Award-winning author Jennifer Egan brilliantly conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep-–the tower, the last stand-–is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive. Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.

Where does inspiration come from? What secrets lie at the heart of an author's stories and novels? What is written on the invisible ink between the lines of dialogue and description? Most writers will never tell you, will leave you to guess at the connections between their fiction and their lives. Jack Ketchum gives a rare and intimate look into his world and into some of the people who have influenced his life in this collection of essays. Idols and friends, lovers and strangers are revealed, examined, adored and lamented as only Jack Ketchum can.

The Dark Realms are taking cover after an angel onslaught from On High. The Antichrist has been injured and the fourth biblical seal has been broken. Yonnie and Val, a strange combination of a daywalker and an angel hybrid, have joined Damali and Carlos's team. And the two new Council-level vamps, Elizabeth Bathory and Lucrezia Borgia, are still in recovery from their last mission. Seething in the underworld is the Unnamed One, so furious that he's bringing the battle topside, unleashing a full-frontal assault on mankind for the offenses committed by the Neteru team. This time, the Guardian team must address serious human casualties and collateral damage while Nuit rebuilds Blood Music from a mere record label into a media brainwashing empire for the Dark Lord.

The arrival of a mysterious young woman brings danger to a housewife and her adult son.Eileen devoted her entire adult life to raising her son, and everything is going perfectly as he prepares to finish college and live the life she’s always wanted for him. But then her son brings home a new bride who threatens to ruin everything she has worked for. Eileen takes it upon herself to find out what her new daughter-in-law’s secrets are, and what she finds is not what she expected. Suddenly, she realizes that she and her son are in the middle of a dangerous crisis, which she sees no way out of.

From Darren Shan, the Master of Horror, comes the gripping second book in the Zom-B series. * * Waking up in a military complex, months after zombies attacked school, B has no memory of the last few months. Life in the UK has turned tough since the outbreak, and B is woven into life- and battle- in the new military regime quickly. But as B learns more about the zombies held in the complex and the scientists keeping them captive, unease settles in. Why exactly was B saved? And is there anyone left in the world to trust?

Apollo and Amaya Shelly are twins, living deep in the forest of Stockwood Washington and away from civilization. Three days before their 18th birthday, the twins discover that their “normal” existence is anything but normal: their father and the Sanguis clan are vampires.Whether past or present, family or clan, the line between good and evil can easily blur. . .Apollo and Amaya Shelly are twins, living deep in the forest of Stockwood Washington and away from civilization. Raised by their father and under the protection of their leader, Maximiliano, Apollo and Amaya live what they consider a normal life with the Sanguis clan.Three days before their 18th birthday, the twins discover that their “normal” existence is anything but normal: their father and the Sanguis clan are vampires. Worse yet, they learn that an agreement was made that would predestine them to become vampires on their special day.In a chilling race against time, the twins uncover a secret that could destroy their lineage and alter their existence. Whether past or present, family or clan, the line between good and evil can easily blur. . . . . . Especially when they are bound to darkness

Aiden and Marlaina Wilson had no idea how the first zombie was born in the Amish city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It had happened in a matter of hours. They went from clean cut kids to their hands dripping with blood. They smashed the zombie's heads using clubs and baseball bats as they ran wildly through their city's streets, seeking refuge from the blood splatter and those dead hungry faces.Aiden and Marlaina Wilson had no idea how the first zombie was born in the Amish city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It had happened in a matter of hours. Thousands of their school friends were killed. Their blood flew against the walls. They became the walking dead. They stumbled about tearing out throats. They tossed their friends' intestines against the walls. Then, they stuffed their mouths with their innards. As they did so, they attacked Aiden and Marlaina again and again. Could their lives and love survive the terrifying seconds that barely separated the living from the stumbling zombie dead in this new nightmare world? Their hands dripping with blood, they bashed in zombie heads using clubs and baseball bats as they ran wildly through their city's streets, seeking refuge from the approaching blood splatter. Hiding in the woods, searching desperately for safer places, they fought their way through the emerging hordes of blood hungry zombies.

Forty Winks for Jonah.The crowd, Twenty-Eight-Stories below, clamors for his death as he pens the story no one believes. It is showdown time for Jonah and the monster that has pursued him for the past eighteen years. From his fifth birthday on, things only got worse.Jonah is not the prophet of the bible but is reluctant and nonetheless at odds with God. His tale, a true tale of horror (that few believe), is told as he sits atop a twenty-eight-story building in Jacksonville, Florida. The crowd below clamors for his death, but he's not worried, for Jonah has bigger FISH to fry. It is showdown time for him and the monster that has pursued him for the past eighteen years.His tale began just days before his fifth birthday, chased by the monster from Ms. Wilkin's Kindergarten Sunday School class. That day’s Bible Story: Jonah's namesake being swallowed by a whale. From there it only got worse.

A MONUMENTAL COLLECTION OF SHORT FICTION FROM ACCLAIMED MASTER OF HORROR AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR PETER STRAUB “Peter Straub brilliantly defies and blurs literary genres.” —LORRIE MOORE An American icon renowned for his bestselling novels, Peter Straub displays his full and stunning range in this crowning collection. He has consistently subverted the boundaries of genre for years, transcending horror and suspense to unlock the dark, unsettling, and troubling dissonances that exist on the edges of our perception. Straub’s fiction cracks the foundation of reality and opens our eyes to an unblinking experience of true horror, told in his inimitable and lush style with skill, wit, and impeccable craft.      With uncanny precision, Straub writes of the city and of the Midwest, of the depraved and of the righteous, of the working class and of the wealthy—nothing and no one is safe from the ever-present darkness that he understands so well. “Blue Rose” follows the cycles of violence and power through the most innocent among us, leading to a conclusion that is audacious and devastating. In the darkly satirical masterpiece “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff,” a stern estate lawyer known as the Deacon hires a pair of “Private Detectives Extraordinaire” to investigate and seek revenge on his unfaithful wife. “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” follows a man and his much younger lover as they explore their decadent and increasingly sinister fantasies aboard a luxurious yacht on the remotest stretch of the Amazon River.       Interior Darkness brings together sixteen stories from twenty-five years of dazzling excellence. It is a thrilling, highly entertaining, and terrifying testament to the prodigious talent of Peter Straub. From the Hardcover edition.

Beginning in the 600s, Spain's old blood rituals of animal sacrifice were replaced by the new gods of Christianity and Islam, who demanded no less obedience and allegiance. Saint-Germain becomes trapped in this cauldron of blood, fear, and faith when, he makes a vampire of the beautiful, haughty, tempestuous Csimenae. Csimenae kills without mercy. She makes vampires without a second thought; and they, For five hundred years, as waves of war and religion sweep over Spain, Csimenae hunts until her marauding, willful ways expose her vampiric nature. Saint-Germain's centuries of life have taught him that to fall out of step with history is to risk the True Death, a fate Saint-Germain wishes for none of his kind. He must try to save Csimenae-and her clan-but at what price?

In this short story a lonely elderly widower is visited by his wife who passed away six years earlier. She guides him into the afterlife.Mad-Sci-Soc? It used to be a University club, a crazy one, but then it morphed into something else. Something that was not quite definable and definitely crazy. How do you solve all the problems facing civilisation: cyborgs out of control, super-powered vigilantes hogging the digital channels and keep your girl happy? There may be a parallel universe that did not start in New York, 2123; a universe that does not start with Mad-Sci-Soc and a broken fridge. But that is always the problem with disturbances in the space-time fabric; nothing makes sense except to the time traveller.

Part 2 of the Reggie series. A true zombie road trip across the north of England. Logan wrestles with both the zombies and the monsters inside of himself while Lizzie recalls the fall of New York and the death of her best friend and love of her life, Jason Seven. She thought she has dealt with all the loss she could, but now must watch another friend die through the scope of her gun.Part two of the Reggie series. James Logan had been wrong. He had been wrong about Lizzie and what she had been through as the zombies ravaged the dead city of New York. He had been wrong about the CDC being able to produce enough of the Zolpidem cure to turn the zombie war back in their favor, and most of all, he had been wrong about himself. The battle for D.C had been long and hard. Losing the city meant losing all hope for a world wide cure in super-heating and dispersing a Zolpidem based cure. All the retired General, along with his partner, the tough as nails inner city cop Elizabeth Jones, can do is escape to England by air. There they find themselves on an arduous road trip across the English Countryside and Industrial North East while making for Russia - the only other world superpower known to be working on an alternative dispersal platform for the cure and the last hope for the human race. In the truest zombie road trip, Logan and Lizzie stop at nothing to help all those they meet on the way, while Logan's inner brutality and violence starts to manifest itself in tearing down anything that stands against them. So while Logan wrestles with the monster inside of himself and the zombies bringing about the end of the human race, Lizzie recalls the story of the fall of New York and the death of her best friend, Jason Seven. Lizzie, the raven haired, young, attractive cop, had thought she had learned how to deal with loss. Had thought she had learned how to deal with heartbreak. But now has to watch another true friend die through the scope of her rifle. Against the backdrop of General John Cygan's horrific revelation, only Russia stands as the hope of all mankind.

A ghostly love story of Hellish proportions. David and Sabrina are two ghosts that have only just met, but when their budding romance is threatened by an outside force, David must decide to abide by the rules or take action and save the girl of his dreams.David was a lost and sad spirit, trapped in a graveyard with other ghosts who embraced their ethereal forms and made every night a party. As for David, though, he always had the feeling of something missing, as if his existence was incomplete somehow. That was until Sabrina showed up. freshly dead and fiercely beautiful, David finds himself enamored. Getting to know the new ghost chases away all of his hollow feelings and leaves him happier than he'd ever been, even in life. Before long though, a new threat appears to Sabrina and David must decide if he should fight or revert back to his sad, lost ways and let her go.

I ducked into a niche between a cabin and the pilot house and hiked my skirt up enough to reach down into my garter holster. I've heard it said that God made all men, but Samuel Colt made all men equal. We'd see what Mr. Colt could do for a woman. Jack Gabert went to India to serve his Queen. He returned to London a violently changed man, infected with an unnatural sickness that altered his body and warped his mind. Eileen Callaghan left an Irish convent with a revolver and a secret. She knows everything and nothing about Jack's curse, but she cannot rest until he's caught. His soul cannot be saved. It can only be returned to God. In the years following the American Civil War, the nun and unnatural creature stalk one another across the United States. Their dangerous game of cat and mouse leads them along great rivers, across dusty plains, and into the no man's land of the unmarked western territories. Here are three tales of the hunt. Reader, take this volume and follow these tormented souls. Learn what you can from their struggle's against each other, against God, and against themselves.

The book revolves around three main characters, Vicki Nelson, a Private Investigator and ex-cop, her lover, homicide detective Mike Celluci, and her ex-lover Henry Fitzroy, 450-year-old vampire, romance writer, and bastard son of Henry VIII. Henry has been living in Vancouver for a year now, while Vicki and Mike have remained in Toronto. Vicki and Henry have not seen each other at all during that year, but when a handless ghost begins haunting Henry, demanding vengeance against those who murdered him, Henry knows he needs Vicki's help to solve the mystery. Especially when the ghost begins playing a deadly game. Each night when Henry awakes he may ask the ghost one question. If the answers is yes, the ghost will leave, but if the answer is no, an innocent victim will die. At his wits' end, Henry breaks the rule he has lived by for nearly five centuries and asks Vicki to come to Vancouver.