Dark Horror

From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique! No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 4 contains more than twenty stories. Listener beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!

Beneath the serene façade of Twin Pines, an ancient evil waits in the shadows. For Emma Flowers, a troubled teenager grappling with her father's mysterious disappearance and her mother's overbearing nature, life has become a labyrinth of bad moods and unanswered questions. Then, after a night of bad storms, Emma finds her neighbor’s dog dead in the middle of the street. As the mystery intensifies, teenagers around town begin falling into coma-like, nightmare states. As the creature moves in on Emma, she begins to uncover the evil’s origins, discovering dark parts of her own past in the...

Families that kill together, stay together. The Lawman and his weary companions have survived the Rites and are headed west for Victory Island. Not far behind, Lothair Eichberg has sworn to take revenge for the murders of his own kind. Along the way they encounter another infamous figure from the past recently revived and intent on taking over the world. The frozen dead are still rising, starving for human flesh. Ancient family ties will bring them all together again for one final, bloody reunion.

Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia - but he remembers everything. He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps. He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.

Whitt Rogers has been dreaming. Horrible dreams. Dreams that stretch the very fabric of the real and the unreal as he is pulled by a voice across the country to a small crab fishing ship set to depart into the Bering Sea. At sea, the memories piece themselves together in cracked fragments. But there is something out there, something speaking to Whitt in his dreams. A voice from a long-forgotten memory that promises peace at the cost of madness. A voice that leads to a place unimaginable and inescapable.

A collection of twenty horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The nightmares include: SOMETHING IN THE SKY: Strange things happen to two college students on Lovers Lane after a meteor cuts a path through a nearby cemetery. THE TOASTER: The City of Baltimore appropriates funds to move Edgar Allen Poe's grave site to a new mausoleum. LORD OF DARKNESS: Fred finds a large box on his doorstep with a horrific looking ebony statue inside that terrifies him. He abhors scary things and takes it to the city dump for disposal. THE METEOR: Newt is ...

Lena Hearst never believed in ghosts—until the house started whispering her name. Drawn to a decaying farmhouse, Lena finds more than a family secret. Beneath the floorboards, something stirs—an ancient presence bound by blood, memory, and unfinished rituals. The deeper she digs, the more the house bends around her… and the harder it becomes to leave. The spiral is calling. The name has been written. And something is waiting to wear her skin. Some echoes aren’t warnings. They’re invitations.

A novelization of the hit horror-comedy spoof of slow-moving Gothic soap operas of the 1970s, Grave Mood Rings.

Fleeing a troubled past, Sarah Faust has found the perfect place to begin a new life. Tucked away on a charming side street and surrounded by lush grounds, the neglected 300-year-old townhouse in the port city of Charleston offers a refuge and a place to start over. But all is not as it seems at Five Rue Lane, and she soon finds that her new house harbors something that has been there for a very long time. Something that refuses to stay buried.

The Antihero Anthology: Three Dark Tales of Justice, Survival, and Madness Some heroes wear capes. These ones carry hatchets, scientific expertise, and Florida-sized delusions. Step into the morally gray worlds of Hatchet Man, Devil Woman, and Florida Man—three gripping, genre-bending stories about unlikely antiheroes who are either out for justice, desperate to survive, or completely unhinged. Hatchet Man (Crime/Thriller) – He woke up with no memory. Now, all he knows is vengeance. 1946, Cleveland: A nameless man wakes up near the Cuyahoga River, wearing only a hospital gown and a ...

A collection of twenty-five horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to thrill you and chill you to the bone. The creepers include: ALONE: Laura keeps hearing weird noises in her house while her husband is on a business trip. FOREVER YOUNG: An elderly multibillionaire will pay five hundred million to be young again, but he also needs a young female to sacrifice to an island of cannibals. LOVE ON THE ROCKS: After twenty years of marriage, Louise can't stand the sight of him and wants a divorse. His temper is boiling over. Is there another man? THE ALIEN: Marge just found out her ...

In France, the brilliant young battle-mage Napoleon Bonaparte has summoned a kraken from the depths, and under his command, the Army of the Dead have all but conquered Europe. Britain fights back, protected by the gulf of the channel and powerful fire-magic, but Wilberforce's own battle to bring about free magic and abolition has met a dead end in the face of an increasingly fearful and repressive government. In Saint Domingue, Fina watches as Toussaint Louverture navigates these opposing forces to liberate the country.

Beneath the serene facade of Twin Pines, an ancient evil waits in the shadows. For Emma Flowers, a troubled teenager grappling with her father's mysterious disappearance and her mother's overbearing nature, life has become a labyrinth of bad moods and unanswered questions. Then, after a night of bad storms, Emma finds her neighbor’s dog dead in the middle of the street. As the mystery intensifies, teenagers around town begin falling into coma-like, nightmare states. As the creature moves in on Emma, she begins to uncover the evil’s origins, discovering dark parts of her own past in the ...

Gabriel Delling might call himself a professional con artist, but when walking superstitions start trying to bite his face off, his charm is shockingly unhelpful. It turns out living nightmares almost never appreciate a good joke. Together with a succubus who insists on constantly saving his life, Gabe desperately tries to survive a new reality that suddenly features demons, legends, and a giant locust named Dale - all of whom pretty much hate his guts. And when an ancient horror comes hunting for a spirit locked in his head, Gabe finds himself faced with the excruciating choice between death...or becoming some kind of freaking hero.

Four college students rent an old Gothic Victorian. One night, they decide to create their own entity -- by thinking it into existence. Things don't always work the way you want them to.

The most beautiful homes hide the ugliest secrets. When real estate agent Katie returns to the abandoned Hehl Mansion to prepare it for sale, she discovers her childhood friend's family never actually left during the pandemic—and neither will she. As Katie and later a renovation crew find themselves trapped inside the decaying mansion, they face a horrifying truth: someone—or something—lurks within its walls, wearing a cracked porcelain mask and turning trespassers into macabre art. With each gruesome death, the survivors realize that Mimi Hehl has created her own twisted family ...

Jenna and her father Rick, who works for the EPA as an investigator, are summoned to an ancient Tobacco plantation deep in the heart of Louisiana. Little do they realize, that beneath the majestic mansion lies a sinister evil, which has been waiting and festering for over a hundred years. In the gathering darkness, Jenna begins having strange visions of the plantation’s sordid past, people who have an intimate connection to Jenna’s family. Within days, the blackness begins growing larger and larger, sweltering… forcing demon infested dolls and other ancient horrors to begin roaming ...

When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination - now leaking out of his own brain - Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick's dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.

A dark presence has settled over the county of Bourdagne, in twelfth century France. Bizarre crop failures, mysterious disappearances, and reports of demons stalking the forest at night plague the land. A statue of Christ has transformed into the image of a demon. A prize mare has given birth to a fully grown mad dog. In the face of mounting evidence, the rulers of Bourdagne are forced to admit that the devil has come to their little county. In desperation, the countess, Emiline, sends a party to Florence to seek out a secretive mage named Demetrius who might be their only hope of ...

NEWLY EDITED EDITION: Laura Kendall, two time Olympic archery champion, works her skills for the Maxwell Traveling Gypsy Circus; A circus using the free spirit of the gypsy life style, fashion and mysteries as it's theme to bring in crowds far and wide. Laura, traveling with her son, Jason, thrills audiences, becoming the top act at the big top. Yet, the window to compete is never totally shut. When the circus sets up tent at the sleepy coastal town of Fort Myers, Fla. An animal attack grabs the attention of Karen Walker, Animal Control Officer for the Lee County Sheriff's Department. After...