Horror Anthology

A collection of twenty horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The nightmares include: BORN TO BE WILD: After working with a renowned geneticist for five years, a young Harvard graduate is frustrated by his mentor's failure to publish any of their discoveries. SANTA’S NOT COMING TO TOWN: An eight-year-old boy is pissed that Santa never brings him toys like his friends at school and seeks revenge THE LOSER: A disillusioned wife regrets marrying her loser husband who fathered two pathetic dolts and fantasizes how great life would be without ...

A cemetery full of the restless dead. A town so wicked it has already burned twice, with the breath of the third fire looming. A rural, isolated bridge with a terrifying monster waiting for the completion of its summoning ritual. A lake that allows the drowned to return, though they have been changed by the claws of death. These are the shadowed, liminal spaces where the curses and monsters lurk, refusing to be forgotten.

Stories by: Glynn Owen Barrass, Andrew Coulthard, Richard Alan Scott, Sarah Walker, J. Edwin Buja, David Agranoff, Anthony Trevino, Michael Housel, John Chadwick, David Voyles, Nora Peevy, B.E. Dantalion. Second volume by Eighth Tower Publications, in a series of anthologies revolving around genre writers and artists who set the parameters and frameworks of the kind of tales that we prefer to read (the first volume was dedicated to HP Lovecraft). Here you will find another varied selection of interpretations inspired by the Gates of Hell film trilogy by the Italian legendary director Lucio ...

Nicole has wanted to own a haunted car her entire teenaged life, and when she finally finds one - a junker of a Chrysler Neon with its own tragic backstory - her best friend, Johnny, has some serious doubts. Would a demon even want to possess a Chrysler Neon? But when the two of them take it for a test drive, Johnny’s doubts begin to fade: The steering wheel burns hot, the car traps Johnny in the back seat, and is Nicole even driving? Or is the car driving itself? They soon find themselves forced to face the potential evil controlling the car, and possibly even themselves.

A collection of horror/thriller stories with surprise endings to chill you and thrill you to the bone. The horrors include: SURPRISE! SURPRISE!: Jane has arranged a surprise birthday party for her boss at his funeral parlor. THE TOMB: The museum director has offered Brian one last chance to keep the job he has held only because of his father's legendary accomplishments. His must find the last undiscovered Egyptian Pharaoh’s tomb, despite ancient beliefs that breaking the seal will bring death to all mankind. SOMETHING IN THE DARK: A woman plagued by recurring nightmares that have plagued ...

Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again”. A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people.

A collection of horror/thriller stories for readers who would enjoy a stroll through a graveyard after midnight.The nightmares include: SHIVERS: The last thing Steve remembers is stopping at the rest stop off the interstate. UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: The meat at Big Mama's Restaurant is extremely fresh. TATTOO: Marla picks a ferocious black panther for the free tattoo she won. GENIE IN THE BOTTLE: Three college friends find a strange bottle in the surf and make a wish that comes with a price. DOMINANCE: The Simmons family encounters an escaped madman on a camping trip in the Adirondacks. ...

Contents: Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - The Gold Bug - The Black Cat - The Pit and the Pendulum - The Tell-Tale Heart - The Fall of the House of Usher - The Masque of the Red Death - The Cask of Amontillado - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - Hop-Frog - The RavenBram Stoker - DraculaMary Shelley - FrankensteinJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu - CarmillaRobert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeH.P. Lovecraft - The Alchemist - At the Mountains of Madness - Azathoth - The Beast in the Cave.

Ghosts, demons, and more monsters. In a world where so many dark things go bump in the night, terror awaits around every corner as these authors take horror stories to the next level. Discover ghosts, demons, and your worst nightmares. Read at your own risk. Featuring twenty-nine stories by Joshua Williams, Stephen A. Roddewig, Joseph Hirsch, Max Blood, Paul Lonardo, Matt Spencer, S.J. Walker, Kelly Barker, Gregory Scott Matics, Gaetan Battaglia, Fred Phillips, Cassandra Jones, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Sean E. Britten, Larry Hodges, Donalee Moulton, Arlo Z. Graves, C.L. Hart, Robb T. White,...

While the vast majority perishes in quiet anonymity, a tour of any national monument quickly reveals countless names carved into stone. These names generally identify three classes of people; scribe, conquered and conqueror. Indeed, if anything, life is an endless series of contests, large and small, but these stone-graven records typically ignore the latter for the former. Too often, history overlooks the struggles of mundanity, which perhaps better define those who endure. Pause a reflective moment to ponder the future – anticipate all the boastful elite to be immortalized there. ...

Everyone loves a good joke, but nobody enjoys being subjected to the fun. Pranks are an especially childish form of delight, perhaps because they are the ultimate expression of prurient sadism, which we must disavow as civilized adults. We, the same civilized adults who teach our beloved youth the art of warfare while stockpiling an obscene surplus of thermonuclear weapons. Now that is funny! So, tease a guilty moment to titillate your secret sadist today. Giggling, it whispers. Of spoiled affluence and nothing better to do; of grotesque victimization that makes monsters from innocent ...

Several of the best human hypocrisies are immortalized in catechisms. We say “violence never solved anything” when history repeatedly teaches us otherwise, and once we prematurely labeled an entire, global war as “The War to End All Wars” long before we recorded its half-formed outcome. Dynasties fall. Empires rise. In marble, granite and concrete, we immortalize these events, large and small, and we celebrate the human beings named heroes there. Rightly so. Pause a moment before The Wall – let your finger trace names in stone. From pits of despair and summits of glory, they ...

Within realms of the unknown, superstition stalks. Primitives see god in a rainbow, but they also suspect a deadly serpent beneath every unturned stone. Ignorance and fear sometimes unite to inspire us or spare us, but more often this demonic duality serves to light the torches of enraged mobs. Indeed, history tells stories of witches burned alive amid great celebrations. We know these things happened. We also know witchcraft is a figment. Fearlessly now, step away from the staid, known world that shelters you. Venture into lands of conundrum and enigma to witness ciphered matters of mind. ...

Rascals, rapscallions, villains and varlets; all terms of a bygone era intended to describe the guy in the black hat, that perverse character of low virtue and strayed morality who forever ties the distressed damsel to cold, steel rails. Gasp! Within fictional fantasies, they are always guys and damsels, and they must wear black. In reality, we still mostly read about bad ‘guys’, but the women tend to fight back now, often with devastating effect. Tonight, the devil laces thigh-high boots over fence-net stockings before taking a turn through town. Be warned and beware. Of evil delight ...

Tabloids invite us to gorge ourselves on tales of epic personal failures, and so many of us eagerly oblige. Guilty pleasures, we savor these stories most satisfactorily with a garnish of sex scandal, a dash of fiscal malfeasance and a generous dollop of social corruption. Next, we expect a weeping dessert of shame and regret to follow. Afterward, everything ends in a dumpster or the backseat of an aging sedan before we stagger home again, sated, smug and full of improving condemnations. Cup your ears and shade your eyes now. Peer into the gloom of your neighbor’s windows to eavesdrop. ...

Champions come in all shapes and forms. The same is true of cowards. Most of us line up somewhere between these two extremes of potential, but none of us eagerly anticipate having to prove ourselves in a crossfire. In fact, most notable acts of heroism are not the results of well-considered, carefully laid plans. Rather, these are often spontaneous yet deliberate demonstrations of selflessness occasionally on display when normal human beings must confront life-threatening risk. Take a deep, calming breath now before you dare gaze into the face of death. Trembling, heed its heckling catcalls...

Disinfectants, detergents, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and homicides – everything a human being needs to clear his or her lot and start fresh in life, clean and pure, and it all waits at the press of a finger. Some of us love a good disaster, but we watch from a safe distance and it always happens to someone else… somewhere else… never here. Never us. Distended bellies and skeletal children are always the misfortune of others. Stop and wonder why. Your preferred answer no doubt leaps easily to mind, but the truth is probably quite different, because pestilence comes in all ...

Mothers no longer name their sons ‘Adolph’. Almost everyone knows why. Though all innocent babes do not develop into monsters, all monsters develop from innocent babes. We prefer fiction to reality, because thoughts of the former easily yield to denials of reason, while the latter only reminds us of our common origins in the primitive. Steal a private moment now and listen to your inner voice. It whispers. Of rising mutant domination amid apocalyptic wastes; of grotesque human chimeras practicing ancient arts; of despicable capital criminals kept in unbreakable cages and of the flawed ...

A silly titmouse once sang sweetly to describe love as “a many-splendored thing”. Perhaps this is so. For some. For others, love’s terrible spectacle shines in its many violent twists and unexpected turns. Each feckless angle of its affection or disaffection invariably leaves a disfiguring blemish that renders exquisite facets of character from alternating impacts of tragedy, disaster, triumph and ecstasy. Too briefly, desire’s artistry sparkles the amazed eye with a fateful brilliance before fiery passion fades to leave its victims cold and trembling in its wake. Steal a secret ...

Within each human being lingers a mischievous child, but each of us also cages an unformed primitive. We keep our individual id-monster within the tempered bars of civility, yet it remains our secret delight of a darkened, unobserved evening and we make it our fondest fetish at every available opportunity. No matter how mightily we struggle, history scrawls with endless tales of failed self-control, so each scandal both titillates and disgusts depending upon personal sensibilities. Indulge your inner-beast. How it roars! Of broken souls crushed between despair and revenge; of normalcy ...