Horror Fiction

State Road 177 runs along the Suwannee River, between Fargo, Georgia, and the Okefenokee Swamp. Drive that route from east to west, and you'll cross six bridges. Take it from west to east, and you might find seven. But you'd better hope not. Titus and Melanie Bell leave their hotel in Fargo for a second honeymoon canoeing the Okefenokee Swamp. But shortly before they reach their destination, they draw up to a halt at the edge of a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car....

Waking up in a tacky coffin and wearing off-brand shoes, Betsy Taylor can't believe the horrible turn her life has taken; then she discovers she's a vampire. Soon, Betsy becomes a participant in a power struggle between the forces of darkness. With only her friend Jessica and the hunky vampire Sinclair to help her, this new "Queen of Vampires" will have a tough time getting her afterlife straight.

Writer Ben Mears has returned to his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot with the hope that moving into a delapidated mansion, long the subject of town lore, might help him get a handle on his life and provide inspiration for a new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work.

When Clint Marlow's partner in crime is found murdered in the basement of Marlow House, Clint is the likely suspect. The only problem: Clint is dead. But that doesn't matter to the FBI agents investigating the case. Clint looks alive to them.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it's what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt - kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such "close encounters", written by many of today's most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing - one way or another.

For Rose Marshall, death has long since become the only life she really knows. She's been sweet 16 for more than 60 years, hitchhiking her way along the highways and byways of America, sometimes seen as an avenging angel, sometimes seen as a killer in her own right, but always Rose, the phantom prom date, the girl in the green silk gown. The man who killed her is still out there thanks to a crossroads bargain that won't let him die, and he's looking for the one who got away. When Bobby Cross comes back into the picture, there's going to be hell to pay - possibly literally.

Devil's Island. An abandoned island in the Caribbean Sea with a dark and bloody past. An island with a terrible secret. Nick Gorman, billionaire movie producer, assembles a team of ghost hunters and scientists to investigate the Thornhill Manor on Devil's Island - the most haunted place in the world that no one's ever heard of. He's there to find proof of ghosts, evidence of an afterlife...but he's also there to uncover the secret that is hidden on the island...to possess it.

Aaron Fortin is new in town. He drives a brand-new Acura—a gift from his parents for uprooting him in the middle of senior year. Showing up on his first day at the local public school in that nice of a car? He knows he’ll never blend in, and he doesn’t care to try. The car, the new-kid mystique, he can use all that.... Crystal Giordano carpools to the same school in her friend Trevor’s beat-up van. In the van along with Crystal and Trevor are Paul, Harmony, and Gayle. Crystal’s technically part of their misfit group, but most of the time, she feels like she’s the only one who doesn’t fit.

The hunters have become the hunted. Outnumbered, outsmarted, and desperate, the hunters are on the run, pursued by the vampaneze, the police, and an angry mob. With their enemies clamoring for blood, the vampires prepare for a deadly battle. Is this the end for Darren and his allies? This third and final installment in the Hunters trilogy finds Darren and his friends facing their longest night and most testing challenge yet.

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

Iphigenia Holt is a good little witch who grew up under the thumb of a wicked mother and two powerful sisters. Pegged as a caretaker, Iphi hides a secret that would change the way everyone around her views her: she's an empath. And yet she doesn't let that stand in her way. A soaring circus performer with a fierce love for animals and the downtrodden, Iphi tumbles her way through life, hiding the hurt just being around others can inflict, until she meets an enigmatic vampire and his three hot shapeshifting cousins.

On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation....

Vampires have always lived in Eastern Europe. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, they began to spread across the continent, then the world, turning whole populations into vampires - or human cattle. Having overrun India, the far East, and the great cities of North and South America, the forces of Night are now spreading into the countryside to consolidate their conquest.

Alison and her resident gumshoe ghost are on their next case when the deceased Scott MacFarlane floats in worried that he accidentally killed a prominent local woman. Turns out she's still alive...that is, of course, until she's murdered - in Alison's house. Now, between the demands of her guests and the arrival of a reality television crew, Alison must find the killer before she sees reality from the other side.

The Night Watchman is ready to kill - again. After 35 years in prison, he is free to commit the same twisted atrocities that once made him as notorious as the Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper. Now, at last, his moment has come. Through her television appearances, renowned clairvoyant Lucinda Sloan helps police capture America's most wanted. Unfortunately, she's also captured the eye of the Night Watchman. Once he learns that Sloan "sees" his crimes, it's time to play.

From the mind of the man Stephen King calls "a master of the macabre", comes a brilliant new collection of no-punches-pulled horror stories, some never-before-collected and many originals that have never been published anywhere before. Bentley Little can take the innocuous, twist it around, and write a story that will change your way of thinking. Walking Alone: Short Stories is a shining example of his talent to scare you, creep you out, and make you shudder.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god - and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

In the wilds of Southern Appalachia lies Wolter Mountain - a sacred place for the Indians and their predecessors. But the land atop the mountain, taken over by two Englishmen, Brummitt and Hooper Voth, is undergoing frightening changes.

Book six in the best-selling Meg series picks up after Meg: Nightstalkers with David Taylor in the Salish sea, attempting to locate and rescue any surviving Megalodon pups before a local fisherman slaughters them. Meanwhile, Jonas is coerced into joining an expedition into the Panthalassa sea in search of a prehistoric predatory species possessing liver enzymes that can cure cancer.

A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.