Occult Anthology

She can't escape the stare of the poison-eyed boy, and she's not sure she wants to. The intensity of his gaze calls to her, consumes her. Why is she drawn to his stare, compelled to give herself to him? And how, when he finally moves to take her to himself, is she somehow powerless to resist him, even knowing that to give in to his advances is to lay her soul bare before him, to expose her every secret?

Lidia and Simon Drago are living their last hoorah, a European vacation financed by insurance money they received when their house burned down. On the night train from Paris to Florence they encounter a stranger who directs them to a lovely pensione in Florence. There, a clever artist agrees to depict the Dragos not as they look now but how they appeared in their prime. If only Lidia and Simon hadn't talked to the stranger, or taken his advice about the pensione.

The piano was a gift, a symbol of enduring love, but from the moment she began playing it, Melody's nights became filled with terrifying visions. Visions of an ancient city in ruins where the streets run red with blood and winged creatures watch lustfully from high above. Visions of murder, betrayal, and madness. She knows that her night terrors are inextricably entangled with the piano and its troubling history, but she must keep playing...searching for that one melody that will quiet the haunting voice that threatens her very sanity.

William Hope Hodgson was an early British writer of supernatural and fantasy fiction, becoming an inspiration for later writers such as Clark Ashton Smith and others. This story, from 1907, tells the tale of a series of mysterious deaths and a strange creature at a local water tower.

William Hope Hodgson was an early British writer of supernatural and fantasy fiction, becoming an inspiration for later writers such as Clark Ashton Smith and others. Dating to 1904, this was his first published story, and it tells the tale of a mysterious marble statue coming to life and murdering the townspeople.

Priscilla putters along in her usual life of bridge and gossip and coffee shops and shopping at the local markets in the small Indian town where she lives, until one morning, the mysterious man known only as the Pharsee gives her a box. The thing is filthy, twitchy and just plain wrong...but no matter what Priscilla tries, or how many cleaning boys she fires, she simply cannot get rid of it.

The town of Flarant is abandoned to its fate, year after year. Year after year, the people of Flarant lose their children to the ghosts and ghouls on All Hallows Eve. They cannot flee. They are beyond all hope. And then a stranger enters the town in the days leading up to the event. This year, there is difference in the air. This year, the children are not alone.

My body jolted as gravity did its work, drawing my innards and their contents sharply towards the back of my throat. I opened my eyes and sat up with a start. My breathing was heavy and my heart beat uneasy. I felt cold, my body drenched in a clammy sweat, my vision blurred by tears. I looked around, confused as I tried to focus. I was in my bedroom. There was a half empty bottle of vodka on the floor. My lips were dry and my head thumped. With thoughts that were muddled and confused, I tried to make sense of things.

“Mr. Tony Abbot”? It was my time. I had been waiting for this moment and now it had arrived. It was like going to school or starting a new job for the first time, a feeling of apprehension. I was looking forward to it with dread, I was going down.

"Azathoth" is the beginning of a never-completed novel written by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in June 1922 and published as a fragment in the journal Leaves in 1938, after Lovecraft's death. It is the first piece of fiction to mention the fictional being Azathoth, one of the major entities in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, though the entity only appears in the title.

The narrator is interested in mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnagogic state by the influence of magnetism, a process that later developed into hypnotism. He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on his friend Ernest Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).

Lovecraftian themes abound in the tales of an intern at a madhouse and an illiterate madman. Slater, the madman whose unspeakable crimes led him to the madhouse, is continuously awakened in this story by surprisingly literate hallucinations of a glowing entity seeking revenge. Inspired by Slater’s uneducated background and the telepathic machine that he had made in his yesteryear, the intern delves deep into Joe Slater - who is receiving telepathic messages from a being of light.

On the brink of death, the friend of a notable mesmerist commits to an experiment of hypnosis prior to imminent death. As the tale progresses, the mesmerist describes keeping his friend in a fully mesmerized state without a pulse or breath. When Valdemar asks from his trancelike state to either be awakened or let go, the narrator tries to wake him from the grips of death - with dire consequences.

A short story introducing the characters of the coming book The Mysterious World of Professor Darkk and Miss Shadow. Two strange individuals come to the aid of a group of people being attacked by a demonic being.

Lucy is finally back with Daniel, but for how long? When she has a dream about Caleb being seriously hurt, she knows that she must do what she can to help him. She gets Caleb back to the motel where she and Daniel are staying, but something isn’t right. When Caleb pushes Lucy for answers, she finds herself in an impossible position, with far too much to lose.

Ever felt that awful rush of dread as you turn out the lights after a late-night horror film? Ever wondered if something is following you up the stairs when you go to bed? No? Well, you will after this....

It’s the beginning of the end. The war is impending, and there seems to be nothing that can be done to stop it. Daniel is offered a choice that he seems unable to avoid making, but he’s got other plans that Gabriel could never have foreseen. When the fight breaks out, someone is hurt in the crossfire. That person is then given a choice. A choice between getting to do it all over again or being with the person she loves. Can there be a happily ever after for Daniel and Lucy, or will they always be torn apart?

Short Story Press Presents Lies We Tell One Another by Don Codner. A woman that was living a normal, mundane existence with her fiancé is thrust into a world that she isn’t equipped to deal with. Her life is shattered, and she must pick up the pieces with the help of a strange man who appears in her room.

DeDe Rose's popular series, Scary Shorts, continues in Book three with two paranormal stories about alien encounters, along with her notes that describe the real stories behind the tales. We Are They delves into the dreaded alien interactions that occur when the alien Grays show up to terrorize a couple by standing at the bottom of the bed ... and just staring. Why are they there? What do they want? This is one of the most frequent stories that real experiencers discuss.

Lucy knows that she's in trouble. She knows that once Gabriel has the information that he needs, he is going to kill her. She knows that holding on to the information is the only thing keeping her alive. But as Gabriel ramps up the torture is being alive really such a great thing anymore? Gabriel doesn't know who he can trust. He knows that Caleb is probably the only one of his brothers who can help him break into Lucy's mind, but he has his doubts about Caleb. When desperation kicks in, he agrees to let Caleb help. But what will be the cost?