims to not remember anything; even whatever horrible event that led to his maimed face and the plastic surgery that leaves him still in bandages and feeling like a B-movie monster. Sam, Nick's long-suffering boyfriend, wants to be glad that Nick is alive and coming home. But the accident has stirred up terrible memories; and it's beginning to seem that Sam isn't just being haunted by his own mistakes or Nick's own trauma. Because it turns out that, though Nick was the only body airlifted off that mysterious peak, he didn't come home alone, after all. And now, their uninvited guest is awake.

Alfie wakes one night to find his twin daughters at the foot of his bed, claiming there's a shadowy figure in their bedroom. When no such thing can be found, he assumes the girls had a nightmare. He isn't surprised that they're troubled. Grief has made its home at Hart House: nine months ago, the twins' mother Pippa died unexpectedly, leaving Alfie to raise them alone. And now, when the girls mention a new imaginary friend, it seems like a harmless coping mechanism. But the situation quickly develops into something more insidious. The girls set an extra place for him at the table. They whisper to him. They say he's going to take them away. Alfie calls upon Julia; Pippa's sister and a psychiatrist; to oust the malignant tenant from their lives. But as Alfie himself is haunted by visions and someone watches him at night, he begins to question the true character of the force that has poisoned his daughters' minds, with dark and violent consequences. Whatever this "friend" is, he doesn't want to leave. Alfie will have to confront his own shameful secrets, the dark past of Hart House, and even the bounds of reality; or risk taking part in an unspeakable tragedy.