Short Horror

2019. The year certainly made its mark on the world. It also made for a bounty of good horror stories of the extreme kind, the best of which the tales herein serve to illustrate. 2019 was the year Year's Best Hardcore Horror went global. Not by design but because the stories inside just happened to have been written by authors hailing from various parts of the globe. From Australia by way of South Africa, to Italy, Scotland, Norway, Taiwan, North America and India - the common denominator being that their tales come from darkest regions of imagination.

Medusa's Ankles celebrates the very best of A. S. Byatt's short fiction, carefully selected from a lifetime of writing. Peopled by artists, poets, and fabulous creatures, the stories blaze with creativity and color. From ancient myth to a British candy factory, from a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, from a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace, Byatt transports her listeners beyond the veneer of the ordinary - even beyond the gloss of the fantastical - to places rich and strange and wholly unforgettable.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

In the title story, a young boy becomes obsessed with his cousin's doll after she tragically passes away from leukemia. As he grows older, he begins to collect "found dolls" from the surrounding neighborhoods and stores his treasures in the abandoned carriage house on his family's estate. But just what kind of dolls are they?In The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, Joyce Carol Oates evokes the “fascination of the abomination” that is at the core of the most profound, the most unsettling, and the most memorable of dark mystery fiction.

A discovery in the deepest parts of the ocean threatens all humanity. An unlucky man awakes during brain surgery. Russians make a shocking discovery when they dig the world’s deepest hole. Two men guard a mysterious empty room. An impenetrable, sound-swallowing darkness envelopes a town. These and other harrowing tales await you in Saxon’s first collection featuring fan favorites and never-before-published exclusives.

Goblin seems like any other ordinary small town. But with the master storyteller Josh Malerman as your tour guide, you’ll discover the secrets that hide behind its closed doors. These six novellas tell the story of a place where the rain is always falling, nighttime is always near, and your darkest fears and desires await. Welcome to Goblin....

Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence best-selling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and 15 stories, Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to haunt and delight.

An overzealous vigilante, who sees her victims' auras, finds herself in a very uncomfortable situation. A young woman, injected with a microchip in a futuristic America, develops unusual and grisly cravings. Four high school graduates end up on the menu of a giant, mutant sea creature. Diary entries share shocking and disturbing confessions...but who is the author? Bridgett Nelson, a fresh new talent in the world of horror, makes her debut with this short fiction collection containing these stories and more!

There is a blueprint for mind control, and this audiobook exposes it in 47 powerful silhouettes. We have been programmed for centuries by the spell-craft of our controllers. Our world is reverberating in echoes of trauma that can only be solved with awareness. This audiobook reveals the true anatomy of evil as a careless machine, and the controlling effects of the psychology behind false flags and educational propaganda. We are living in a world of human slavery and sacrifice. It is time to unlock your magic and liberate your psychology. All you have to do is ask a single question.

This follow-up volume to the bestselling Ghosts from the Library resurrects forgotten tales of the supernatural by some of the most accomplished mystery authors of all time. Close the windows. Draw the curtains. Just don’t let the lights go out…

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.

곽재식은 누구보다도 재미난 이야기 소재들을 사랑하는 작가입니다. 비단 SF뿐만 아니라 동서양의 판타지와 전설 등, 현실 밖의 꿈과 상상과 환상 속에 담긴 이야기들을 찾고 수집하죠.

Stories of famous monsters in a new horror anthology featuring Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell, and many others.

Returning with his distinctive brand of unsettling fiction, J. R. Hamantaschen presents a new collection of unsettling and dark tales. These 11 stories refuse to shy away from the profound depths of human desperation and unyielding perseverance. Echoing the voices of weird fiction legends like Thomas Ligotti, H. P. Lovecraft, and Chuck Palahniuk, Hamantaschen’s narratives are a masterful blend of the uncanny and the profoundly insightful. Prepare for a journey that challenges the boundaries of dark fiction and leaves you questioning your sanity.

Fifteen nautical nightmares: from the discovery and subsequent investigation of a mysterious vessel in The Derelict, to the terrifying ordeal of a lighthouse keeper stationed at the remote Three Skeleton Key...

A garbage disposal that feeds on flesh . . . A beloved stuffed rabbit that cooks up your parents . . . Roses that require human blood to bloom . . . From blood-chilling horror to supernatural scares, this collection of short stories from debut author Andrew Duplessie offers something to stoke anyone’s fear factor.

It happened suddenly. Overnight. Inside Spring Lakes Assisted Living, seven residents - 69 years of age - died mysterious deaths. Only, they aren’t really dead. Their bodies remain still, their staring eyes void of life. Yet, their hearts continue to beat, their lungs fight for oxygen, and somewhere within their petrified bodies, their souls cling to life.

The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

We each inhabit many worlds, often at the same time. From worlds on the inside to the world on a cosmic scale. Worlds imposed on us, and worlds of our own making. In time, though, all worlds will end. With Skidding Into Oblivion, his fifth collection, award-winning author Brian Hodge brings together his most concentrated assortment yet. It includes all of the best picks and awards finalists. All stories have one thing in common: It’s the end of the world as we know it, and we don’t feel fine at all.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.