On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks—a famous, but struggling, horror writer—receives an ornate antiquarian desk in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling book and prove his best years aren’t behind him… As Tyson begins to use the new desk, he finds himself writing copy at an unfathomable speed, becomes so focused on writing that he binges on all-night, all-day sessions that take a serious physical and psychological toll. Soon, Tyson begins acting strange. Violent.

When Ryne Burdette inherits his family's old hunting cabin deep in the Yukon wilderness, he wants to say no. Nothing much is left in that place except for unpleasant memories and the smoke of old burns. But after a tragic year, he sees a weekend trip to the cabin with his best friends as a way to recuperate and begin again. But there is something strange about these woods.

Jenn didn't know that the cottage held arcane secrets, mysteries long hidden and best left alone. She didn't realize until it was too late that the old books and Ouija board she found there really do hold great power. And it was only after her friend's headless body was discovered that she knew the legend of the local bogeyman was no mere legend at all. An evil has been unleashed, a terrifying figure previously only spoken of in whispers. But now the whispers will become screams. Beware...the Pumpkin Man.

After his estranged father’s mysterious death, Charlie Remick returns to Seattle to help with the funeral. There, he discovers his father left him two parting gifts: the keys to the family record store and a strange black case containing four ancient records that, according to legend, can open a gate to the land of the dead. When Charlie, his sister, and their two friends play the records, they unwittingly open a floodgate of unspeakable horror. As the darkness descends, they are stalked by a relentless, malevolent force and see the dead everywhere they turn.

Today, Alice has it all. Or so it seems. She’s discovered a newfound erotic power over men, but it’s a power that soon turns deadly. For Alice has begun to dream…haunting dreams of a demon with the ravishing face of a goddess and an unmerciful soul. Now, as Alice is lured into the buried depths of an ancient house, she is about to make a terrifying discovery about who she is. And what she has become.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.

Clifford Island. When Willow Stone finds these words written on the floor of her deceased son’s bedroom, she’s perplexed. She’s never heard of it before, but soon learns it’s a tiny island off Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula, 200 miles from Willow’s home. Why would her son write this on his floor? Determined to find answers, Willow sets out for the island. After a few days on Clifford, Willow realizes: This place is not normal. Everyone seems to be stuck in a particular day in 1994.

The abandoned house at the end of Millhaven Road stands on blighted and barren ground, as if nature itself shuns this tainted place. It is known simply as Dead End House, and unspeakably terrible things happened there long ago.

Regan "Roz" Osbourne is broke. Her ex-boyfriend won't take no for an answer, and no one is taking her artwork seriously. So when a mysterious stranger offers her a million dollars and safety from her unstable ex in exchange for her left hand, she can't afford to refuse. Immediately following the amputation, she's racked with insufferable phantom limb pain. Desperate for relief, she enrolls in an experimental drug trial. But this drug has a peculiar side effect—she develops a psychic connection to her missing limb.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. Margaret is staying.

Real estate agent Anthony Graham has his family on the run after witnessing a murder at the hands of the powerful Costello crime family. They’re forced to hide at one of Anthony’s properties, a deserted campground with a sinister past. No one is safe from the men that hunt them, or the terrors that await them inside The Devil’s Nest.

Bertram Stone is a former Texas Ranger running from the changes of an ever-evolving world. Horses were being replaced by cars. Laws were changing how Bertram could deliver justice. Wanting to live out his golden years in peace, Stone flees to the quiet town of Hamilton, Texas, where he becomes the local sheriff. In a small town where the law rarely needs enforcing, everything is going according to his plan—until a great evil plunges Hamilton into horror.

Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic.

Ana and Reid needed a lucky break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling: with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. That's about to change with the words any New Yorker would love to hear—affordable housing lottery. They've won an apartment in the Deptford, one of Manhattan's most revered buildings. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia as the price of living in New York—people are odd—but he can't explain the needle-like bite marks on the baby.

Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call. Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter’s family. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories.

School’s out for summer and that means one thing to Parker, Chloe, and their four friends: a well-deserved camping trip in the Pine Barrens, a million-acre forest deep in the heart of New Jersey. But when old grudges erupt, an argument escalates into the unthinkable, leaving one of them dead and the killer missing. As darkness descends and those left alive try to determine a course of action, the forest around them begins to change....

Fifteen of the biggest names in weird literature come together to pay tribute to Hellboy and the characters of Mike Mignola’s award-winning line of books! Assembled by Joe Golem and Baltimore co-writer Christopher Golden, this anthology boasts 15 original stories by the best in horror, fantasy, and science fiction, including Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Chelsea Cain (Heartsick), Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger series), and more! The new writer of Hellboy and the BPRD, iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson, pitches in as well!

Christopher Golden's Ararat is the heart-pounding tale of an adventure that goes wrong - on a biblical scale. When an earthquake reveals a secret cave hidden inside Mount Ararat in Turkey, a daring, newly engaged couple are determined to be the first ones inside...and what they discover will change everything. The cave is actually a buried ancient ship that many quickly come to believe is Noah's Ark. When a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses.

In 1994, Mike Mignola created one of the most unique and visually arresting comics series to ever see print: Hellboy. Tens of thousands have followed the exploits of the World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator in comics form and in prose. Now, fans of the comic can enjoy the world of Hellboy as seen through the eyes of some of the brightest creative lights in horror and mystery fiction.

A breakthrough research project has detected an active gene present in all known psychopaths and developed a vaccine to make it completely dormant. Society has rejoiced the extinction of the sociopathic mind. There hasn’t been a serial killing in America in over 40 years. Sheriff MacArthur Gray resides in the future but lives in the past. His world views have chased him from a large metropolis to his home town, but there is no sanctuary to be found after he arrives. Because people are dying and only he can see the truth. A psychopath has somehow survived and is thriving.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

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.

When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry, and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him.

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student - the handsome Allister - and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse.

Tucked away in the foothills, surrounded by pine forests, loaded with kids who still play outside, Millwood is the small town everyone knows. For Heather Bradley, it's a place that keeps her family safe; her biggest worries are the daily grind of her job and the kids coming home late. She doesn't know that unfathomable forces are set to converge on her town and thrust their neat lives into darkness, but when her oldest son Stuart opens a one-sided door in the woods and a black cloud pours out, the Bradleys and their whole town find themselves locked in a desperate struggle for survival.

Bertram Stone is a former Texas Ranger running from the changes of an ever-evolving world. Horses were being replaced by cars. Laws were changing how Bertram could deliver justice. Wanting to live out his golden years in peace, Stone flees to the quiet town of Hamilton, Texas, where he becomes the local sheriff. In a small town where the law rarely needs enforcing, everything is going according to his plan—until a great evil plunges Hamilton into horror.

Newly reissued from the "modern-day Algernon Blackwood" comes five terrifying collected horror novellas.

In the field of country noir—the dark side of rural and small-town America—Lansdale staked his claim to East Texas with The Nightrunners. A '66 Chevy bears down on the countryside, with a carful of vicious teenagers and evil of Biblical proportions, in this terrifying morality tale of sex and violence.

Young Jude Brighton has been missing for three days, and while the search for him is in full swing in the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the locals are starting to lose hope. They're well aware that the first 48 hours are critical and after that, the odds usually point to a worst-case scenario. And despite Stevie Clark's youth, he knows that, too; he's seen the cop shows. He knows what each ticking moment may mean for Jude, his cousin and best friend.

Lay provost Eldon Fochs is a happily married father of four. Based on his disturbing dreams, he may also be a sex criminal. His therapist isn’t sure, and his church is determined to protect its reputation. Written from the perspectives of Fochs, his analyst Dr. Alexander Feshtig, and the letters exchanged between Feshtig and his superiors in the church, Father of Lies is Brian Evenson’s fable of power, paranoia, and the dangers of blind obedience. It offers a terrifying vision of how far institutions will go to protect themselves from the innocents who may be their victims.

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together. Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago—the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood.

Cherry, Nebraska, population 312, is just off the highway between the sticks and the boonies. It’s where Dave Rhodes and his friends have lived all their lives. They own businesses, raise families, pay taxes, deal with odd neighbors, and, once or twice a month - just like their fathers before them - transform into wolves.

When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry, and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Miracles are happening. Pray to God they stop. In the dead of winter, on a highway in Quebec, a man crashes his car and survives. In New York, a homeless person is run over by a bus and lives. In Tokyo, a teenager jumps off a high rise building and fails in taking her own life. All over the world, miracles like these transpire, and people breathe a sigh of relief. But for the next week, some people will begin to suspect a terrible truth. A handful will even search for it. One man will find it. And in seven days, all hell will break loose.

At sixteen, Sadie Young had a brush with death, and as a result she became more sensitive to the supernatural. Rather than embrace this gift, she spent years running from it, and from the darkness that once preyed upon her. Now twenty-five and working as a librarian, Sadie is called upon by a desperate family friend to look into a strange series of events. A teenaged girl has entered a reputedly haunted house in town and has gone mad. Committed, the girl attempts suicide and claims to be terrorized at all hours by a horrific specter known as "Mother Maggot."

The planet of Theotokos is dying. Drought has wiped out all but the capital city of Magerit. Worse, an outbreak of a terrible plague, known as the Grey Tears, ravages its populace. Only the charismatic Arch-Deacon Ambrose stands in the way of desperation and anarchy. But as the plague rampages through the streets, murdering its victims with unnatural symptoms, Ambrose struggles to confront the appalling measures he must take to save his people.

Nineteen-year-old Katrina van Tassel knows she’s a disappointment to her parents, for more reasons than one. But as the only daughter of the most prominent family in Sleepy Hollow, she never imagined that she would be chosen as the next sacrifice. Or that in her attempt to escape, she would instead come face to face with the Horseman himself.

During a midnight journey snaking through the Carpathian Mountains, these are the words whispered to Cath Fenwick. It is the warning she will later wish she'd taken more seriously. When Cath receives her invitation to The Event - a monetised retreat for social media influencers - she can't believe her luck. Irene Jobert is the most famous influencer in the world and now Cath will be one of the five participants chosen to stay with Irene in a renovated Transylvanian monastery.

When Rilke, a dissolute auctioneer, comes upon a hidden collection of violent and highly disturbing photographs, he feels compelled to discover more about the deceased owner who coveted them. Soon he finds himself sucked into an underworld of crime, depravity and secret desire, fighting for his life.