Dark Horror

The end of the world has come not with a bang or a whimper, but with the guttural snarl of walking corpses hungry for human flesh. The "lucky" survivors flee an unstoppable virus spreading death and societal collapse across the globe. As the rules of civilization crumble, a lawyer, a pilot, and a nurse become comrades-in-arms in the fight against extinction. But not every enemy wears a rotting face, and anyone who doesn’t have your back just might have your head. Humankind’s twilight is at hand, and these are indeed... dark days.

No matter the occasion, this is the book for you! Dark Tales 4 is the fourth installment of tantalizing tales from Story Ninjas. In this collection, you'll find five scary stories to tell your friends. From haunted forests, to train gangs, this anthology has all kinds of spooky stories to make your spine tingle. What happens when you encounter fluffy creatures with hairless rabbit ears and beady eyes? Or what about demons on a train? Maybe you would prefer death by drowning? All of these stories and more await you in Dark Tales Volume 4.

Captain Morgan Starling and her crew travel the stars, shipping cargo from one system to the next. Easy work, until first contact with another race devolved into all-out war. Now, they’re under attack from humanity’s mysterious alien foe, ambushed in the void between systems. When an unknown vessel comes to their aid, events spiral out of control, a twisted secret within its haunted corridors threatening to consume them, body and soul.

Since they were lured to the festival at Carousel, Riley (the Film Buff), Antoine (the Athlete), Camden (the Scholar), Anna (the Final Girl), and Kimberly (the Eye Candy) have lived through entire horror movie plots. So far, Riley's survival strategy is working. He's high on his Moxie, Hustle, and Savvy stats. But his Mettle and Grit have dropped dangerously low, leaving him vulnerable. If he gets caught by a killer, he's done for.

Mason will soon leave Nalnora, but he’s going out with a bang. As the Master continues to topple and possess the weaker elven Houses, Mason decides to up their offense. Guns might be deadly...but a bazooka decimates. Especially one powered by runes. So, with the help of his few elven allies, Mason works to loosen the Master’s grip on Nalnora one last time. The Master’s army marches for war, but Mason is ready for them.

What would you do if a sniveling slime ball of a king tried to steal one of your harem members/minions? Would you stand for his insult? Or would you kill all of his supporters, take his riches and kingdom for yourself, and rip every last ounce of stolen power from his body?

When Maecidion dies, the reading of the will is an outrage. Irion, the dead necromancer's kin, watches as coveted heirlooms are given to his enemies. Himself no stranger to black magic, Irion soon embarks on a bitter skirmish to retrieve what should rightfully be his. A composite novel: Tinged with traces of horror and humor, erotica and satire, the world of Mulgara plays host to an ensemble of dark characters.

Sympathy with the sea, with the weird, and with monsters fills the stories of Imperfect Commentaries. Ruthanna Emrys' collection offers listeners feminist and #ownvoices Neo-Lovecraftian fiction, anthropological science fiction, and fantasies of belonging, plus miscellaneous deleted scenes, poems, and secret story origins. Listeners familiar with her novels (Winter Tide and Deep Roots) will see the first appearance of Aphra Marsh, an Innsmouth survivor, still recovering from her losses and making a life for herself in late-1940s San Francisco.

From the bottom of a lake, deep in the Back Country, death takes a turn. Within a day of being struck down by Hansel, Anika has risen. The cruel, addictive infection of Marlene's poison has protected Anika from the finality of death. But the resurrection is not without a price. She has a new hunger, and its lure is irresistible. Anika sees suicide as the only option, until she learns of a new terror in the world, one related to the Witch of the North and which threatens the lives of her children.

It would be easier for Thomas Mullen to move on from what he'd seen if Sarah stopped calling. It would be even better if she stopped appearing to him, and only him, to remind him of what he was powerless to stop. But months later, after Thomas loses his phone and the random woman who recovers it arranges to return it to him, his predicament intensifies. This woman tells him that while she's had his phone, his mother has called. His mother really needs him to call her back. And who is Sarah?

Occult investigator Quincey Morris and his "consultant", white witch Libby Chastain, are hired to free a family from a deadly curse that appears to date back to the Salem witch trials. Fraught with danger, the trail finds them stalking the mysterious occult underworlds of Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, searching out the root of the curse. After surviving a series of terrifying attempts on their lives, the two find themselves drawn inexorably towards Salem itself - and the very heart of darkness.

From professional athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan to philosophers like Confucius, inspirational business books love to suggest that listeners can succeed in business and in life by adopting the traits of their famous subjects. In Z.E.O. by Scott Kenemore, frustrated employees will finally find inspiration in a source they can already relate to: zombies!

A woman wakes up, frightened and alone - with no idea where she is. She's in a room but it's shaking and jumping like it’s alive. Stumbling through a door, she realises she is in a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead. This is the Night Train. A bizarre ride on a terrifying locomotive, heading somewhere into the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead?

Sexual obsessions running amok, a stagnant lake full of abominable horrors, and a secluded clinic with a secret wing that no one’s ever entered. These are just a few of the goings-on in this macabre tech-horror story in which veteran novelist Edward Lee takes the mad-scientist theme into shocking new territory. Security manager Clare Prentiss swears she’s being watched during her nightly rounds on a remote federal nature preserve.

From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique! No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 4 contains more than twenty stories. Listener beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!

Girls are dying in mysterious circumstances.... They are found dead in their beds, covered in blood, with a look of pure horror on their faces. Worse still, their ghosts are left to walk the Earth, just waiting for someone to hear the terror that has befallen them. Thomas Ward is the local spook - it’s his job to protect the county from things that go bump in the night. But this is no ordinary haunting, and he finds himself on the path of a dangerous beast that is looking to kill again.

Quick, punchy, and unpredictable—the same goes for the novella as it does for its titular protagonist, Chuck Masters. Chuck thought he was the next big gift to cinema, but he has proven himself a raging disappointment to the craft and to his family. Chuck is finally ready to claim his glorious return to the spotlight … in the worst hotel imaginable. Ghosts! Frights! Craft services! Enter the world of the Royal Eugenia Hotel, and watch a Master at work. It might just be his last.

A dead body. A missing daughter. A silver blade. All the clues point to one person: Me. My name is Evangeline, and I’m a retired assassin who wants nothing to do with the underworld. But an edict from a Demonic Lord forces me to return to the man and the life I left behind. I have seven days to prove my innocence. Whoever set me up is going to die.

Bubba’s back from Fairyland, and sometimes it feels like they shoulda just stayed there! Man, coming back to the real world sucks. Bubba and his whole team have been fired on account of going MIA for a year and a half (yeah, time moves differently in Fairyland - yay), and now they’ve got to…get jobs? Oh, this is going to go well.

Strange creatures, gruesome murders, oozing organisms, unfathomable abductions, enigmatic expeditions, an age-old malevolence, and much more... J.C. Moore, author of The Repayment, delivers a collection of dark horror tales that are both chilling and poignant.