Horror Fiction

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades...if you dare. Hear shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more.

Captain Morgan Starling and her crew travel the stars, shipping cargo from one system to the next. Easy work, until first contact with another race devolved into all-out war. Now, they’re under attack from humanity’s mysterious alien foe, ambushed in the void between systems. When an unknown vessel comes to their aid, events spiral out of control, a twisted secret within its haunted corridors threatening to consume them, body and soul.

Satisfy your craving for extraordinary authors and exceptional fiction: Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond. Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction.

Have you ever wanted to write a horror story, but didn't know how to start or proceed? In this easy, step-by-step guide, HowExpert presents Randal Schaffer who is a horror fiction writer/enthusiast/fan who will walk you through the process of not just writing a compelling horror story, but writing fiction stories in general.

Ghosts of the Wild West tells the tale of Billy the Kid as you’ve never seen him: no longer a mere gunslinger or cunning outlaw, but a man haunted by every victim he ever claimed. Each new killing spawns another restless ghost, trailing him through desert wastes and half-collapsed frontier towns. As his fame (or infamy) grows during the Lincoln County War, so do the whispering apparitions: some pleading for peace, others demanding vengeance, all of them fueling Billy’s slow spiral from cocky renegade to trembling soul.

Welcome to the world of cursed objects and demented morticians, a spectral realm where living shadows traverse the darkness of your bedroom at three in the morning—the Witching Hour. This terrifying collection of horror shorts will torture your fearful mind with the sound of claws scratching the floor beneath your bed and the nightmarish figure of a milky-eyed corpse reaching for you with ghoulish intent.

Vampiric producers, ghostly actors, psychotic limousine drivers, murderous stunt men and more haunt the streets and back lots of Hollywood in twenty original horror and suspense stories set in the heart of show business, and written by veteran movie and television professionals who went through Hell and back to bring you these tales.

Contained within these pages are weird tales in the spirit of Lovecraft, Machen, Doyle, and Wells but shot through with a modern sensibility and a questioning of the old values. Here dwell ghosts and monsters, madmen and contortionists, lost souls and misunderstood geniuses. Collected for the first time are stories diverse and strange, spanning nearly a decade in the career of author David Tallerman.

Welcome to the Fiction on the Web audiobook series, featuring a collection of short stories with a different theme for each volume. Lovingly curated by the owner of Fiction on the Web, Charlie Fish. Come and share in the joy and power of short stories.

What makes Horror literature horrifying? What primordial fears resonate within (and attract us to) stories of the macabre? In this insightful volume, W.J. Renehan explores the complex interrelated traditions of Horror fiction, and the human psychology that fuels them. In the course of his analysis, Renehan puts everything from the ancient vampire legends to Lovecraft's cosmic Horror of the unknown into compelling cultural context.

Like the tanning of a leathered corpse, the inaugural release of Grimoire seeks to stretch the fleshy bounds of dark fiction and horror. Included within these unhallowed book are tales of medieval horror and cacophony, Lovecraftian delights and wretched Kaiju, accursed djinn and pestilential priests, all brought together for the very first time in one horrific collection. Engaging and provocative, these tales of the damned stalk the graveyards at night, crawl up from the empty and wet places of this world, and haunt the dreams of all who hear them.

Captain Morgan Starling thought she was finally free of the nightmares that tormented her. For the last few years, she’s led a quiet life with a fellow survivor, travelling the stars and struggling to scrape a living on the edges of human space. Evil hasn’t been idle, though. When contact is lost with a colony, Morgan finds herself drafted to help investigate the threat.

Collected here are the stories, poems, and religious writings that preceded and helped form the science fiction and fantasy genres. The collection explores the key imaginative roots and their later literary permutations. The author list alone reads like a literary who’s who and includes many writers not primarily known for their forays into the fantastic. Organized by topic rather than simple chronology, this volume allows the listener to trace the history of robots, aliens, and apocalypses up to some of their most recent manifestations.

The quest is no longer just to survive, it's to escape. The snow is melting, and the crabs are growing more violent. At the base of a blocked-off bridge spanning the South River, Dominic and his friends plan a daunting journey to flee Warren County and the monsters that came when the snow fell. But the crabs aren't the only danger they face. There are other forces at work, forces with a secret as inhuman and terrifying as the crabs themselves. And these forces are determined to never let the group leave.

From J.C. Michael, author of Pandemonium, comes Everything’s Annoying, a collection of dark fiction and horror. Covering a variety of themes, Everything’s Annoying provides an array of unsettling tales that will stay with you long after listening.

What would you get if you mixed Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stephen King? The answer might be something resembling Howard Phillips Lovecraft, an extremely influential poet and author who mixed science fiction, horror, and fantasy into a subgenre known as “weird fiction”. H.P. Lovecraft: The Life and Career of the Influential Horror Fiction Author chronicles how Lovecraft became one of the 20th century’s most important writers.

"What could go wrong?" is what a group of teenagers wonder about before breaking into an abandoned house at the edge of town. They seal their fates on the darkest night of the year, Halloween. Listen as history comes alive in front of their own eyes in a series of terrifying events. Broken families, lives tortures by those that had happened in the past. And in the middle of it, is the one person that was never supposed to come back in the first place. Allowing her to roam free is what will cause the demise of them all. But what if there is a way?

Drive-in dreams and terror at the show, stories and poetry as well. There are still plenty of spaces for you to pull your car into and the concession stand is serving dishes of fear, cotten cravings, fresh hot barbecued ravens and all sorts of delights. It's a triple show at twilight, bring your best girl and watch as the lights go dim. Drive-In Horrors will take you to the other side and back.

Within these diverse stories, you will encounter a magician whose finale is murder, shared nightmares, a magic carpet that lives up to its name, a recipe for a Martian non-vegetarian main course, a cook who purloins the body of a stranger, and other interesting topics and characters. A few can be classified as horror stories, one as science fiction, and the majority just plain quirky. There's a story here to amuse almost anyone.