The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.

Alex is a vampire with a serial case of sarcasm who lives in Las Vegas, a city that has a surprisingly large population of vampires. When Alex crosses paths with a vicious crime boss with a vendetta and a desire to become a vampire himself, Alex finds himself in the kind of trouble he usually manages to avoid. Can his fast-talking ways help him (literally) keep his head?"Everything you know about vampires is wrong. I mean, sure, we do drink blood. And yes, we have fangs, (Have you ever tried to pierce the skin on someone's neck without them? Okay, probably not, but trust me, it's next to impossible.)"Meet Alex. He's a vampire with a serial case of sarcasm who lives in Las Vegas, a city that has a surprisingly large population of vampires, largely due to its thriving nightlife. When Alex crosses paths with a vicious crime boss with a vendetta and a desire to become a vampire himself, Alex finds himself in the kind of trouble he usually manages to avoid. Can his fast-talking ways help him (literally) keep his head?

While attempting to disprove that Homo vampiris, the vampire, could exist, Dr. Warthrop is asked by his former fiancé to rescue her husband from the Wendigo, a creature that starves even as it gorges itself on human flesh, and which has snatched him in the Canadian wilderness. Although Warthrop also considers the Wendigo to be fictitious, he relents and rescues her husband from death and starvation, and then sees the man transform into a Wendigo. Can the doctor and Will Henry hunt down the ultimate predator, who, like the legendary vampire, is neither living nor dead, whose hunger for human flesh is never satisfied? This second book in The Monstrumologist series explores the line between myth and reality, love and hate, genius and madness.

The storm of the century is beginning, and Charlotte is ready to wait it out by herself. But once the snow starts falling, and the lights go out, she begins to realize she's not alone. Strange creatures are prowling around her house, and as the snow piles up, Charlotte must find a way out. Before they find a way in.There is a stranger among us. Journeying from a distant world as an emissary-explorer, has come to earth to access it's suitability for colonization. Able to assume any form, he quietly blends into unobtrusive George Town; a small mining community, and begins his survey. The working class inhabitants of the town are simple folk, easily fooled by his facades and disguises. Far from home, drunk on his own power, the stranger soon trades the mission's purpose, for the pursuit of his own twisted perversions. At first he takes pleasure in manipulating people for his own amusement. As his appetite for evil grows, so does the danger, as the malignant depth of his personality becomes fully manifest. Soon no one is safe from an unknown renegade terror unleashed within the world. The stranger is able to hide his identity, even from the police. No-one knows who he is-no-one except Liz. She alone stands up to him, while others die around her. Intrigued by her, the stranger doesn’t kill her, but rather sets out to toy with her, by killing those she loves and placing the blame on her. Tried and convicted for the murder of her parents, she is sent away to a home for the criminally insane. By shear force of will, and with the help of her confident Ditter, she struggles back from a catatonic state to full sanity. Her big chance comes when she's accepted as a candidate for a sleep study, aboard the starship “Golden Goose”, bound on a survey mission to a newly discovered world. Despite being hunted by his own kind for forsaking the mission, the stranger's obsession for Liz compels him to pursue her to the new world. Through time, from the depths of space, and against the back drop of an intergalactic war, the stranger is up to his old tricks again, chasing and tormenting a helpless quarry. What the stranger doesn't know is that Liz has learned a few tricks of her own. Find out what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted, and the weak learn that they can be strong.

Prior to the first American publication of Brian Lumley's ground-breaking, dead-waking, best-selling Necroscope in 1988 -- the first novel in a long-lived, much-loved series -- this British author had for twenty years been earning himself something of a reputation writing short stories, novellas, and a series of novels set against H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic Cthulhu Mythos backdrop. A soldier in 1967, serving in Berlin with the Royal Military Police, Lumley jump-started his literary career by writing to August Derleth, the then dean of macabre publishers at his home in Sauk City, Wisconsin, telling of his fascination with the Mythos, and purchasing books by the "Old Gentleman of Providence, RI." In addition, he sent a page or two of written work allegedly culled from the various forbidden or "black books" of the Mythos. Suitably impressed, the master of Arkham House invited Lumley to write something solid in the Mythos as a possible contribution to a new volume he was currently contemplating, , to be titled—what else but?—Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. And as might well be imagined, that set everything in motion. Forty years have passed since then and a good many words of Mythos fiction written, including critically acclaimed and award-nominated work, stories that have appeared in prestigious magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction, and hardcover volumes from publishers all over the world from the USA to China and the United Kingdom to Russia. But while Lumley's novels are all currently available, many of them in hardcover format, his Mythos short stories and novellas have until now remained uncollected. Subterranean Press is proud to correct that omission in volumes that are guaranteed to be the pride of any collector's library of Mythos fiction other than tales written by H. P. Lovecraft himself. Here in this book are found the shorter stories. Thus the best of Brian Lumley's works in this sub-genre are collected and presented for the first time in this much more worthy and durable format…

When Ted's five-year-old sister Vicki invents an imaginary friend, no one is too concerned...until they realize that her friend can move things. Ted is sure that Vicki's "friend" Marella is a ghost. But why would a ghost haunt Vicki? And why does Marella seem to be terrified of another ghost-a dark figure that is haunting Ted? Edgar Award-winner Vivian Vande Velde's blend of history, humor, and suspense is sure to keep middle readers turning the pages! "A fast-paced story that mixes scares and history for some can't-put-it-down fun." -Kirkus Reviews

Lieutenant Nixon is a bitter, frustrated naval officer serving his time as a staff weenie in the International Zone. Bored with the monotony of war, he ventures to a secret bunker below one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces with a quirky German named Hans. The Bunker below Believers’ Palace is a 3,400-word (~15-page) short story about the mystery behind Saddam’s toppled dictatorship.Lieutenant Nixon is a bitter, frustrated naval officer serving his time as a staff weenie in the International Zone. Bored with the monotony of war, he ventures to a secret bunker below one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces with a quirky German named Hans. Crawling down to the depths of the destroyed structure, he finds more than he bargained for.The Bunker below Believers’ Palace is a 3,400-word (~15-page) short story about the mystery behind Saddam’s toppled dictatorship.

Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life. It's a place where even the walls whisper. And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess. Will she listen?

A hellfire sky. Winged things prowling. Meagan just wants to finish watching a creature feature on TV, but a strange apocalypse interrupts. In her words: "Mayhem took over." A group of survivors must decide: stay put, or take a chance and seek sanctuary in the nearest church. NOTE: "The Winged Things" is available as part of the compilation "Now You'll Never Know: A Collection of Strange Stories."This is a quick flash-fiction sci-fi story of 1000 words.Idiots in space, basically.

The shipwrecked, vacationing passengers of the ill-fated freighter, Morris, are picked up by the H.M.S. Pandora and sail into a cruise of metaphysical terror, madness, and death. From the Trade Paperback edition.

'I'm still rather fond of this first book of mine, in spite of all the time that has elapsed, and in spite of the way my style has evolved.' Joanne Harris Caution - May contain vampires. It's never easy to face the fact that a man you once loved passionately has found the girl of his dreams, as Alice discovers when Joe introduces her to his new girlfriend. Then Alice finds an old diary and reads about two men and the mysterious woman who bewitched them both, buried in Grantchester churchyard half a century ago. As the stories seem to intertwine, Alice comes to realize that her instinctive hatred of Joe's new girlfriend may not just be due to jealousy, as she is plunged into a nightmare world of obsession, revenge, seduction - and blood.

Invite Hannibal Lecter into the palace of your mind and be invited into his mind palace in turn.  Note the similarities in yours and his, the high vaulted chambers of your dreams, the shadowed halls, the locked storerooms where you dare not go, the scrap of half-forgotten music, the muffled cries from behind a wall. In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil--a tour de force of psychological suspense.   Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane.  The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world.  But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams.   Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge.  He was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher's empire.  From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web.  Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best.   Powerful, hypnotic, utterly original, Hannibal is a dazzling feast for the imagination.  Prepare to travel to hell and beyond as a master storyteller permanently alters the world you thought you knew.

At the heart of this psychological suspense novel is the haunting depiction of a family’s fall and the extraordinary gifted dog, Caity, who knows the truth. As the drama unfolds Caity evolves from protector to savior, from scapegoat to prop, and eventually, from avenger to survivor. She is an unselfish soul in a selfish world—and she is written with depth and grace by authors Ketchum and Mckee, who display a profound understanding of a dog’s complex emotions. With her telling instincts and her capacity for joy and transformative love, Caity joins the pantheon of great dogs in contemporary literature. Eleven year old actress Delia Cross is beautiful, talented, charismatic. A true a star in the making. Her days are a blur of hard work on ­set, auditions and tutors. Her family—driven, pill­-popping stage mother Pat, wastrel dad Bart, and introverted twin brother Robbie—depends on her for their upscale lifestyle. Delia in turn depends on Caity, her beloved ginger Queensland Heeler—and loyal friend—for the calming private space they share. Delia is on the verge of a professional break through. But just as the contracts are about to be signed, there is a freak accident that puts Delia in the danger zone with only Caity to protect her.

For fans of J.K. Rowling, Darren Shan, and R.L. Stine...When ten-year-old Peter moves into his grandfather’s creepy old mansion in a small town, bad, baaaaad things start to happen.A family of charred boogeymen in the garden...an undead classmate with a crush...a monster in the town lake...and the worst horror of all:Fourth grade.Peter And The Vampires is the first in a series!For fans of J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter series), Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game), R.L. Stine (the Goosebumps series), and Darren Shan (Cirque Du Freak) comes a new series of supernatural thrillers!When ten-year-old Peter moves into his grandfather’s creepy old mansion in a small town, bad, baaaaad things start to happen.A family of charred boogeymen who haunt the garden decide they don't like trespassers...A classmate with a crush comes back from the grave, and decides to make Peter her Undead Prince Charming...A creature from Fairieland changes place with Peter's two-year-old sister, leading to a VERY strange babysitting job...A prehistoric predator snatches children from the town lake, forcing Peter to literally dive into the belly of the beast...With his troublemaking neighbor Dill, his grumpy grandfather, and only his courage and wit to guide him, Peter has to survive all these things, plus the Greatest Horror Of All:Fourth grade.Peter And The Vampires is for teens and adults who, when they were kids, were looking for stories that kicked butt. The protagonist might be young, but the stories are dark, funny, and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful.Peter And The Vampires is the first in an ongoing series that includes Peter And The Werewolves and Peter And The Frankenstein. This book is 120,000 words (370+ pages) and contains some mild language, violence, and scary situations.Visit www.DarrenPillsbury.com for more about the author.

A private military company battles nightmarish creatures.WARNING: THIS BOOK IS TOTALLY METAL. No, it's not made of metal. It's totally metal the same way that electric guitars, ninjas, and hot naked girls riding on dinosaurs are totally metal. If you don't understand, then just put this book down and walk away. Just walk away. But if you do understand… Welcome to Graveyard – an elite private military company employed by the secret society that really controls the world – this world. YOUR WORLD. Graveyard’s commander is the grizzled Walter Stedman, a former Delta Force operator battered by twenty years of secret wars, forbidden knowledge, and abominations of science. Someone has murdered one of Walter’s employers, and that means Graveyard is about to go to war. The enemy is like none Walter has ever encountered – creatures from beyond nightmares. His mission will lead him into direct confrontation with an old friend, the legendary Graveyard operator known as Kill Team One - because his exploits in combat match those of an entire squad of regular men. Now retired, Kill Team One has used a strict regimen of training, beatings, and propaganda to condition his two teenage sons into the ultimate super soldiers – ice cold killers that have known nothing but violence and destruction since birth. One of them may be almost human. Almost. Tracking their every move is the ninja, Yoshida Tanaka – a man consumed by hatred in the decade since Kill Team One needlessly tortured his young family to death. Now he lurks in the shadows, honing his skills and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. All of this has come together as a perfect storm, and by the time the rains subside, all life on Earth may have been washed away. This volume contains chapters 1-23 of KILL KILL KILL.