Horror Fiction Short Stories

Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead…. A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever…. These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

Lovecraft in a Time of Madness is a collection of 21 horrifying tales, inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Featuring stories from across the globe, this anthology unveils a universe of macabre ritual, terrifying creatures, and those brave souls who dare challenge the nature of the unknown! From Arthurian legends to the very depths of the Mariana Trench and the darkest corners of the human mind, Lovecraft in a Time of Madness oozes with unique takes on some of Lovecraft’s most formidable creations.

Maddie Graves is psychic and can see ghosts. When she returns to her home in Blackstone Bay following her mother's death, she has more to do than find peace with her past, she also has to try and reclaim the future she discarded when she left town after graduation. Her former best friend Nick Winters has been bitter since she walked away without a backward glance. A murder mystery throws them back together, and Maddie must decide if she can trust Nick with her biggest secret - and her heart.

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

The King in Yellow is a collection of 10 short stories on supernatural subjects first published 1895. The title refers to a mysterious play which causes derangement in the minds of those who read or see it, and which is mentioned in the first four stories.

Great Horror Stories is a vintage collection of some of the finest ghost tales, horror stories, and supernatural legends ever written, by the best writers the genre has to offer.

The Ultimate Gothic Horror Collection is a fully indexed collection of classic gothic stories, read by four Audie-winning narrators. Included here are stories by Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.

J.R. Hamantaschen returns with a collection of his inimitable weird, dark, and imaginative fiction. In these intelligent and haunting stories, Hamantaschen pushes the boundaries of horror, exploring the deepest corners of the human psyche with an unflinching eye.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

Horror, tragedy, and comedy collide in the third diabolical collection of horror from Duncan Ralston. A hitman takes a flight with his latest victim's severed head in a bowling bag. A rich man takes a twisted form of revenge on the man sleeping with his wife. A sentient appendage terrorizes an apartment complex. A psychologist moves to the small town of Dark Pines, where his patients' inner demons manifest as terrifying monsters in reality. Take an unforgettable journey into a world of nightmares. But be warned...you can't unsee what you'll find in the dark.

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors' garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat. In 10 captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of extreme stories, the hardcore stuff that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos, the transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex, and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect.

Push past the curtains of the rational, safe world and explore the un-nameable horrors living in the darkest corners of our conscience. This is the realm of monsters and shifting shadows, where a single wrong step can plunge you into a terrifying, irreversible fight for your life. A mannequin is stored in the back of your rented basement room. Sometimes its dust cloth falls off. Sometimes you feel it watching you. And sometimes it moves while you're asleep....

A deadly black widow has eliminated three husbands and counting. But Nameless knows her one weakness. To bring truth and its consequences to her crimes, the vigilante must spin a web of his own in part three of the Nameless series. Lucia - current last name, Rickenbah - has made a fortune by marrying rich men who tend to drop dead. But the superstitious blonde believes in more than money and murder. Nameless’s job is to scare a confession out of Lucia, and as the psychological warfare escalates, even he may be in for a shock.

Actor David Ian Davies' telling of Poe's Gothic horror tale "The Tell-Tale Heart" captures this classic narrative of the unnamed murderer in all its exquisite vileness, its self-effacing insanity that poses rationality where none exists.

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.

In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems—the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past—relish their new sparkle in the spotlight.

The bloody-minded Montresor leads the pompous Fortunato deep into the catacombs, seeking the famed Amontillado wine. Here we have one of Poe’s most terrifying, and most “beloved” tales. Revenge and pomposity commingle beneath the river’s bed, leading to a delightfully sinister conclusion.

A vampire named Bitsy. A grieving father's rage. An intergalactic cosmetic saleswoman. Loving wives, thwarted mistresses. Demons, ghosts, gods, and angels. Telepathic dinosaurs and humanoid robots. What do these diverse elements have in common? Stories about them have sprung from the imagination of Karen E. Taylor, a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author. In Mexican Moon and Other Stories, the writer of the popular Vampire Legacy series will take you on a tour of distant planets, drafty castles, haunted houses, and the most frightening place of all.