Dark Horror

The dead don't always stay dead in Claysville...and in the afterlife, Death himself can't be trusted. Amity Blue has begun to remember strange impossible events, her ex trying to bite her and people vanishing like mist. Everyone in town swears a mountain lion is responsible for the recent deaths, but Amity is sure that there's more to the story. After a stalker - a dead stalker - appears at the bar where she works, Amity discovers that the dead don't always stay dead in Claysville.

Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father's remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted.

As a child, Kyrioc was groomed to be the head of one of the most powerful noble families in Koh-Salash, a city built inside the skeletons of two murdered gods. Kyrioc himself dreamed of becoming head of the High Watch, the highest political position in the land. Those dreams have turned to dust. Presumed dead after a disastrous overseas quest, Kyrioc now lives in a downcity slum under a false name, hiding behind the bars of a pawnshop window. Riliska, a 9-year-old pickpocket who sells stolen trinkets to his shop, is the closest thing he has to a friend.

India Morgan Phelps - Imp to her friends - is schizophrenic. Struggling with her perceptions of reality, Imp must uncover the truth about her encounters with creatures out of myth - or from something far, far stranger....

Feeling the weight of sustained injuries, Halm decides upon his future with the Ten, prompting a crippled Pig Knot to contemplate his own remaining days. And an act of vengeance drives Borchus into hiding. Within the underbelly of the Pit, arrangements are made to introduce Sunja’s most despised and dangerous criminals into the games, including a captured group of Nordish Jackals. Meanwhile, the House of Ten prepares for a day of blood matches—when the gladiator known as Junger is sure to become a legend.

A year ago, Cal Thompson was a college freshman more interested in meeting girls and partying than in attending biology class. Now, after a fateful encounter with a mysterious woman named Morgan, biology has become, literally, Cal's life. Cal was infected by a parasite that has a truly horrifying effect on its host. Cal himself is a carrier, unchanged by the parasite, but he's infected the girlfriends he's had since Morgan. All three have turned into the ravening ghouls Cal calls Peeps. The rest of us know them as vampires.

The Faire is alive. It’s alive, it’s sentient, and it wants more from Cora Glass. Reeling from the revelations that Clown left her with, she struggles once more to find her footing. She never gets the chance. Harrow Faire wants Cora for murder. She assumed it was her death that it was after. She was wrong. It wants her to kill...to save them all. But the question remains - is Cora a murderer? Can she take a life, even if she is told she must?

While desperately searching for Lance, Leah finds her newfound psychic abilities pulling her toward the home of an eccentric painter who thinks Leah is the only person who can help find her missing son. It's a detour Leah feels she doesn't have time for, but also one that seems to carry a great importance she can't ignore even if she doesn't understand it. Lance, while being held captive at a long since abandoned amusement park by the Reverend and the Surfer and the mysterious thing called Patrick Cain, also meets someone new.

Nobody likes getting bullied, and Donny has had enough. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he solicits the help of the old Asian man at the end of his street to teach him Karate. During a grueling two days of training, Donny earns belt after belt, until he finally becomes a Karate Master.

Nikolai is a dragon shapeshifter who knows well the meaning of loss. Orphaned and raised to be a Dragon King, he never accepts defeat. Now, Nikolai prefers his solitude...until a beautiful, irresistible woman calls upon him for help - and Nikolai's whole world goes up in flames. Ever since MI5 agent Esther woke to discover her mind taken over with magic, she feels like a stranger to herself. She looks to a notorious dragon, one who has the power to help her find her memory. But as she and Nikolai come closer to discovering what really happened to her, a dangerous passion ignites between them.

A group of mercenaries on an unsanctioned mission survives a plane crash in whiteout conditions in the Tian Shan mountains. The men are accustomed to danger. Now they’re growing accustomed to fear. Team leader Liev and his band of survivors are stranded in the bitter winds with little hope of rescue—or outlasting the wolves that have scented blood. In the distance is the apparent sanctuary of an abandoned stone fortress. That an ancient bulwark even exists on this forsaken summit is beyond comprehension. So is what lies on the other side of its walls.

"Stranger's Thing" by Robert Bevan: Four friends get more than they bargained for when they break into a seemingly abandoned research lab. "The Shingling" by Steve Wetherell: Johnny Terry, a recovering meth addict, is excited to start his new life as the caretaker at the Underpass Motel. Unfortunately, the Underpass is haunted by the ghosts of dead porn stars. "The Haunting of Whore House" by Robert Bevan: Lucy and her brother, Junkie, find out that moving was only the beginning of their troubles when they encounter the ghost of a little boy in the woods. Plus three more!

The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away. After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.

When the rescue team returns with Amanda and the chained Dalhu to the keep, Amanda is not as thrilled to be back as she thought she'd be. Between Kian's contempt for her and Dalhu's imprisonment, Amanda's budding relationship with Dalhu seems doomed. Things start to look up when Annani offers her help, and together with Syssi they resolve to find a way for Amanda to be with Dalhu.

Danger lurks in the Ruins. Three survivors travel the ruins of a collapsed society, sifting through the rusted relics of the ancients' civilization as they search for a better future, hoping to escape the horrors of the past. But among those treasures lurks danger. And what they discover might be worse than what they left behind.

"The Departed" by Clive Barker: On All Hallows' Eve, a dead and disembodied mother yearns to touch her young son one last time. But will making contact destroy them both? "Creature Feature" by Heather Graham: What could be better publicity for a horror convention than an honest-to-goodness curse? It's only after lights out that the hype - and the Jack the Ripper mannequin - starts to feel a little too real.

In France, the brilliant young battle-mage Napoleon Bonaparte has summoned a kraken from the depths, and under his command, the Army of the Dead have all but conquered Europe. Britain fights back, protected by the gulf of the channel and powerful fire-magic, but Wilberforce's own battle to bring about free magic and abolition has met a dead end in the face of an increasingly fearful and repressive government. In Saint Domingue, Fina watches as Toussaint Louverture navigates these opposing forces to liberate the country.

Discover J.T. Withelder’s first collection of five unforgettable novellas that explore the darkest depths of his brilliant yet twisted imagination. In “Stevie”, revisit one of your earliest fears, the monster under the bed, in a violent reimagining of the childhood trauma. “Magic Eight” blends the believable with the unbelievable when a father discovers a clairvoyant toy amongst his children’s belongings, capable of predicting an ominous future. Will he believe before it’s too late?

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.

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.