Dark Fantasy Short Stories

Eighty acres tucked within a desolate vicinity of Birnamwood, Wisconsin, his farmhouse had been paradise, a much-needed escape relieving an abundance of stress and placing a pause on the monotony of everyday life. Once a month, fast approaching two years, the house provided a getaway of which most only dreamed.

Solomon Pace - Cold-blooded killer? Depraved evil sadist? A man just trying to make his way in the world? Or just deeply misunderstood? Of all my characters, Solomon Pace has to be one of the most complicated, but least understood. In the "Storm Series" novels, he is always in the shadows, manipulating people and situations, and when he does come into the light, it is only to perform some dastardly deed before returning back into the inky gloom to continue his plotting.

Experts tried justifying this, tried explaining it with logic. Anything concluding her fallout to settle down students of the university and residents surrounding. Doctors have deemed it mental while well-known demonologists have come forward claiming evil spirits. One thing is certain. The details surrounding Kendall Harrison are not only baffling; they are terrifying.

Monsters are on the rise and Gods walk the streets of Ashen Falls in four stories that serve as a prelude to The Eighth God. In "Melress and The Fading Man", a young half-elven boy is kidnapped by a children's nursery rhyme.

Welcome to Hawkes Eye. Inside, you'll find the first of my anthologies. Listen and enjoy. And tell a friend.

The duty had fallen to Cor to take his nephew Daron to the top of the Pinnacle, for no one else dared. The hard part was making a game out of it so that the boy would not suspect. Some lies were necessary for the greater good, after all. Weren't they?

Three veteran hunters are on the trail of a supernatural creature. It is a simple tracking mission, promising easy money. But things go horribly wrong, and the mercenaries realize too late that they are facing one of the deadliest creatures known to man. Embroiled in a desperate fight for survival, their doom may well await them.

In a land of forbidden magic, a mysterious cave holds both riches and danger for three adventurers who discover a mighty treasure and a terrible secret.

Sometimes the world is a very dark place. You know the magic is still out there, but it feels distant or displaced. Voices in the Darkness is an attempt to create a link, to bring some of those voices together in a single work of art. Six award-winning authors lent their talent to this work. The stories are unique and dark, filled with wonder and emotion.

This novel collects the five novellas in the Succubus Schemes series into an episodic novel. Helen and Amy, the heroines from The Succubus Apprentice, have now graduated from apprentices and are pursuing their new careers of mage and succubus respectively. They start off trying to steal an egg from a pterodactyl's nest, and from there go on to serve as bodyguards for a dark elf, try to fix a couple of other supernatural relationships for their friends, and then run a scam on the most powerful corporation in the world with the help of some very unreliable allies.

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan’s 14th collection of short fiction, comprising 28 uncollected and impossible-to-find stories. Here are 28 tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.

Nadia Moran is an illegal wizard, an expert thief, and an occasional killer. Riordan MacCormac is an assassin of the Family, a legendary band of assassins bonded to Shadowmorph symbionts. And unless Nadia and Riordan work together, the creatures of the Shadowlands will devour them both....

Clock the Chaos Mage. A stranger out of time, hidden in the folds of shadow. He is the guardian of Coney Island's supernatural borderlands, and the only thing standing between our reality and the demons that thirst to destroy it. Clock's Watch. An anthology of heroic dark fantasy and terror.

Drawn from the myths and histories of the American Midwest, Piasa: Rite of Talons combines the legend of the Piasa dragon-bird with the Cahokia Mound City. A dark pact is made between the royal line of Ouatoga and the man-eating monster. What horrible price must be paid to ensure the prosperity of the Mound City? Who is the true enemy of the progress of mankind?

Sergeant Jacob Knox leads the Head Knockers, a unit of scout-saboteurs in the war against the Dread Duke and his armies. They are the favorite squad among Captain Brighton's Stormwalkers, until an ambush by shapeshifters kills the Captain, half the company, and Knox's best men. Now the new Captain has new orders: he's sending the Head Knockers to investigate an abandoned village, the possible source of the attack.

The police take Terrell Boyd to Malcolm Bliss Mental Hospital. Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, paranoid type. Can the paranormal powers he claims really work? What if Jesus Christ returns to Earth the second time, only to have the world drive him insane? Unavailable for over 30 years, until now. This short story first appeared in the July 1982 issue of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine.

Heaven's Burning God gave Ted Erickson the power to freeze the sinful, so why does his own body keep growing numb? A prostitute. A dirty bum. They can't survive Ted's growing ability to exhale cold air from the Ninth Circle of Hell. So how can the suicidal teenager next door keep singing? At first Ted Erickson doesn't understand how or why he can freeze things just by blowing on them. He believes God gave him a mission to clean up the world of sinners.

In this short story, paranormal detective Will Castleton gets a phone call in the middle of the night that appears to be about his girlfriend - who happens to by lying in a catatonic state in the hospital. But within an hour Will is thrust into an investigation involving vengeful spirits and a decades-old murder.

Imagine your life as a vampire. How would you survive? What would you eat? How could you handle yourself around other humans who have beating hearts? How would you face the one you really love? Would you tell them that you are a vampire? Would you change them? Or would you lead them on with a web of lies?

The mind of Roland Yeomans is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the mysterious forests found bordering civilization to the coldest reaches of alien dimensions. Yet all his work is united by one common thread: a vivid and profound understanding of the vast sea of emotions that bring strength and mythic resonance to our frail species. Roland Yeomans' characters may find themselves anywhere and anywhen.