Horror Fiction Short Stories

For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the ninth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night.

It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind. Authors, editors, and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity. The stories here represent the best of them, disturbing tales that dig deep and take you into the dark heart of horror itself, unrelenting and unapologetic.

Following the phenomenal success of Necronomicon, its companion volume brings together Lovecraft's remaining major stories plus his weird poetry, a number of obscure revisions, and some notable nonfiction, including the seminal critical essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." athering together in chronological order the rest of Lovecraft's rarely seen but extraordinary short fiction, this collection includes the entirety of the long-out-of-print collection of thirty-six sonnets "Fungi from Yuggoth."

In this collection of 13 fabulously chilling stories from 13 true masters of suspense, including five New York Times best sellers and a number of Edgar Award nominees, all edited by none other than R. L. Stine, nothing is what it seems. From cannibalistic children, to an unwitting date with a vampire, to a crush on a boy who just might be a werewolf, no scary stone is left unturned. A must-have for all fans of the genre!

Mike Mignola's award-winning series Hellboy has earned fans all over the world, among them some of the most respected horror, fantasy, and mystery novelists in the field as well as some of Hollywood's most talented writers and directors. Now a who's who list of these writers are drawn together to tell their own tales of Hellboy, to play with the characters and worlds Mignola has created. As part of Dark Horse's celebration of Hellboy in 2004, Christopher Golden has brought together a stellar array of talents.

Leedswick Castle has housed the Alnwick family in the English countryside for generations, despite a family curse determined to destroy their legacy and erase them from history. Three beloved authors share stories of the Alnwick family through the generations, revealing how love and war can change a place—but only its people can unshackle it from the misdeeds of the past.

This long-awaited third collection of short horror stories brings you a showcase of the best new and previously published tales that Blakey-Novis has to offer. With a wide variety of sub-genres, Short Horror Stories Volume 3 includes tales of possession and demons, unseen beasts lurking in the shadows, ghost stories, killers, and cannibals. Setting stories in the modern day, as well as hundreds of years into both the past and future, the listener is taken on a journey in which each story brings new and unexpected events.

Are you brave enough to face the terrifying truth lurking behind your neighbor's perfect smile? "Manufactured Minds" isn't just a story – it's a heart-stopping journey into suburban hell that will rewire your brain! Prepare for an adrenaline-fueled rollercoaster as Elise Thompson unravels a sinister conspiracy that will make your skin crawl. You'll feel the paranoia creeping in, questioning everything you thought you knew.

Time slips. Doomsday scenarios. Killer butterflies. C. J. Tudor's novels are widely acclaimed for their dark, twisty suspense plots, but with A Sliver of Darkness, she pulls us even further into her dizzying imagination. Riveting, macabre, and explosively original, A Sliver of Darkness is C. J. Tudor at her most wicked and uninhibited.

Do you think people stop talking once they are dead? Then let this book change your mind. Here are four terrifying stories drawn from real-life events. Four supernatural tales about college days in India. Four surreal narratives that will twist their way into your nightmares.

No-nonsense octogenarian Ida Mae Turnbull is the head judge of Happy Hollow's annual charity baking competition. The prestigious event has been the town's pride and joy for more than a hundred years—until his year. This year, something dark, something evil, something hungry, lurks in the cherry pie. Ida Mae will face a terror unlike any humanity has ever seen. Because sometimes, pure evil is baked with love. Because sometimes, good grannies go bad, and some bakers will do anything to win.

Perhaps Blackwood's most celebrated story, The Willows was influenced heavily by his own trips down the Danube River. It tells the story of two campers who pick the wrong place to sleep for the night, a place where another dimension impinges on our own. H.P. Lovecraft considered this the finest supernatural tale in English literature.

That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.

A haunting recollection of a mysterious boyhood event, The Man in the Black Suit leads off this masterful collection from Stephen King. Other dark tales include: All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, in which a man checks into a Lincoln, Nebraska Motel 6 to find the meaning in his life; That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French, presents the ultimate case of deja vu; and The Death of Jack Hamilton, a blistering tale of Depression-era outlaws on the run.

In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: 'rokuro-kubi', whose heads separate from their bodies at night; 'jikininki', or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless 'mujina' who haunt lonely neighbourhoods.

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman's touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changes the day that Debra Rocks enters his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar.

In his first collection of short stories, Ron Ripley delivers eight spine-tingling tales of the strange and the macabre. Weaving an intricate web of storytelling, listeners are asked to join him on a journey through some of the darkest of his works. Book a room at the old Crowe’s Bed and Breakfast, but be certain you can leave. Join the treasure hunter as he digs up graves and awakens more than just the dead. Lay beside a homeless man in a shelter, but make sure you’re not trespassing.

The Victorian-era writers featured in this collection are known for their power of invention and command of horror and the supernatural. Included are "A Watcher by the Dead" by Ambrose Bierce; "The Body Snatchers" by Robert Louis Stevenson; "The Adventure of the German Student" by Washington Irving; "Dickon the Devil" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu; "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; and "The Open Watcher" by Saki.

"Long Term Damage" explores a dark side of the human experience in life-altering quick decisions and the consequences of decades-old mistakes. From the young siblings who find horror while searching for a missing teen, to a rude woman stuck in the worst traffic imaginable, and an aging criminal coming face-to-face with his past after taking a bullet, these stories are all at once scary, tense, emotionally charged, sometimes funny, and often devastating.

There is a general belief that books give a wider room for imaginations - even wider than the room that watching a movie affords you, and truthfully so. These tales, when listened to in the dark, will leave you with much to imagine - an arm covered in goose bumps and the back of your neck with all the hackles on their ends. The curtains you see might not be curtains. The mirrors, too, might become home to many faces and the old man by the road might not be what you think he is. Welcome to the home of scary and macabre tales.