Dark Horror

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.

Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything. Popularity, good looks, perfect grades—there's nothing Sayers' family money can't buy. Until he's kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he's been living is based on a lie. Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he's been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.

The kids go into the bounce house, but when they come out…they’re not kids anymore. When a cam girl drives to the nearest grocery store, her GPS navigator takes her to another far more interesting location. Very pregnant Teresa has all her stuck-up friends coming for her baby shower, but there’s one guest who wasn’t invited, and his gift is most unusual: a jellyfish.

I answer to no one but Death. I am impenetrable, impervious, immortal. I exist to do Death's bidding and no one—not Reaper nor human nor Fae—can stand in my way. Except for the bewitching half-Fae, Catriona. She swears the magic in her family passed her by, but I know better. This woman is strong. This woman is powerful. And when her abilities surge forth, no one will be able to stop the Dark Fae from coming for her. Except for me. I want to keep her close. I want to keep her safe. I want lose myself to her, again and again.

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.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

Žaneta, an extraordinarily unique Khajiit living on the island of Vvardenfell, has her peaceful world turned upside down when her family - the most important part of her life - is violently attacked. With her husband murdered and her children missing, Žaneta makes the courageous decision to go after them herself. Traversing across a country full of political turmoil and on the brink of an unknown epidemic, Žaneta presses on to discover where her loved ones have been taken.

Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished—the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood.

On an isolated mountain, a stone labyrinth provides rough shelter for a band of mercenaries. At its core lies a centuries-old mystery. But in chapter two of The Boy in the Iron Box, no secret is safe. A concealed pit; an iron box, wrapped in chains; a statue of a boy. What unknowns await the anxious, disoriented team in this strange ruin? Night will tell.

In the world of crime fighting, Raven has learned that formal affairs are a necessary evil. So when Keystone receives an invitation to a winter ball, she tries to make the best of it. The most powerful elites in Cognito are attending—a perfect opportunity to network and have a few drinks. But when a guest hijacks the party in a violent display of dark power, chaos ensues. It's a race against time as Raven searches for a way to thwart his diabolical plan. Will Keystone find the fortitude to prevent the downfall of civilization? Or will they bow to a new king to save their souls?

The dashing heir of a New England shipping magnate, Barnabas Collins captures the heart of the exquisite, young Angelique amidst the sensual beauty of Martinique, her island home. But Angelique's brief happiness is doomed when Barnabas deserts her and becomes engaged to another. With this one betrayal, Barnabas unleashes an evil that will torment him for all time.

Innkeeper’s daughter Jane Heatherington is sold into indentured servitude to cover her father’s debts. She's sold to Aidan Warrick, a man whose handsome face and form mock the rumors that skulk in his shadow, rumors that paint him a smuggler, a pirate...and worse. Isolated and alone, Jane's only companion is the man she dare not trust, the man who looks at her with heated desire she both fears and craves. Jane must decide if Aidan Warrick is the dark prince of her dreams or a monster preying on the innocent....

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been despatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world? When one of the scientists disappears into the hole - with fatal consequences - Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident - or murder. But with no clues, no witnesses, and no apparent motive, he has little to go on. Is there an alien predator at large, or is an all-too-human killer responsible?

In his job as the county's spook, 17-year-old Thomas Ward is used to battling boggarts, witches, and other creatures of the dark. But now he and his apprentice, Jenny, must team up with former rivals and enemies to fight the evil Kobalos warriors intent on destroying the county. The fight has cost the life of a strong ally, Grimalkin, the witch assassin. Determined to end the war with the demons, Tom leads Jenny and Alice to Pendle for one last epic clash. Loyalties will be tested, alliances will be broken, and not everyone will survive.

Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories—and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul.

Welcome to Moriarty Hospital. An all consuming darkness lives within these walls. The overseer of this place, Dr. Christian Verne believes in using whatever experimental or devious methods he can to further his research into the potential of the human mind, often experimenting on those deemed insane, with little or no regard for their safety.

In 2012, a little Indian girl is mysteriously lured into the mansion, where she encounters the story of Richard Baxter - a story that will reveal the darker side of a man's mind. A story that shall unveil a venomous truth of the past. A story so sinister that it could alter the fate of an entire nation's future. A story of courage and cowardice, of deceit and insanity.

The vampire hunter known only as D has been hired by a wealthy dying man to find his daughter, who was kidnapped by the powerful vampire Lord Meierlink. Though humans speak well of Meierlink, the price on his head is too high for D to ignore and he sets out to save her before she can be turned into an undead creature of the night. In the nightmare world of 12090 AD, finding Meierlink before he reaches the spaceport in the Clayborn States and gets off the planet will be hard enough, but D has more than just Meierlink to worry about.

Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt's grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that's just legend, the village gossips talking. More than 30 years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play "Sleepy Hollow boys", reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods.

Strange and terrible things are happening in the town of Park Heights. Unseen, sinister powers have been drawn here and work in secret to change the fate of the world. For Tess Bellamy, who grew up in the town but could never get away, a new friendship with a billionaire's mysterious daughter will challenge everything she knows about her family and herself. For Gabriel Majeaux, a world-weary drifter just passing through, all paths lead back to the war in the shadows he thought he had left behind.