Short Horror

Nine stories that will redefine your fears from the fairy tales and nursery rhymes of your childhood. A small town hires a unique exterminator to clear their fields of pests, but when they refuse to pay he uses his skill for revenge. The U.S. military embarks on an experiment unlike any other and offers soldiers the chance to reach new heights and shorter contracts. An anesthesiologist discovers his skills go beyond simply guiding people to sleep and that they have lasting consequences. A brother and sister get lost in the woods and discover a beautiful woman with a house luring teenagers ...

A terrifying mosaic of transformation and terror, "Eyes Like Mirrors, Flesh Like Ash" collects twenty macabre tales by Kevin Lintner that claw beneath the skin of reality. From a solo escape room session that unlocks an ancient evil, to haunted photographs that predict one's grotesque demise, each story delivers its own brand of psychological and cosmic horror. Enter cursed houses, twisted minds, eldritch forests, and nightmarish realities where flesh remembers, shadows whisper, and dreams consume. These stories are not for the faint of heart—they are for those who seek the forbidden, the...

★A spine-chilling techno-thriller novella. For those who like their minds bent.★ Five went up the mountains. None returned. And it wasn’t the cold or the climb that killed them. At fifteen thousand feet, an army rescue operation finds buried underneath snow dunes five trekkers, dead in their campsite. One of the dead is Indian movie star Kirti Pandit. Another is her boyfriend, and the rest are her entourage. No one can say how they died. It could’ve been due to intense cold, perhaps the sudden snowstorm, or merely altitude sickness. Only, their symptoms were unusual. The snowfall ...

There are stories that burrow. Inside this volume lie twenty grotesque tales of body horror, cosmic dread, and splatterpunk depravity. From hollow-eyed dolls that stitch children into the walls, to corridors that breathe and birth spider gods, to astronauts rewritten by cosmic hunger—each story drags you deeper into decay. Featured in this collection: • The Rag Girl – A malformed doll-child stalks abandoned homes, sewing her victims into wallpaper or peeling them into new playmates. • The Eighth Corridor – A hallway that stretches into unreality, where spider-human hybrids prepare...

Some houses whisper. This one bites. Daniel thought he was getting a fresh start when he moved into a run-down rowhouse on the edge of town. But the strange chattering sounds in the walls won’t stop. And when he peels back a layer of old plaster, he finds something impossible—a row of human teeth embedded in the wall. As the house’s hunger grows, so does its grip on Daniel. Doors vanish. Rooms shift. And the walls begin to whisper things only he can hear. From Rick Brink, author of The Meat House, comes a terrifying new entry in the Terror Novellas series—a claustrophobic tale of ...

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.

What is Horror? In literature, horror falls under numerous genres and sub-genres of fiction whose sole purpose is to bring on feelings of anxiety, fright, dread, repulsion, and terror in the reader or observer; in other words, it develops a situation of absolute terror. Although some of the collections of short horror stories in this book may not terrorize the reader, they are meant to be thought-provoking and unnerving. Is there something lurking in the darkness? Is there something hiding under the bed? Who did it? The murderer lurking within the subconscious. I wouldn’t go in there. ...

Germany, 1945. In the waning days of World War II, the Nazis have been all but defeated. Uwe Fuchs, never a fighter, feels fortunate to have avoided the front lines as he cared for his widowed mother. But Uwe’s fortune changes when Hans Sauer, the village bully, recruits him to join a guerilla resistance unit preparing for the arrival of Allied soldiers. At first, Uwe is wary. The war is lost, and rumor has it that Hans is a deserter. But Hans entices him with talk of power, brutality, and their village’s ancestral lore: werewolves.

He flipped off the wrong driver. Now the shadows won’t leave him alone. Twelve-year-old Evan Ritchie was having a bad day when he made a small, impulsive gesture toward a stranger in an SUV wearing a green cap. He didn’t think it meant anything—until the man began watching him. Following him. Leaving messages only Evan can find. And when Evan tries to tell someone, no one believes a word he says. Set in the year 2000, The Green Cap is a tightly wound psychological horror novella in the vein of The Black Phone. From suburban sidewalks to shadowed backyards, Logan Carter tells a ...

In this book, we are going to explore the specific challenges of writing genre flash fiction and short fiction, where you only have 500 to 1,000 words to tell a story. To do this well, you need to master three specific skills of genre writing. You need to understand the reader's expectations of the genre—the voice, the story arc, and the satisfying outcomes. More often than not, you will need to use familiar locations or settings; after all, you don't have many words to create a whole new world. The real skill lies in the twist—after drawing the reader in with familiar genre storylines ...

A Werewolf novella. The beast of Witcher Wood has returned and is leaving carnage in it's wake. Sheriff Dans knows what he's dealing with, but can he kill the beast, and finally rid the town of a curse that has been haunting the surrounding woods for far too long....

Deep in the sewers of New York City, the rat population is growing. Dr. Randolph Finch is determined to break the cycle. His new rodenticide, Degenesis, doesn’t kill rats. It sterilizes them from reproducing. But nothing adapts faster than a New York rat.... City exterminators and soon-to-be divorced Chris and Benita Jackson think they know how these rats think. They know how rats breed. And they fear that Degenesis has only made these rats stronger. More aggressive. More intelligent. And more ravenous than ever...

A lifelike dummy. A strange dinner party. A soul that won’t stay dead. When struggling actor/waiter Luke Barrett is assigned to serve a bizarre memorial dinner, he doesn’t expect the guest of honor to be a creepy carpool dummy—or for the night to follow him home. But soon, Luke begins blacking out. Seeing things. Becoming someone else. As his reality unravels, he realizes the dummy isn’t just a lifeless prop. It’s watching. Waiting. And it wants in. From bestselling author William Massa comes a chilling short story of possession and occult terrors. A quick read that can be read or...

From the UK best-selling author of Abbot's Keep comes a new dimension in terror. Spanning four decades, the dark history of Church Farm House is explored within four interlinking horror stories. Welcome to the nightmare... Benedict Ashforth is the author of the UK best-selling Kindle ghost story, Abbot's Keep.

The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.

"A MUST READ FOR FANS OF MYSTERIES AND FOLK HORROR." - NP CUNNIFFE, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF "THE WEEJEE MAN". "...IT'S A WELL WRITTEN HORROR STORY WITH FANTASTIC CHARACTERS, BLOODY KILLS, AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT" - HORROR READS, 5 STAR AMAZON/GOODREADS REVIEW. "IT'S LIKE STEPHEN KING'S VERSION OF GREMLINS." - THE DANSE MACABRE Entering the nightmarish crime scene at the druid henge in the wood outside of Enniskregg township, Detectives Siobhan Ryan and Seamus O'Connell are taken step by step through the blood soaked evidence connected to the murders of the archaeological research team by ...

For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the tenth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Included in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as Neil Gaiman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Stephen King, Linda Nagata, Laird Barron, and many others.

Every few years, a cabin goes dark. The door stays locked. And the red eyes return. In a forgotten Alaskan village, no one talks about the disappearances — the empty cabins, the warm meals left untouched, the locked doors with no one inside. When a newcomer arrives to teach at the village school, she starts to notice strange behavior: children drawing glowing red eyes in the trees, elders who whisper warnings, and tracks that circle the homes but never lead away. At night, something moves beyond the tree line. It watches. It waits. And when it knocks… it knows who will open the door. ...

While on a run, Ariel finds herself chased by a truck and the demons of her past. Will she conquer her fears or succumb to the darkness of the road ahead...

Come with me on a walk through the graveyard. What will we find? A song that gets stuck in your head and just won't go away--and there's a sinister reason why...A cat that continues to bring gifts in the form of dead birds and mice--and other things...A junkyard where the old cars aren't exactly what they appear to be...A vinyl record collector who just has to have that one special album, regardless of the price...A prescription drug that has side effects that were never listed on the label...and Brackett Hollister once again finds himself lost in the dreaded Black Swamp--can Chula save him...