Dark Fantasy Short Stories

This short story collection will keep you on the edge of your seat to the last sentence. Misha Burnett has been published in a wide variety of modern fiction magazines, and here we've collected some of his best fantasy work.

Humans have always been fascinated by darkness. Especially the darkness of a city at night, when the black sky is made ever more inky by the pools of illumination dropped under streetlights. Whether the mean streets be in an alternate past charmed with dark magic or the dirty alleyways of futuristic crowded space stations, the city—and its darkened streets—will always fascinate us. Here then, an anthology of all new stories of science fiction and fantasy with a hardboiled noir twist that acknowledge that the city is a living, breathing entity...and it isn’t always on our side.

This is a collection of the first six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes "Cave of the Kobolds"; "Zombie Attack"; "Orcs, Bears, and Assholes"; "Shipfaced"; "Dungeon Crawl"; and "The Creep on the Borderlands".

In these marvelously inventive stories, Samantha Hunt imagines numerous ways in which human lives might be altered by the otherworldly: an FBI agent falls in love with a robot built for a suicide mission; a young woman unintentionally cheats on her husband when she is transformed into a deer; two strangers become lovers and find themselves responsible for the resurrection of a dog; a woman tries to start her life anew after the loss of a child but riddles that new life with lies.

DARK MATTER PRESENTS: HAUNTED REELS is the newest anthology in our 'Dark Matter Presents' series. In April 2020, the world faced imminent lock-down, so a group of filmmakers started a virtual support group. Once a week, these diverse voices would assemble to do what they do best: tell each other stories. Campfire horror tales, emotional cosmic mysteries, and anything else that either made them take their minds off what was happening to the world, or help them understand it. HAUNTED REELS is the best of those stories.

In Dark Property, a woman carries a dying baby across a desert waste, moving toward a fortress harboring a mysterious resurrection cult. Menaced by scavengers, she nevertheless begins to suspect that the reality within the fortress may be even more unsettling than the blasted environment outside. In Contagion and Other Stories, Evenson takes his audiences into a world that is at once apocalyptic, dark, observant, and grotesque without ever dipping into static genre conventions.

Dan Harmon, creator of NBC's Community and known Dungeons & Dragons aficionado, tells the tale of when Drizzt stands face-to-face with his own prejudices.

First published in the US in 1988 and in the UK in 1990, The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight unsettling stories that explore protagonists' fears and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, and culminate in a disturbing and enigmatic ending. Aickman's "strange stories" (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia; his characters ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. For fans of the horror genre, Robert Aickman is a must read.

In four new novellas, Christina Henry returns to the world of Alice and Red Queen, where magic runs as freely as secrets and blood.

“Then it stopped. Its head flowed around on its shoulders, as it seemed to have discovered the crib. It loomed there motionless, examining the small cage from across the room. Then Pat knew - it was looking for her.” A true ghost story! Based on a real incident that the author's mother experienced as a child. It's a snowy night in a spooky new house and Pat fears bedtime because when the lights go out a malevolent entity stalks the dark!

Collecting four novellas into one volume, The Cambion Cycle sees Harker and his cohorts battling bigger threats, teaming with legends of folklore, and trying to save the world from a demonic horde. All with snark, flair, and heaping helpings of bloodshed and mayhem.

In the depths of the Underworld, a prominent shift shakes the realm to its core. After a millennia-long absence, the omnipotent King Dorian returns, sending throwing the Underworld into a tornado of emotions. Among whispers of his return, Maxus, a powerful demon in Hell, finds himself faced with unexpected introgue. During the 71st council of the Hellfire Heralds, a group of the Nether Realm's most formidable demons, news of the king's return sends waves a shock throughout the eight demons.

This collection includes all three novels in The Shadow Changeling Series, a Colin McCool Junkyard Druid spin-off series set in M.D. Massey's Druidverse® urban fantasy setting. If you enjoy dark urban fantasy books featuring haunted antiheroes in the tradition of Snape, Walker Boh, and Constantine, you'll love this story about a shadow wizard who's searching for his long lost human family.

This is a collection of short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes the following titles: "They Fight Three Giants", "From the Bowels of Hell Hounds", "Tossing the Salaad", "The Fuccubus", "Fistin' the Furious", and "Pixie Dicks".

When the mighty and cruel must be brought low, it's the killers and the schemers who emerge from the shadows. As plans twist and change, and our protagonists are foiled and beaten, one thing remains true: no matter the cost, the king must fall.

Rhona and her paladin brother, Alastar, belong to a holy people who have waged war on witches and warlocks and their clans from the highlands. But when she uses magic to save his life, their world is thrown upside down. On the run, having left all they knew behind, they have to rely on those who hate paladins. All magic is evil, the high paladin taught.... But Alastar starts to understand that he might have been misled.

Featuring stories from R.L. Stine and Madeleine Roux, this middle-grade horror anthology, curated by New York Times best-selling author and master of macabre Jonathan Maberry, is a chilling tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Flesh-hungry ogres? Brains full of spiders? Haunted houses you can’t escape? This collection of 35 terrifying stories from the Horror Writers Association has it all, including ghastly illustrations from Iris Compiet that will absolutely chill listeners to the bone.

The End is Coming. An extinction-level asteroid is cannonballing toward Earth. In humanity’s final hours, a lucky few earn a one-way ticket to the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. Making that leap of faith might mean survival, but it comes with a steep price tag: “Travelers” will forever be stranded as digital avatars inside a fantastical world filled with vicious monsters, all-powerful AIs, and cutthroat players. Let the games begin....

A man who commands dragons rises. The people call him a prophet, a savior...the one who will free them from the tyranny of the wizard class. They do not comprehend the threat he presents. The dragon priest rages across the land. Cities and rulers are helpless against his might. A pair of heroes embark on a dangerous quest, seeking a lost object of power. Without it, the dragon priest and his army will destroy the world. An army of metal golems invades another wizardom. These magic-powered automatons are the weapon of the last wizard lord—a madman who desires to rule the world.

"Dancers in the Dark" is set in the Sookieverse and features Sean and Layla. Dancer Layla Rue Le May's childhood prepared her to handle just about anything, including her aloof partner, Sean McClendon, a 300-year-old, redheaded vampire. Even so, when she somehow acquires a stalker, Layla Rue is surprised to find that Sean is the only one she can trust.