Small Horrors

A reminder from the master storyteller Alexander Kuprin—sometimes, there are but a few steps between your own front door and unimaginable horror.

In a small town tucked away in the Midwestern corn fields, the adults whisper about Tornado Day. Our narrator, a high school sophomore, has never heard this phrase but she soon discovers its terrible meaning: a plague of sentient tornadoes is coming to destroy them. The only thing that stands between the town and total annihilation is a teen boy known as the tornado killer. Drawn to this enigmatic boy, our narrator senses an unnatural connection between them. But the adults are hiding a secret about the origins of the tornadoes and the true nature of the tornado killer.

After becoming the suspect in the murder of a young prostitute, Deputy Sam Hardy is “vanished” to a temporary post as the sole police officer in Angels and Hope, an idyllic town located in the middle of the desert, miles from any other sign of life. Hardy soon learns that Angels and Hope was constructed as a company town to support a magnificent amusement park - one to rival Disneyland - known as Captain Clive’s Dreamworld. The park is essentially empty of customers. None of the townsfolk ever seem to sleep. And girls seem to be going missing with no plausible explanation.

London, 1873. Madeleine Brewster's marriage to Dr. Lucius Everley was meant to be the solution to her family's sullied reputation. After all, Lucius is a well-respected collector of natural curiosities. His 'Small Museum' of bones and specimens in jars is his pride and joy, although firmly kept under lock and key. His sister Grace's philanthropic work with fallen women is also highly laudable. However, Maddie soon finds herself unwelcome in what is meant to be her new home.

Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the navy and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D. L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are.

Small Bites exists at the fulcrum of the idyllic and the dreadful. It invokes the pleasant and mundane memories of the not-so-distant past and violently interrupts them with immediate and visceral terror. These 13 offerings beat from the corroded heart of Americana and prey upon the innocence of our cherished nostalgia. More than a horror anthology, this is a canvas oozing with living paint, pigments selected from our collective nightmares, and imprisoned within this listening experience.

On the brink of a breakdown, two years after the death of his fiancée, Jim Hawkes quits his high-powered job in the city to rent a cottage in the Devonshire countryside seeking some well-needed rest. But Slyford St. James is far from the peaceful haven Jim was hoping for. Almost immediately, he is plagued by strange occurrences: a combination lock that won’t open, loud noises in the attic, the figure of a little girl always just out of sight. His new village friends, Jed and Emma, are convinced Jim has found his way to the village for a reason.

Things still linger in the creeks, swamps, and low places of our childhoods. They never venture into the road, nor rise to stand in open fields. They crawl about in the spider corners of aging barns, moan from mist-choked river banks, and stand hunched and patient in the shadows as we age and die. These beings neither heaven nor hell can claim.

October, 1982. Forced to move to the quiet seaside town of Tasker Bay by her mother, the only thing on high schooler Andi’s mind is saving up enough money to return to her old stomping grounds in Silicon Valley. Her self-taught skills with all things electronic make her a perfect fit for a job at the dingy local arcade. When Polybius—a new game of unknown origin arrives—the shop is suddenly overwhelmed with players fighting for time on the machine. Seemingly overnight, a virus-like epidemic grips Tasker Bay while a violent coastal storm rolls in, isolating it from the outside world.

Emily Sinclair is a teacher in seclusion, reeling from the loss of several of her third-grade students by the hands of a shooter that opened fire on several classrooms within Marie-Glen Elementary. While dealing with the anxiety of leaving her home and facing the people of the town, Emily is terrified by what is waiting for her outside that takes the shape of shadowy figures resembling her deceased students and the ghostly kids that she refers to as “the pales” that get closer to her with every step she takes.

Tess Bellamy’s return home is anything but triumphant. She’s decided Hollywood isn’t for her, resigned to a normal life of caring for her ailing mother. Linna Severand would be a powerful sorceress…if she could escape her family’s mansion, and usurp their control of her magic. Gabriel Majeaux once tried to save the world from evil. Now he’s the last of his kind, moving from place to place to avoid detection. After a series of horrifying events, their lives collide…and if they aren’t prepared, it’s unlikely they’ll survive.

Mayhem explodes when monsters mix with guns, rednecks and beer. Craig Nybo's second novel, Small Town Monsters, visits the town of DePalma Beach, Montana, a peaceful lake community with a five-star rating in any tour travel guide. Monster hunter isn't in the job description when Kurt McCammus, a Los Angeles homicide detective, leaves the big city and all its violence behind to take a job as chief of police in DePalma Beach. He falls in love with the clean air and peaceful community. That is until a local rancher finds 50 head of sheep mutilated on his spread.

For Evie St. Claire, life in Honeysuckle Springs isn't anything like she'd imagined. Sure, the old house is charming, and the smalltown lakeside community is picture perfect. But her kitty roommate Birdie is unpredictable, snarky, and demanding. When a ransom note shows up at Evie's backdoor, she must come clean about her aunt's stolen ashes. She'll also need to decide if she's willing to meet the ransom demands and give up her aunt's spell book, or if she'll search for the culprit herself.

Five years ago, the demon Azazel tricked Ben Spencer into giving him possession of his body. After countless frustrating and heartbreaking dead ends, Ben’s family and his girlfriend Katy Ruskin have finally located him. Will their daring rescue attempt work, and will they be able to free Ben from the demon? And with Ben free, is everything truly over…or is it only just beginning? A Pattern of Shadows brings the Small Things trilogy to a stunning conclusion that pits Ben and Katy and their families against the very forces of heaven and hell itself.

Welcome to Pearl, a town obsessed with Halloween: the spooky decorations, the costumes, the candy. No one seems to notice that every October 31st, a kid goes missing. Mason Miller does, though. Somehow he’s the only one who has any memory the person existed at all. When Mason’s sister, Meg, vanishes while they’re trick-or-treating, Mason and his friends are pulled into an underworld where monsters roam the streets. They need to fight the evil taking over Pearl, but none of them know the true danger they're facing.

In 1944, Oakwood's town council is desperate to save their young men from being lost to the devastation of the far-reaching effects of WWII, and as such make the unconscionable decision to make an evil deal with an agent of the devil in order to protect their own children, town's citizens and peaceful way of life. Little does journalism student Jim Norton know that his decision to write an article on the town, that seems to have been able to have escaped the pitfalls of progress for his school paper in 1984, will lead him down the treacherous rabbit hole that might end with his demise.

Kate es madre soltera y vive una relación abusiva. Sabe que no quiere esa vida para su hijo Christopher, así que a la mitad de la noche toma las llaves de su auto y escapa con él a Mill Grove, Pensilvania, una ciudad pequeña y aislada, donde la comunidad es muy unida y en la que solo hay una carretera para entrar o salir. Parece el lugar perfecto para iniciar una nueva vida. Entonces, Christopher desaparece. Durante seis días nadie sabe nada de él, hasta que lo encuentran en el bosque a las afueras de la ciudad. Aparentemente está ileso, pero algo dentro de él ha cambiado.

Thirteen years ago, Jori Trahan’s boyfriend vanished without a trace. Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance. Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length - including murder - to keep their dark secrets buried.

It's been two weeks since Evie escaped the mines after solving the mystery of Holly's disappearance only to discover that Desmond followed her but never came back. Evie knows he’s alive, lost wherever the Patchwork Girl resides. When Evie tries to reach out to Holly again for help, she realizes that her connection to the Lost Girl has been severed. Desmond is gone, and it’s all her fault. Ravenglass slowly begins to move on from the tragedy of losing Desmond, but as winter creeps closer and the days grow shorter, a sinister being begins to threaten the lives of Ravenglass residents.

Kait Brecker can't remember the last time she didn't feel like busted glass. Her volcanic temper's already scared most of her friends away, and a bad breakup with her college boyfriend Lutz left her crippled by guilt and painful memories. So when she learns that her best friend Alice is planning a three-day sabbatical in a secluded mountain cabin, Kait jumps at the chance to tag along, convinced that rekindling their fractured friendship is the key to fixing whatever’s breaking down inside of her. She should have known.