Dark Horror

There are angels, and they are not beneficent or loving. But they do watch over us. They watch our lives unfold, analyzing us for repeating patterns and redundancies. When they find them, the angels simplify those patterns and remove the redundancies, and the problem that is "you" gets solved.

From werewolves and vampires, to demons and aliens, the monster is one of the most recognizable figures in horror. But what makes something, or someone, monstrous? Award-winning and up-and-coming authors like Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, Indrapramit Das, Priya Sharma, and more attempt to answer this question. These all-new stories range from traditional to modern, from mainstream to literary, from familiar monsters to the unknown . . . and unimaginable.

Timothy was not a good man in life, and being undead did little to improve his disposition. Find out what a man trapped in his own mind will do to survive when he wakes up to find himself a zombie controlled by a self-aware virus.

Years have passed since Marlene's death, and Gretel, unable to cope with her mother's descent into madness, has fled the Back Country for the solitude and anonymity of the Old World. But one quiet day in the remote village of Stedwick, Gretel is taken by Gromus, an ageless mythical figure known only by locals, but whose reputation and power is steadily growing.

The Rhys who has existed for centuries is gone. Stripped of his ability to shift forms, Rhys can no longer embody the majestic, powerful dragon he was at birth. Cut off from his heritage by one of his own, this Dragon King must remain a man, haunted by demons who torment his every waking moment. The darkness would swallow him whole, except a woman so beautiful and haunted becomes the one beam of light in his world.

John Wayne Cleaver hunts demons: they've killed his neighbors, his family, and the girl he loves, but in the end he's always won. Now he works for a secret government kill team, using his gift to hunt and kill as many monsters as he can . . . but the monsters have noticed, and the quiet game of cat and mouse is about to erupt into a full scale supernatural war. John doesn't want the life he's stuck with. He doesn't want the FBI bossing him around, he doesn't want his only friend imprisoned in a mental ward, and he doesn't want to face the terrifying cannibal who calls himself The Hunter.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds...and remembers.

Erin Rogers and her daughter Casey have been missing in the Alaskan wilderness for five days. Troy Spencer is determined to find his sister and niece at any cost. Once there, a local tells Troy about a loner, Bishop, a man shrouded in secrets, who may be his only hope. As Troy sets out to find the mysterious Bishop, Casey is lost in the woods, alone and frightened, seeking help for her gravely injured mother. But she is not alone. Something ancient stalks these forested trails, something evil that hungers for fresh blood.

I've lived in the shadows. Now I have the chance to escape from them and start over. My cousin and best friend sent me to Alaska to get away from my family. A fresh start. I should have known my past wouldn't let me go that easily. As I fight to overcome it, deadly secrets are revealed. I may not survive. Can I manage to be happy? Three infuriating men seem to think I can, even though I've rejected them. Will the shadows finally consume me?

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.

The incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and unexpected ways. The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body - and the shattered souls of all who were present.

Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia - but he remembers everything. He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps. He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.

If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.

The series takes place in a world similar to our own, but one where vampires, witches, werewolves, and shape-shifters live among humans without their knowledge. These supernatural races make up a secret society known as the Night World, which enforces two fundamental laws to prevent discovery: (1) Never allow humans to gain knowledge of the Night World's existence, and (2) Never fall in love with one of them.

When a portal opens in a distant enclave city, Gryff and his monster response team find that the Shadowscape creatures are becoming smarter and more organized. Someone, or something, is leading them. Now Gryff finds that he, and the three women he loves, are all that stands between the hordes of evil monsters and humanity.

A secret sect of the Catholic Church, armed with an ancient book of the undead called The Gospel of Shadows, has been slowly destroying vampires for centuries. Now the book has been stolen, and the sect races to retrieve it before their purpose is discovered: a final purge of all vampires. As the line between saints and shadows grows ominously faint, private eye Peter Octavian is drawn into the search. And he'll do anything to find the book...for Peter Octavian is also a vampire.

Great Britain, 1880. There are monsters in our world, hiding in the shadows. They’re unknown to most, but a threat to us all. The Darkfall Collection Volume I collects the first three novels in the Darkfall series.

Lorrie Moore’s first novel since A Gate at the Stairs—a daring, meditative exploration of love and death, passion and grief, and what it means to be haunted by the past, both by history and the human heart. A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the nineteenth century stolen from a boarding house. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all...

"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.

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.