Well, for the sake of argument, let's say these mythical creatures are actually real. What if some ruthless (and totally legitimate) businessman somehow managed to acquire a number of these cryptids for the purpose of putting them on display? For a very large admittance fee, of course. A fee so large, only the wealthiest people would ever know about it.

Detectives investigate a series of disappearances linked to a mysterious prop door marked with cryptic blood-drawn symbols. A vampire adapting to the Covid pandemic is forced to order delivery, but his meal arrives with a sinister surprise that he’d rather forget. A woman on the run discovers her tiny mountain town has secrets of its own, and not all cults are created equal.

A die-hard paranormal skeptics beliefs are turned upside down after a night of unimaginable terror trapped inside a notoriously haunted house. Pages torn from a lost journal recount a camping trip gone terribly wrong. A teenager investigates a knock at the basement door of an abandoned church in the woods. A late-night gas station clerk encounters disturbing pale figures in top hats. Airline passengers glimpse tentacled monsters outside the plane windows.

When a mysterious truck crashes through the gates of the AccuTech factory, the final shift descends into a nightmare of inhuman proportions. An extraterrestrial parasite capable of absorbing and perfectly mimicking any life form has arrived, leaving a trail of blood and chaos in its wake. Desperate to contain the outbreak at any cost, a shadowy military faction places the factory under quarantine, sealing the doors and condemning everyone inside to a grisly fate.

A rookie postal inspector hunts a postal bomber as police search for the wrong man! Set in Tucson and Phoenix, where I worked for 20 years as a postal clerk, retiring early in 2009 to do more writing. See memoir Post Office Confidential. The story needs no update as it fits today's headlines about shootings and bombings, and border tensions with targeted immigrants and social services costs.

R.k. Kombrinck, co-host of Night of the Living Podcast, delivers a collection of short stories to make you dread the empty house across the street; to make you wonder what lurks in the woods behind the park and question the smile of your kind, elderly neighbor. A new employee uncovers his workplace’s top-secret supernatural history. A little girl unknowingly invites a sinister creature into her family’s home through conversations with her “imaginary” friend. A hellish virus brings a cursed town’s populace back from the dead.

Welcome to the world of cursed objects and demented morticians, a spectral realm where living shadows traverse the darkness of your bedroom at three in the morning—the Witching Hour. This terrifying collection of horror shorts will torture your fearful mind with the sound of claws scratching the floor beneath your bed and the nightmarish figure of a milky-eyed corpse reaching for you with ghoulish intent.

In the tradition of The Twilight Zone and Tales From the Crypt, Ronald McGillvray’s Tales From the Parkland offers a spine-chilling collection that blurs the line between reality and nightmare. A father is forced to make a terrible decision… Which of his children will he sacrifice to the Garbage Collectors? A family’s sightseeing trip turns into a desperate fight for survival when a city is besieged by flesh-melting rain. A man’s childhood nightmare returns, forcing him to confront the monster under the bed to protect his family

A monster demands candy on Halloween night. “Falconers” train ghosts to harvest bits of human souls. A father stretches the boundaries of reality to bring his son back from the dead. A pious man is tormented by a demon he guards.

J.R. Hamantaschen, a name synonymous with groundbreaking underground horror, returns with his latest collection. Channeling the essence of horror legends like H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Clive Barker, T.E.D. Klein, and Dennis Etchison, this collection cements his status as a master storyteller in the realm of dark fiction, blending nihilism, the grotesque, and the philosophical in a way that only he can.

Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.