Supernatural Short Stories

H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the 20th century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature”, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes 20 works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author’s work.

This is the Tennessee Horror Stories complete collection featuring all stories from book one, Motel on Murder Mountain, and book two, Elsa, the Devil Herself. Consisting of five uniquely connected short stories that cover multiple genres including giallo, horror, noir, supernatural, slasher, crime/mystery, detective and hicksploitation. Loosely based on actual locations with characters created by Carl E. Miller and Charles E. Miller. These stories will take you down a dark journey, following colorful characters in two very strange actual Tennessee towns.

What do you get when you combine magic and teenage attitude? A witch stuck in a snow globe, that’s what. Shelby Flynn’s tired of being treated like a kid and when she finds herself in trouble for yet another simple mistake, she wishes for a perfect life. Unfortunately, she has a lot to learn about perfection and finds out the hard way that growing up has nothing to do with age, and being independent doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally need a little help.

Jenny has been plagued by disturbing nightmares and visions every Halloween since she was a child. She’s grown up now, but they’re only getting worse. Can her Horology professor's theories on time manipulation provide answers? Is the mysterious mind connection Jenny senses between them tied in? Or is reality itself being irretrievably rearranged?

Poison-tongued film critic Reginald Wright is known for his creative insults and intolerance for the garbage culture, insufferable rudeness, and thoughtless racism of predictably common people. Now, against his better judgment, and with a marriage in crisis, he’s attempting a getaway in the Poconos that quickly fulfills his every low expectation. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare. And that’s just what Reginald needs to wake up.

The clergyman named John Haynes becomes an archdeacon after his predecessor dies a seemingly natural death. One day, he touches a carved wooden figure in Barchester Cathedral. Then an ancient spell goes into effect....

Joseph Sheridan LeFanu was one of the major figures of 19th centrury supernaturalism. He helped move supernaturalist fiction away from the Gothic's emphasis on external sources of terror and toward a focus on the effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist and horror lit that continues today.

Kipling was a British author and poet, born in India. He is best known for the many children's tales, his Indian spy novel Kim (1901), a number of poems, and many short stories. This gentle supernatural story is one of his best.

Ambrose Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short-story writer, and satirist, who wrote many chilling stories of the supernatural. "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" is one of his best.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was one of the major figures of 19th-century supernaturalism. He helped move supernaturalist fiction away from the gothic's emphasis on external sources of terror and toward a focus on the effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist and horror literature that continues today. "The Familiar" is one of his most terrifying tales.

Where do you start? Where do you end? At some point, you stop, sit, and enjoy, or else you become enveloped in the darkness. The Minstrels Are Calling is a book of nightmares, spooky stories, and poems; homages to Hunter S. Thompson and Allen Ginsberg; and a prequel for the author’s graphic novel NUMB. Spiders, zombies, vampires, psychics, supernatural beings, death, creation, and obscure mythology are some of the topics that are embraced within this book.

Travel to the year 1967, when San Francisco became the place for young people to explore their sexuality, find freedom and transcend. What Willow never expected was to experience a ghostly presence that haunted her dreams and terrorized her waking hours. Will she discover what the stranger wants from her before it's too late? Over 18 recommendation due to mature content concerning references to drug use and its culture.

These are tales of unrelenting horror and terror from the mind of Bryan W. Alaspa, author of RIG, Sapphire, Storyland, S.P.I.D.A.R., and other tales of horror, terror, and suspense. These five stories will make you wonder what lurks - when the night comes out.

Seventeen-year-old Lydia Knight is about to start her senior year at Transylvanica High, one of several integrated pilot schools across the country where human and vampire students peacefully coexist. She is a bit leery about her cousin, Roland DuPree, 18, coming to live with her and her parents in Harbor Heights, Michigan, with his dark clothing and odd behavior. But since he is family, she has to tolerate him and even accept the fact that her best friend, Mandi, is attracted to her cousin.

Tired of the bullying, Ivan decides to get revenge. Now his best friend is dead. Ivan Stein isn’t sure he can survive seventh grade, let alone middle school. Living in a town known for its poverty and violence, he is regularly bullied along with his best friend, Ollie. But fortunes can change. One day, Ivan finds an old notebook in an abandoned locker at school. Despite a stark warning, he takes the book and unleashes powerful magic he can use to punish his enemies.

A first-time author. A hotshot book editor. A whirlwind romance and a runaway bestseller nobody saw coming. The meteoric rise and sudden collapse of a cross-platform media empire. All of this - plus a basement full of undiscovered treasures left by former tenants - is thoughtfully unpacked and dusted off in this sideways collection of small, strange fictions. SITM is a light-hearted 44-story collection of mostly free-standing stories surrounding a framed narrative that explores how these tales were created.

Luke walked up to the girl in the playground and asked, "Why aren't you swinging?" The girl looked at him and said nothing for a minute. He was struck by the darkness of her irises, which were almost impossible to distinguish from her blacker-than-black pupils. He swallowed. He was about to turn away when she said, "I was swinging, but I don't swing any more."

Be afraid. Be very afraid. That noise in the dead of night. The shadow that slips by almost unnoticed. The fear that pulverizes your sense of reasoning and pushes you deep down under seven layers of covers. There is no escaping it, and when the dark forces of the universe come after you, the world will know exactly what you are made of. Will you run? Will you fight? Maybe you’ll join forces with the darkness that rips through your quiet little life. Everyone’s dying to find out.

The vampires have gone wild in this collection of never-before-published stories by best-selling authors Kerrelyn Sparks and Pamela Palmer, and two rising stars of paranormal romance! Contains V is for VampWoman by Kerrelyn Sparks, A Forever Love by Pamela Palmer, First Dates Are Hell by Amanda Arista, and Blood and Water by Kim Falconer.

Dorothy Scarborough was an academic and author who had a particular interest in the supernatural. The following collection, first published in 1921, features stories that have a strong comical or satirical focus.