Ellie Jordan's job is to catch and remove unwanted ghosts. Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia - the most haunted city in the United States. When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they've recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead she finds herself confronting an evil that is older and more powerful than she'd ever expected.

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why?

When a spaceship landed in an open field in the quiet mill town of Sorrow Falls, Massachusetts, everyone realized humankind was not alone in the universe. With that realization everyone freaked out for a little while. Or almost everyone. The residents of Sorrow Falls took the news pretty well. This could have been due to a certain local quality of unflappability, or it could have been that in three years the ship did exactly nothing other than sit quietly in that field, and nobody understood the full extent of this nothing the ship was doing better than the people who lived right next door.

Professor Theo Cray is trained to see patterns where others see chaos. So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop. As a computational biologist, Theo is more familiar with digital code and microbes than the dark arts of forensic sleuthing.

Devin Bryant is a young accident attorney whose star is on the rise. His success has afforded him a beautiful house, a fancy car, a gorgeous wife, and a fast track to partnership. After closing another high profile case, Devin goes out one Saturday night to celebrate with friends and his wife, Bethany. But, Devin has a secret. Jez Anders is a local harlot who specializes in seducing those with wealth and power. Devin's rapid success has caught her attention, and now her temptress's gaze is set firmly on him. And Jez has secrets of her own.

Something evil is at work in Hyde River, an isolated mining town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Under the cover of darkness, a predator strikes without warning—taking life in the most chilling and savage fashion. The community of Hyde River watches in terror as residents suddenly vanish. Yet, the more locals are pressed for information, the more they close ranks, sworn to secrecy by their forefathers’ hidden sins. Only when Hyde River’s secrets are exposed is the true extent of the danger fully revealed.

Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case - the hunt for a serial killer - went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he's a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him. First, he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he's never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn't want a new boss.

John Langan has, in the last few years, established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary horror literature. Gifted with a supple and mellifluous prose style, an imagination that can conjure up clutching terrors with seeming effortlessness, and a thorough knowledge of the rich heritage of weird fiction, Langan has already garnered his share of accolades. This new collection includes nine of his substantial stories.

Kevin Taylor is an Internet-famous handyman on a mission: Find a house and renovate it in 30 days. By flipping a derelict house in a month's time and chronicling the entire thing on video for his online subscribers, he seeks to become a star. The problems that plague this property will require more than elbow grease to fix, however. Shadows throughout the home are distorted, and an enigmatic trespasser keeps showing up in his footage. Worse still are the hideous voices that issue from otherwise empty rooms in the dead of night.

"My name is Mike Ross. I'm a Ferryman. I help people with ghost problems, or ghosts with people problems. Funny thing, no one ever helps me with my problems. Civil War ghosts bent on killing me, Skinwalkers who just want my body, and a vindictive spirit linked both to my bloodline and my destiny... It turns out the dead still hold a good deal of influence over the world, and they don't want to give it up. I'm in way over my head. Fortunately, I'm too stubborn to quit."

Daniel Martin has never forgotten his childhood encounters with Frank Watkins, the man who built his family a summer home out of cardboard and plywood. Frank's gaze was oddly confusing, as if he was attempting to discern the proper way to behave because he didn't know how to respond in a human manner. Since Frank obviously wasn't an alien, young Daniel thought maybe the man was crazy. In the end, Daniel would learn the terrifying truth about Frank Watkins. And as an adult, Daniel is about to discover there are more of them out there.

Keisha Lewis lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn't dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country. Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job as a long-haul truck driver and begins searching for Alice.

When an amateur journalist encounters a mysterious radio program while driving alone one late night, he is presented with a set of instructions with potentially fatal consequences. After escaping with his life, obsession takes hold and he is determined to find out who is behind the broadcast and who else it has affected. His investigation leads him to speak with travelers and truckers, vagabonds and vacationers, models and rock stars, each with their own sinister encounter with the strange program. His search draws him into a world of deadly discovery.

Family drama is bad enough without adding magic and human sacrifice. Ten years ago, Paxton Locke's mother killed his father in a mysterious ritual that - thankfully - went incomplete. Now, Paxton makes his living as a roving paranormal investigator, banishing spirits while Mother languishes in jail. When a terrified ghost warns him of a dangerous, newly freed entity, Paxton faces a fight far beyond simple exorcism. In a battle for his very soul, will he be able to endure - or simply fade away?

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He's obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn't want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he's written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation. Dead bodies are normal to John. They don't demand or expect the empathy he's unable to offer. Perhaps that's what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there's something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat - and to appreciate what that difference means.