Italy, 1252. Inquisition. Accusation. Fear. Torture. The guilty and the innocent dying for sins real and imagined, in the flames of the burning stake.... Neilsville, 1978. Peter Balsam has come to this sleepy desert town to teach its youth, and finds a mystery of mounting horror. Something is happening to the young girls of St. Francis Xavier High School - something evil. In bloodlet and terror a suicide contagion has swept the town...while a dark order of its holy men enacts a secret medieval ritual.

Thirteen-year-old Angel Sullivan falls in love with her family's new home - the house that stands at Black Creek Crossing in the small town of Roundtree, Massachusetts. But the idyll is soon shattered as Angel learns a shocking secret about the house.

Caroline Evans, a recently widowed mother of two, thinks things have finally fallen into place when she meets the charismatic Anthony Fleming. They are quickly married, and she and her two children move into his luxury apartment in the legendary Rockwell on Central Park West. Caroline dismisses the oddities of their new neighbors as pleasant eccentricities - until things begin to change.

It has waited seven years for someone to come back to the rambling lakeside house called Pinecrest, which has stood empty since its last owner went missing. For upscale Chicago couple Dan and Merrill Brewster, the old midwestern manse is an ideal retreat, and for their kids, Eric and Marci, it's the perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring.

Brilliant summers amid golden fields. Killing winters of razorlike cold. A peaceful, neighborly village, darkened by legends of death? Who is Nathaniel? For 100 years, the people of Prairie Bend have whispered the name in wonder and fear. Some say he is simply a folk tale - a legend created to frighten children on cold winter nights. Some swear he is a terrifying spirit returned to avenge the past. And soon...very soon...some will come to believe that Nathaniel lives still - darkly, horrifyingly real. Nathaniel.

Every parent's nightmare becomes a reality for Kara Marshall when her daughter, Lindsay, vanishes from her bedroom during the night. The police suspect that the girl is just another moody teenage runaway, angry over leaving behind her school and friends because her family is moving. But Lindsay's recent eerie claim - that someone invaded her room when the house was opened to prospective buyers - drives Kara to fear the worst.

Though Alison McKenzie lives near beauty-obsessed Beverly Hills, she's fine being a Plain Jane. But her mother Anne believes beauty is the key to success. So when Alison suffers a burn, Anne takes her to a plastic surgeon. The surgeon says he not only can take care of the scar but can make her beautiful. Anne is enchanted by his promises, and by him. As a romance blooms, Alison's transformation begins. But she has reason to be suspicious.

Clark's Harbor was the perfect coastal haven, jealously guarded against outsiders. But now strangers have come to settle there. And a small boy is suddenly free of a frenzy that had gripped him since birth.... His sister is haunted by fearful visions.... And one by one, in violent, mysterious ways, the strangers are dying. Never the townspeople. Only the strangers. Has a dark bargain been struck between the people of Clark's Harbor and some supernatural force? Or is it the sea itself calling out for a human sacrifice?

After a sudden fire leaves Matt's senile and troubled grandmother homeless, she moves in with the family. Her ceaseless demands cause unrelieved tension - and with her comes a shameful secret about her daughters that traps Matt between a dead aunt who haunts him and his own mother, who seeks redemption for her sister's sins - and her own. Matt transforms from a gregarious teenager to a hostile loner prone to fits of rage - tortured by chilling memories and haunted by nightmares.

One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began 100 years ago.

Amanda: A century ago, a gentle blind girl walked the cliffs of Paradise Point. Then the children came - taunting, teasing - until she lost her footing and fell, shrieking her rage to the drowning sea... . Michelle: Now Michelle has come from Boston to live in the big house on Paradise Point. She is excited about her new life, ready to make new friends...until a hand reaches out of the swirling mists - the hand of a blind child. She is asking for friendship...seeking revenge...whispering her name....

Something is happening to the children of Eastbury, Massachusetts.... Something that causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs. Something that strikes at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something unexplained that is taking the children, one by one.

Just as their troubled marriage is reaching the breaking point, Ted and Janet Conway inherit a home that has been in the family for more than a century. Eager to make a new beginning, the Conways and their three children head for the promise of a better life in the small Louisiana town of St. Albans. But within the long-abandoned, sprawling Victorian manse lies the dark history of the Conway name.

Lush and deceptively tranquil, with its pristine beaches and blossoming vegetation, the island basks in splendid isolation off the South Carolina coast. Here, where sudden storms unleash the murderous rage of wind and sea, stands the Devereaux mansion, a once-great plantation house now crumbling amid ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Here, Marguerite Devereaux, 50 and childless, has cast off her dreams to care for her aged, demanding mother.

They call it the Academy: a secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast. It's a school for children gifted - or cursed - with extraordinary minds, children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own - and unspeakably evil.

If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.

When Victor Holland came flying out of the night, he ran straight into the path of Catherine Weaver's car. Having uncovered a terrifying secret that leads all the way to Washington, Victor is running for his life - and from the men who will go to any lengths to silence him. Though Victor's story sounds like the ravings of a mad-man, the haunted look in his eyes - and the bullet hole in his shoulder - tell Cathy a different story.

After his father's untimely death sends 15-year-old Ryan McIntyre into an emotional tailspin, his mother enrolls him in St. Isaac's Catholic boarding school, hoping the venerable institution, with its reputation for transforming wayward teens, can work its magic on her son. But troubles are not unknown even at St. Isaac.

Charlie West just woke up in someone else's nightmare. He's strapped to a chair. He's covered in blood and bruises. He hurts all over. And a strange voice outside the door just ordered his death. The last thing he can remember is that he was a normal high-school kid doing normal things. How long ago was that? Where is he now? Who is he really?

All ATF Agent Jack Donovan wants out of life is to do his job and work on his strained relationship with his daughter Jessie after a nasty divorce. But in a ruthless act of revenge by a charismatic madman, Jessie is kidnapped and buried alive, with barely enough oxygen to sustain her. Now the only man who can save her, the only man who knows where to find her, has just been shot dead - and the clock is ticking... So what's a father to do?

Jonah Miller is a Reviver, able to temporarily revive the dead so they can say goodbye to their loved ones - or tell the police who killed them. Jonah works in a department of forensics created specifically for Revivers, and he’s the best in the business. For every high-profile corpse pushing daisies, it’s Jonah’s job to find justice for them. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is on the other side watching. Waiting.

There are things in the darkness, things much worse than the tracks and abandoned pieces of equipment that trip the children up and gash at their feet and legs, things that brush silently past them, touching their faces before disappearing again....

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

One cold November night when Kat Kominski was 15 years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught. Thirteen years later, Kat - now Kate White - has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with a nine-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA's office. But her dark past returns to haunt her.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

John Cray has a secret. For 12 years he has stalked and kidnapped women, setting them loose in the mountains of eastern Arizona, hunting them like animals, and taking their lives. He has left no clues. He is suspected by no one. Or so he thinks. But now he has a problem. Somebody - a woman whose name he doesn't know - is stalking him. She follows him when he makes his nightly rounds in Tucson. She watches him on busy street corners and in shadowy restaurants. She seems to know his secret. But if so, why hasn't she gone to the police?

In this collection of 13 fabulously chilling stories from 13 true masters of suspense, including five New York Times best sellers and a number of Edgar Award nominees, all edited by none other than R. L. Stine, nothing is what it seems. From cannibalistic children, to an unwitting date with a vampire, to a crush on a boy who just might be a werewolf, no scary stone is left unturned. A must-have for all fans of the genre!

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

Stephen Friedman is just inches away from everything he could ever desire. It's Los Angeles in the early 70s, and Friedman is living the groovy southern California life of a real-estate wheeler dealer. He's making money hand-over-fist and has long given up hope of finding the family he's lost in worn-torn Poland. But when a deceased woman's papers reveal that she possessed a priceless religious relic, and that she may have been his mother, Stephen becomes hungry for answers. A hunger that may kill him.

Supernatural bounty hunter Alice Werner loves her job. She gets paid the big bucks to take down her targets and doesn't ask her clients too many questions as long as the money's good. But when a girl goes missing and the case feels all too familiar, Alice can't help but act. Concern for the girl's safety draws her into a risky case. Compassion keeps her involved when the stakes begin to rise. Desperation forces her to call on an old flame for help.

Thirteen-year-old Angel Sullivan falls in love with her family's new home - the house that stands at Black Creek Crossing in the small town of Roundtree, Massachusetts. But the idyll is soon shattered as Angel learns a shocking secret about the house.

They call it the Academy: a secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast. It's a school for children gifted - or cursed - with extraordinary minds, children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own - and unspeakably evil.

A telephone ringing in the dead of night signals the beginning of a journey into fear as MaryAnne Carpenter hears the shocking news: her friends the Wilkensons are suddenly, inexplicably dead, their only child, MaryAnne's godchild, abruptly orphaned and dependent on her.

Another terrifying, classic horror novel from best-selling author John Saul. An insidious madman haunts the peaceful town of Borrego, New Mexico. His goal is singular, as is the focus of his hate and rage. The teenagers of the town seem to have gone too far, and now he will strike back - while they sleep and even during their waking hours - and silence them forever.

Karen Spellman is leaving Los Angeles behind, packing up her life and her daughters, and returning to her hometown to marry her high school sweetheart. In the countryside of her childhood, she is looking forward to a fresh start. But her life quickly turns dark and a malevolent force beyond her control threatens to take her daughters from her and ruin her dreams of a new life. Little does anyone know that an evil thought to be long dead has only been lying in wait, quietly anticipating the day when it will finally be able to satisfy its vengeful desires.

Just as their troubled marriage is reaching the breaking point, Ted and Janet Conway inherit a home that has been in the family for more than a century. Eager to make a new beginning, the Conways and their three children head for the promise of a better life in the small Louisiana town of St. Albans. But within the long-abandoned, sprawling Victorian manse lies the dark history of the Conway name.

Beyond the sparkling Hawaiian beaches, masked by the deceptive beauty of the rainforest, evil awaits 16-year-old Michael Sundquist and his mother, Katharine, an anthropologist who has come to the Islands to study the unusual skeletal remains unearthed on the volcanic flanks of Haleakala, Maui.

Brilliant summers amid golden fields. Killing winters of razorlike cold. A peaceful, neighborly village, darkened by legends of death? Who is Nathaniel? For 100 years, the people of Prairie Bend have whispered the name in wonder and fear. Some say he is simply a folk tale - a legend created to frighten children on cold winter nights. Some swear he is a terrifying spirit returned to avenge the past. And soon...very soon...some will come to believe that Nathaniel lives still - darkly, horrifyingly real. Nathaniel.

For more than three decades John Saul has haunted the New York Times best seller list - and listeners imaginations - with his chilling tales of psychological suspense and supernatural horror. His instinct for striking the deepest chords of fear in our hearts and minds is unerring, and his gift for steering a tale from the light of day into the darkest depths of nightmare is at its harrowing best in House of Reckoning.

Cassie Winslow is 16. She has just lost her mother in a terrible accident. Now, lonely and frightened, she has come to live with the father she barely knows and his new family in tiny False Harbor on Cape Cod. For Cassie, the strange, unsettling dreams that come to her suddenly in the dead of night are merely the beginning. Very soon, Cassie Winslow will come to know the terrifying powers that are her gift. And in the village of False Harbor, nothing will ever be the same.

For five years Seattle journalist Anne Jeffers has pursued the horrifying story of a sadistic serial killer's bloody reign, capture, trial, and appeal - crusading to keep the wheels of justice churning toward the electric chair. Now the day of execution has come. A convicted killer will meet his end. Anne believes her long nightmare is over. But she's dead wrong.

Lush and deceptively tranquil, with its pristine beaches and blossoming vegetation, the island basks in splendid isolation off the South Carolina coast. Here, where sudden storms unleash the murderous rage of wind and sea, stands the Devereaux mansion, a once-great plantation house now crumbling amid ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Here, Marguerite Devereaux, 50 and childless, has cast off her dreams to care for her aged, demanding mother.