Small Horrors

Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky's beautifully written and powerful take on the age-old question: "What would happen if you received exactly what you wanted?"

You feed your fish daily. You love them, one and all, and met most first as eggs. You provide dutifully for their care, minding the water temperature, the pH, the pump. Some fish are destined to remain small, whereas others grow naturally larger. These larger ones need their own space - more room to swim, spawn, grow - because their pond is small and thick with other, comparatively diminutive fish.

The Queen of Spades is decidedly one of Pushkin's gloomier tales. It inspired several movie adaptations and a magnificent opera by Tchaikovsky. Its determined, but misguided, protagonist stakes his life with dire consequences on a very old secret that might or might not even exist.

In Ireland, in the Spring of 1881, a new pastor by the name of Reverend Gabriel Proctor is appointed to lead the people of the town of Brackley on the path to salvation. However, upon his arrival, he becomes smitten by the beauty of his young housekeeper, Eloise. His devotion to her become a dangerous obsession which brings him into conflict with the local RIC inspector, Abraham Gault.

Haunted by the murderous demons of her past, Kathleen Freeborne rips down her shingle as a paranormal investigator and hammers up a new one as a clairvoyant, hoping to better the lives of her shell-shocked clients. Her dreams of a harmonious life are quickly shattered when she feels a man's terrifying rage coursing through her body. With the help of local police, she investigates disturbing events and learns the shocking truth - a feral animal is infecting locals with a rage virus.

There can be no light without darkness.The sun cannot rise without night preceding it, and the setting sun of the day must inevitably fade to black. If life were all sunshine and roses, there would be no contrast. Perpetual sunshine would be both blinding and devastating. We need the darkness. It is an integral part of the whole. Part of us. Horror stories are a reflection of our darker side.

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.

A carefully crafted collection of short stories derived from the urban legends of small-town America. Each fictional supernatural thriller inside was made to get your heart racing and question whether they were in fact stories or something far more sinister.

Small Bites is a collection of 14 short stories of the paranormal, horror, science fiction and fantasy. Each a tale of curiosity, hunger, longing, fear and love.

Ana, a widowed mother, and her family move to the countryside to find a better life and stumble upon a family that has the whole town helping in hiding their horrific secret. But right when Peter starts to develop feelings for Veronica, he and his mother stumble upon their carnivorous ways. So now the question is, will they stop them or will they try to escape?

A horrific car crash leads to problems for the people who scavenged the remnants of the accident scene. A small and peaceful town becomes a nightmare for those involved. This 19,000 word short story makes for a nice afternoon or evening listen!

In this short story, Zeke had enough of big city life, but something has followed him to the backwoods. Every predator, natural or unnatural, gets only one chance to learn how dangerous it is to push a country boy in the corner.

Ivan Turgenev's Ghosts is a rare venture into the supernatural for this writer, and all the more precious for it. The story has all the beauty of Turgenev's language, all the power of his description, and the decidedly chilling feel of a true ghost story.

Un condannato trascorre i suoi ultimi minuti narrando le terribili vicende che hanno sconvolto la sua esistenza e quella degli umili abitanti di Caresana...

Alexander Grin is known for his strange and chilling tales, and this one is certainly one of the oddest of them all. The author would like us to consider what would happen if a creation not only outsmarted its creator but became truly dangerous.

It is difficult to combine mysticism with humor, but Alexander Grin takes on the challenge and comes out with flying colors. For all its mystical and mythical references, An Incident at the Apartment of Madam Cerize, is quite a heartwarming story, giving all of us some hope that, sometimes, powers that be do care.

The Engineering Castle is a real building that still exists. It remains one of the most sought-after landmarks in St. Petersburg, and it is steeped in legend, ghost stories, and lore every bit as much as Nikolai Leskov makes it sound.

Alexander Belyaev's rare foray into a bit of mysticism, The Witches' Castle is a reminder how careful must be wandering around the woods, especially when mysterious strangers and spooky buildings might be involved.

When a young man goes from the demands and rigors of the army to a luxurious and serene country living, his mind is bound to wander where it should not. Such is the fate of Alexei Alexeyevich Fedyashev, who becomes so absorbed in his newfound idleness that he falls in love with an old portrait. When the famous conjurer and medium Count Cagliostro accidentally ends up at Fedyashev's escape, the young man begs him to bring his dream to reality. "Be careful what you wish for" is the lesson young Alexei has yet to learn - and how!

A Mysterious Incident at the Mental Institution is a spooky, chilling tale from Nikolai Leskov based on a true incident.