Off the coast of McMurdo Station, in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean, a new species of Antarctic octopus is unintentionally discovered. Specialists aboard a state-of-the-art DARPA research vessel aim to apply the animal's "sub-zero venom" to one of their projects: an experimental painkiller designed for soldiers on the front lines.

Under dirty black skies, the town of Dead Crow is deluged by days of rain, flooding the streets and cutting it off from the outside world. Chief Andy Curran already has his hands full, getting residents to safety and battling a greedy mayor. But now people are going missing in the endless rain. Curran soon discovers that there are things living in the overspilling river that threatens to drown Dead Crow. Their eerie clicking sounds drift across the frightened town as they emerge from its toxic waters.

Rick Napier is a fisherman struggling to make ends meet. The situation is made even worse when a local fishing vessel mysteriously disappears, along with a Coast Guard diver sent to search for the wreckage. As events unfold, he confronts the horrible reality of a top secret government experiment gone haywire, resulting in a hybrid creature of massive proportions. Escaped from captivity in a high tech facility in the Atlantic, it seeks to fill an insatiable appetite.

Deep beneath the ice of the Arctic Circle, something has awakened. A primordial creature frozen in time, it is the oldest, largest, most efficient predator that nature has ever produced. And it is ravenously hungry.... Thirty-five miles off the Massachusetts coast, a small research ship is attacked. All but one of its crew is killed by the massive serpentine horror that rises from the sea. The creature likes this human prey. The chewy outer hide. The tender saltiness within. And it wants more....

1967: A brutal murder occurs at the Weston State Hospital in West Virginia. To amateur exorcist, Merle Blatty, this shocking story rings of the occult. Fueled by a desire to avenge the deaths of his wife and son, Merle investigates the case, unknowingly stepping into a sinister web spanning decades.

The mountains and forests of Washington State harbor a secret. It has remained hidden for millennia. An apex predator that has mastered the art of the hunt. Intelligent... savage... destructive... and now, gone rogue. It no longer sticks to the shadows. The hunt is on, and we are its prey. Nina Lee is a Forest Ranger assigned to numerous missing persons cases across Mount Rainier National Park and beyond. She knows some come up here to disappear. And she knows most will never be found. But something has changed.

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Kira Brine hires a group of friends to help restore her private cottage. The fun little endeavor quickly turns tense as they hear strange noises in the woods. Branches snap and leaves rustle in the distance. Animals seem uncharacteristically frightened and then mysteriously disappear as the hours go on.

Isurus Palinuridae has escaped! After evading pursuit by its military creators, the shark-crustacean hybrid has disappeared in the Atlantic. In its search for food, it finds a new hunting ground off the shores of an island resort. Stuck in a dead-end animal caretaker job for the resort, Marine Biologist Julie Forster begins to notice strange events plaguing the island. Whales are turning up dead in the local waters, and fishermen are disappearing.

Deputy Thomas Rodney is no stranger to tense situations. Having served multiple tours in the worst of environments, facing death had practically become just another day at the office. But nothing could have prepared him for this. In a woodland county in the Pacific Northwest, a sinister presence has awakened. A roadwork crew has disappeared without a trace; a truck is found run off the road; a lakefront property is mysteriously vacant, its roof damaged as though something large descended from high above; and an eerie quiet has overtaken the countryside.

No longer bound to Earth or the Core Sol System, the human race has expanded into the far beyond, seeding itself throughout the final frontier. It has been a time of great expansion, hope, and progress. These remote colonies, some found at the fringes of the Outer Rim, rely on supplies brought to them by deep-space commercial shipping vessels, which transport the needed goods and commodities to keep humanity alive and thriving in the most remote and austere locations.

The White Wolf, the Beast of Brenton Woods, a legendary creature said to walk like a man. When the full moon rises, it will feast. Unseen for years, truth has turned to rumor, mere folklore. Until something lures the monster from exile, calling it home. For Tyler and Ben, a firsthand encounter leads to an exploration of the forbidden depths of Brenton woods, and for Ben, the discovery of a family secret. When Wendy and her friend's hangout in the abandoned cabin is compromised, the hunt begins.

Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

Lorenzo was a quiet Michigan town, known for its beautiful lake and resorts. Summer has arrived and water activities are abundant. It was one of the reasons Officer Royce Dashnaw took the job in the small town. Being a single dad, he wanted to live a quiet life where his daughter could enjoy the beauty of nature. Unfortunately, nature also has a dark side. The serenity of Lorenzo has been disrupted by a series of strange events. A woman flees from the water with strange bites on her legs; bodies are found in the shallows, stripped to the bone; and the local fish have disappeared.

On a desolate beach in far northern Scotland, the winter storms have been washing up all manner of things since time began. But buried in the centre of one smaller iceberg is a shard of ancient Viking pottery telling a partial tale of a hidden mysterious island beyond the ice and mist, that was home to a great treasure and even greater horrors. Thawing in the same block of ice was a rotting flap of skin that refused to be identified but had similar skin patterns to a creature not seen for 100 million years.

Wounds is a confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella from Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in The Visible Filth to the search for the map of hell in “The Butcher’s Table”, Ballingrud’s beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.