JACK

From number one New York Times best-selling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas - Mr. Harrigan's Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds - each pulling you into intriguing and frightening places.

July 1863. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia is invading the North. General Robert E. Lee has made this daring and massive move with seventy thousand men in a determined effort to draw out the Union Army of the Potomac and mortally wound it. His right hand is General James Longstreet, a brooding man who is loyal to Lee but stubbornly argues against his plan. Opposing them is an unknown factor: General George Meade, who has taken command of the Army only two days before what will be perhaps the crucial battle of the Civil War.

Here are thrilling, never-before-heard stories of the Army's elite aviation unit - the most daring and professional helicopter crews in the world. Special Operations pilots are notoriously reticent; they don't talk about their missions, at least not to anyone outside their small community. But now, with the publication of The Night Stalkers, Durant and Steven Hartov shed a fascinating light on these mysterious super commandos and take readers into a world they have only imagined.

Demonic possession. Exorcism. Haunted Houses. Satanic Rituals. For most people this is the stuff of nightmares, horror movies, folklore, and superstition. For New York City police Sergeant Ralph Sarchie, it's as real - and dangerous - as midnight patrol…. A 16-year NYPD veteran, Ralph Sarchie works out of the 46th Precinct in New York's South Bronx. But it is his other job that he calls "the Work": Investigating cases of demonic possession and assisting in the exorcisms of humanity's most ancient - and most dangerous - foes.

On a foggy summer night, 11 people - 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter - depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: The plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are the painter Scott Burroughs and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family. Was it by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work?

Armored cars, burner phones, top-notch weaponry, and top-secret missions - this is the life of today's private military contractor. Like author Simon Chase, many PMCs were once the world's top military operatives, and since retiring from outfits like US Navy SEAL TEAM Six and the UK's Special Boat Service, they have devoted their lives to executing missions too sensitive for the government to acknowledge. Chase reveals here for the first time the operations too hazardous and politically volatile to be officially sanctioned by his employers.