Jasper is having a very, very bad day. However, after he meets an unusual clown by the name of Blue Bell, he soon realizes his day is about to do something he never imagined possible - it’s about to get worse.

Three boys investigate a mysterious thicket. What will they find? Forgotten junk? Frogs? An abandoned bike? What starts out as a fun way to waste away a few boring hours soon turns into a day of terror.

Horrific tales of fright told around a bonfire during remote backwoods retreats are common among close friends. As each person tests the others' ability to remain calm and resist the urge to look over a shoulder as the sounds of nature bellow out in the backdrop, only one may claim victory as the most frightening of the group. Backwoods Bonfire inserts the listener into a group of friends that unintentionally create a case study on what horror means to them, attempting to coerce the others to believe that horror is specific, not fluid.

The zombie plague has been contained, right? Frank’s job is to patrol the fence that separates the living from the undead. It’s a boring job...at least it was until today. Has the true apocalypse finally arrived?

This double feature includes two dark fantasy stories featured in Brian Barr's Daemensions short story collection. "Songs of the Hallow Saints" follows a Celtic swordsman searching for his love in the underworld. "The Coldest Winter" follows a king haunted by the death of his beloved queen, who drowned in an ice-covered pond.

Frank's back on the bridge, dodging sprawling vines as thick as his secrets, crushing the dark fruit beneath his soles as he flees. He must catch the train. Her voice traps him. The child he cannot ignore. "I watched you, Uncle Frank. I saw what you did." He can hear the train's whistle. She clings to him, holding him tight as the horror approaches....

She's a prisoner with a secret gift. He's a soldier with a monster locked inside. Now they will decide if humanity is worth the fight.

Detective Sean O'Reilly is called in to interrogate a young boy who is the only witness to a massacre during a gang war. The child's story is too far-fetched for most of the Chicago Police Force to believe - claims of an army of other-worldly creatures who attacked and dismembered the rival gangs. But Sean O'Reilly believes him, because he's seen them himself. An encounter he had as a boy in a dark forest in Ireland did not just give him nightmares, but changed his entire life.

Faced with his parents' divorce, 11-year-old Lucas runs away from home in the hope that his family will get back together to find him. While walking through the empty streets, he is picked up by a mysterious woman who offers to take care of him and provide him with a loving family. The boy then wakes up in shackles, confined to a bed in a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere and will have to face his deepest fears in order to survive in his new home.

Amy is watching TV when the world is attacked by Them. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to survive - and even rescue "Baby" a toddler she finds in an abandoned supermarket. Then, after years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream, with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she'll lose Baby - and much more.

Patrick Lahm is down on his luck. Late for his book signing, out of gas, and stuck in a storm. He hitches a ride to the Kurtain Motel, where he is forced to spend the night. The small motel seems harmless enough at first, but as the night drags on, Patrick and the other guests slowly begin to realize there is a lot more to their temporary lodging than meets the eye. Something evil is at work at the Kurtain Motel; something that creeps into the deepest, darkest corners of your mind and tugs at the chords of sanity until they finally break.

From New York Times best-selling author Mira Grant comes a vision of a decade in the future, where humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease. We owe our good health to a humble parasite—a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the Intestinal Bodyguard worm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system—even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

The stories in this collection provide a wide-angle lens at what comprises the unique expanse of horror fiction today. From hobgoblins and apparitions, to haunted dwellings and cursed possessions, to good intentions gone awry and evil ones turned on the perpetrator, these 20 tales will unsettle, frighten, tickle, and caution, and in the end, listeners may take heed before ever again accompanying their children trick-or-treating, striking up conversations in anonymous chat rooms, or fortifying their homes in an attempt to prevent Halloween vandalism.

One day changed the world forever. Billions died. A small handful of survivors braved the apocalyptic wasteland to start again. This is their story.

Death. It's something that Ada Palomino has always known so well, having grown up in a house of horrors, surrounded by a family plagued by ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night. But after the sudden and tragic death of her mother two years ago, death has never felt so personal. Or so close. Now 18, Ada is trying to move on with her life, and the last month of summer holds nothing but sunshine and promises, with her first year at a Portland design school just around the bend.