Small Horrors

A glimpse of eight-year-old Ivor in a pretty market town inspires young artist Gemma Palmer to write and illustrate a children’s book. Gemma next meets Ivor when she is 29 and he 16. They become lovers, to the consternation of Gemma’s friends…for the real Ivor is quite different from the sunny character she turned him into in her much-loved books. Lurking in the secret places of his heart are impulses that are dangerous and malign. It can only be a matter of time before they are released, ready to strike. But when? Where? At whom?

Every spring in small town Ohio, kids get a touch more daylight, wander a little farther from the front porch, and spend a bit more time off on their own, exploring. One such spring, the Murphy twins were considered an Easter miracle. And now, almost 18 years later—Easter week, 1988—the girls approach their birthday, and busybodies around town get a little anxious. Every time their birthday falls on Easter Sunday, bad things seem to happen, and the neighbors have noticed.

When her life as a New York City attorney becomes an unbearable moral burden, Lois Golden packs up her teenage daughter Janet and heads to rural Vermont to fulfill her childhood dream of owning a small-town inn. However, this inn holds a wealth of dark secrets, full of deceit, death, and horrifying experiments that have left an undeniable mark of evil. When a vengeful spirit emerges, forcing all within the inn to experience their greatest fears, will Lois be able to fight back and salvage her dream from the nightmare it has become?

Welcome to Hayfork, Iowa, a peaceful farming community nestled in the heart of a tranquil valley, a town that looks after its own. It’s a place where gossip is king, but secrets are kept from outsiders, and those who are born there live and die at the mercy of the weather, or the forgiveness of the land. Now a strange terror roams the sky at night, a dread horror lurks among the corn, and a troubled widow gives birth to a boy who glows in the dark. Death on the streets and blood in the fields seed suspicion and division deep in the valley’s fertile soil.

An isolated Welsh island seemed like the perfect escape for a convict on the run, a jilted woman, and a policeman seeking a quiet life. When the surly locals turn to murderous violence, the three visitors are forced to flee together, trying to stay one step ahead of their increasingly insane pursuers. The bad news keeps coming. There are too many to fight. There is no escape from the island. And the worst storm in years has just begun. They can only run and hide as they face a night of horror and madness. If they don't work together, then none of them will live to see the light of day.

On a 10-year mission to avenge the brutal sacrifice of her man by Stargut, the local sheriff, himself on a mission to create the perfect man-beast, Lovey, abandoned by her spellbound friend Patty, is joined by a stranger. Tom is a preacher of sorts who has followed the scent of evil for a hundred years. He mysteriously appears in the village of Wrong, a rural Midwestern town, its mutant inhabitants mere creations of the devil lawman. Together, the three converge under the moon into the wood down by the river at the doorsteps of hell.

Welcome to Julep, Mississippi, right on the Gulf Coast. Where neighbors have known each other for generations. Where the local hair salon has more information about what’s going on in town than either the local paper or the local sheriff’s department. The owner of the bakery knows you by name. The minister of the biggest church in town has more clout than the mayor. And people say “bless your heart” for all kinds of reasons, the least of which is when they’re ready to insult you.

The foothills of upstate New York are alive with something terrifying. It hunts, it tempts, it traps, and there’s no escape. Thomas R Clark reinvents Irish mythology and takes you on a bloody, emotional, and horrific journey back through time with the tale of the McEntire clan, and the devastating secrets they hold. The author of the Splatterpunk Awards-nominated Bella’s Boys: A Tale of Cosmic Horror has crafted a story that’s part The Wicker Man and part Cycle of the Werewolf, but at the same time like nothing you’ve heard before.

When Sandra Meyer's violent ex-boyfriend returns to sleepy Edgarville, Illinois, she turns to the man who stood up to Nick Benedetto years ago. Sandra adores Garth, but she doesn't want any more ties to Edgarville. Now finished with a decade of dedicated service as her mother's caregiver, Sandra is planning her exit from this one-stoplight town. Garth is firmly rooted in Edgarville, with the family monument business and a trophy shop that will need a "mom" to his "pop". Garth has wanted Sandra ever since he slugged Nick more than 10 years ago.

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.

Darrick MacBrehon, a government auditor, wakes among the dead. Bloodied and disoriented from a gaping head wound, the man who staggers out of the mine crack in Redbird, West Virginia, is much more powerful — and dangerous — than the one thrown in. An orphan with an unknown past, he must now figure out how to have a future.

A relentless evil possessing an already depraved man...gruesome and perverse acts of brutality... Will anyone survive? Centuries ago the natives captured and imprisoned a life force of pure evil and unending hunger. Thirteen years ago, an eight-year-old boy woke the darkness. It grows in strength every day and now the boy is a man. A man skilled in terror and violence, the very things the darkness needs to finally break free.

A body has been uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of murder, but Dan - sometime mechanic, constant drunk - is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories. Watching him from the dark is Lorna, a lost soul living in the woods, haunted by ghosts and a vision from her childhood: a cold boy standing alone in Gallinger's field.

In Riverton Falls, a small New England town, globe-trotting bartender Celeste Fortune stands in her kitchen puzzling over last night’s frightening dream - a woman at a window, lilacs blowing in the breeze, someone’s hands tight around her neck. Celeste is sure the dream belongs to someone else. Perhaps she has finally broken through to the collective dreams of Dreamland cult. Hoping her therapist and cult leader will help her untangle it, she heads off into the cold November morning to her final appointment with him - or so she hopes.

A ghosty romantic short for Christmas wherein an emotionally isolated woman learns it's not the living’s memories of the dead that keep the dead alive.

Sheriff Peter Holbrook leads a simple life watching over the residents of Nowhere, Kansas, where the most noteworthy crimes are dognappings and brawls at the local tavern. He’s always had an inherent fear of the gray - the yearly spring storms that plague the area. As the gray descends on Nowhere, a mysterious woman crashes her car just outside city limits. The tattooed stranger may not remember who she is, but Peter instantly feels a connection with her. But, the girl’s appearance isn’t the oddest event.

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.

A true horror classic of Ukrainian literature, Nikolai Gogol's Terrible Revenge raises the notions of terror, betrayal, and revenge to an entirely new level.

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.

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.