The stout of heart will have a friend...The weak will know a painful end...So toughen your soul, don’t be a bawler...Lest you’re visited by the terrible Crawler.The stout of heart will have a friend,The weak will know a painful end.So toughen your soul, don’t be a bawler,Lest you’re visited by the terrible Crawler.

In this, the epic conclusion, we find Zionus confronting his ancient enemy and all of Venatores Mali taking down Ombra once and for all.Detective Greg Loren faces his darkest hour in this thrilling prequel to Signs of Portents.With his career joining his personal life on a downward slide toward oblivion, Greg Loren is running out of time and patience. Pulled into yet another in an endless series of supernatural cases, he uncovers a series of grave robberies that are more than they seem.What is the Church of the Second Coming? And what does it have to do with Loren’s deceased wife, Beth?With everything on the line, will Loren sacrifice his future to reclaim his past? Will his partner and confidante, Soriya Greystone, stand with him or against him in his decision?No one walks away unscathed in this scintillating chapter of the Greystone series.

A breakthrough new series from bestselling author Patrick Carman, featuring text and technology in an innovative new way. Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek... and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out... and then email the clips for Ryan to see. In a new, groundbreaking format, the story is broken into two parts — Ryan's text in the book, and Sarah's videos on a special website, with links and passwords given throughout the book.

A short story from the pages of Snapdragon.A friendly neighbor. One cat. One weekend. What could possibly go wrong?Written for fans of Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Matheson and The Twilight Zone, Snapdragon features seven original short stories you can sink your teeth into.A short story from the pages of Snapdragon.A friendly neighbor. One cat. One weekend. What could possibly go wrong?

A small slice of everyday life for a girl living in a silent city.A small slice of everyday life for a girl living in a silent city.I had the idea for this story kicking around in my head for about a year or so. After the NYC Midnight competition I felt like writing another short piece, so I went ahead and finally wrote it. No prompts or anything.

A woman returns home to visit her mother, only to find she is deeply involved in strange, macabre science. A dark pack haunts her old home town, running in the snow—and with them, the boy she used to love.A Gender Switch Adventure.Grace Riley is on the run—from her past and from her fears. The victim of a violent rape at the hands of a rich politician’s son, she must “disappear” to escape his constant attempts to recapture her. Moving from cattle drive to cattle drive as a cook, she avoids her tormentor for nearly twenty years. When she discovers that the brother she gave up for adoption after their mother died in childbirth was orphaned at an early age, she is frantic to verify that he’s safe. She tracks him to a cattle ranch in Montana.Widower Adam Morgan owns the Twin Springs ranch, but finds himself falling into a life of loneliness. Although he enjoys spending time with his grown daughter and the two men he rescued when they were living on the streets, he longs to meet a woman he can love. Living in the Montana territory where men greatly outnumber women makes finding a new wife difficult. Weary of working cattle, he is ready to make some changes in his life.Grace falls ill on her journey, but she manages to make it to the Twin Springs ranch where her brother is supposed to be living. Adam takes her in, concerned for her health and the reason she’s searching for one of his adopted sons. Their chemistry is immediate and intense, but can Grace heal from her past of pain and fear? When her secrets are finally revealed, can Adam forgive her deceptions and learn to love again?**Contains love scenes and adult language

Midge und Mike, zwei junge Künstler, haben ein romantisches Landhaus bezogen. Die magischen Kräfte, die von dieser Idylle ausgehen, schlagen in nacktes Grauen um, als Mitglieder einer seltsamen Sekte auftauchen.

Peter is quick, daring, and full of mischief—and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland. Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose? There is always more to lose. Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries—one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils," Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children. There, Peter's dark past is revealed: left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror. Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album. Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only for adults who are not easily offended.

The first episode of a five-part serial. Sixteen year old Keegan escapes his abusive mother only to end up in the creepy town of Sedonia Falls.When Keegan finally gets away from his brutal mother on his sixteenth birthday, things go from bad to strange as his father picks up a hitchhiker in the desert during their escape. The strangeness of the day gets scary as Keegan notices the hitchhiker’s odd behavior. But with Keegan’s failing memory and bizarre dreams of a red wind, he can’t be sure about what his father’s gotten them in to as they make their way to the creepy Arizona town of Sedonia Falls. This is the first episode of a five-part serial.

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights. One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price. A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.

On the first day of summer a young girl disappears after climbing through a broken window into an abandoned orphanage. Her brother, with the help of a newspaper reporter, a woman with her own connection to the old orphanage, and a team of paranormal researchers will try to untangle the secrets and mysteries of the place they call the Home.On the first day of summer a young girl disappears after climbing through a broken window into an abandoned building that was once an orphanage. Now Frankie, her brother and only witness to her disappearance, Tom, a newspaper reporter and recent widower, and Patricia, a woman with her own connection to the old orphanage, along with three paranormal researchers, will try to untangle the secrets and mysteries of the place they call the Home.

Short stories blending science fiction, fantasy and satire. Fourteen stories that refuse to be pigeon-holed. From the edges of the known universe, to the microscopic limits of a petri dish, to a yuppie's post-apocalyptic bachelor pad, be prepared to imagine new worlds and new ideas.Perfect for the zombie-clown-loving, giant albino spider and deranged-junkie enthusiast!Short stories blending science fiction, fantasy and satire. Fourteen stories that refuse to be pigeon-holed. From the edges of the known universe, to the microscopic limits of a petri dish, to a yuppie's post-apocalyptic bachelor pad, be prepared to imagine new worlds and new ideas.S H O R T S T O R I E SH o r r o rAn Anniversary Concession* White Daddies | Zombie Clown WesternS c i e n c e F i c t i o nFast Amnesia | Talent Police | EmbarkmentPerfection of the Mind** | Electric Comedian | Daughter ThievesThe Heat | A Blind Date for BonkersF a n t a s yThe Natural Celebrity | Soulmate DivorceThe Magic-Fiver*first published in Out of the Gutter: The Hard Times Issue**first published in Escape Velocity: The Anthology

He had escaped the crash without serious injury. A fading bruise on his forehead and a lingering black eye were the only outward signs that anything had happened to him. But Geoff has been affected in ways that don't show, and his story of what happened couldn't possibly be the truth - could it?This is a very short story about what might happen when Ireland can no longer afford to pay her debts to the European Central Bank.This story also features in Ireland Trilogy by Gary J Byrnes.Debt will set you free.

The South Pacific - 1942When most of Matt Turner's fighter squadron is destroyed by Japanese Zeroes with demonic protection, he expects his after-action report to land him in the loony bin. Instead, he finds himself recruited by a shadowy government agency to test a supernatural countermeasure before the Japanese strike a deathblow against the U.S. Navy and win the war in the Pacific theater.The South Pacific - 1942When most of Matt Turner's fighter squadron is destroyed by Japanese Zeroes with demonic protection, he expects his after-action report to land him in the loony bin. Instead, he finds himself recruited by a shadowy government agency to test a supernatural countermeasure before the Japanese strike a deathblow against the U.S. Navy and win the war in the Pacific theater.Other pulp horror stories in The Big Weird One series:With The FishesOperation Perseus