“A mix of magic realism and Southern gothic, this stunning collaboration between King and McDowell…moves at a hypnotic pace, like an Alabama water moccasin slipping through black water.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)Calliope “Calley” Dakin is no normal little girl. She hears things that maybe a little girl shouldn’t hear—and knows things a little girl should never know.Just seven when her beloved father is tortured, murdered, and dismembered b...

Author Michael McDowell, known for his chilling Blackwater series, left behind the unfinished manuscript of Candles Burning upon his death in 1999. His close friend, Tabitha King, has taken up where he left off, weaving a Southern gothic fabric of murder, guilt, innocence, corruption, and survival, in the voices of the living and the dead.Seven-year-old Calley Dakin is daddy’s little girl, but her well-born mother persists in her contempt for the Dakin name. When her daddy is tortu...

"The finest writer of paperback originals in America." - Stephen King"Surely one of the most terrifying novels ever written." - Poppy Z. Brite"Beyond any trace of doubt, one of the best writers of horror in this or any other country." - Peter Straub"Readers of weak constitution should beware!" - Publishers Weekly"McDowell has a flair for the gruesome." - Washington PostAfter a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage,...

The astonishing final installment in the page-turning trilogy that Stephen King calls “an authentic work of American genius.”Niceville has an almost unearthly beauty when the sun tops the ancient nearby mountain called Tallulah’s Wall and bathes it in soft Southern light. But there’s a reason Native American tribes avoided the place: An absence that inhabits the air and the depthless “sink” atop Tallulah’s Wall. This “Nothing” has long bent time and the desires of ...

Peter Straub, Jack Ketchum, Darynda Jones, Jacquelyn Frank, and Brian Hodge contribute five gloomy, disturbing tales of madness and horror to Dark Screams: Volume Three, edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar of the celebrated Cemetery Dance Publications.THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF FREDDIE PROTHERO by Peter StraubA mere child yet a precocious writer, young Freddie records a series of terrifying encounters with an inhuman being that hau...

Clive Barker, Heather Graham, Lisa Morton, Ray Garton, and Ed Gorman lead readers down a twisted labyrinth of terror, horror, and suspense in Dark Screams: Volume Four, from Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar of the revered Cemetery Dance Publications.THE DEPARTED by Clive BarkerOn All Hallows’ Eve, a dead and disembodied mother yearns to touch her young son one last time. But will making contact destroy them both?CREATURE FEATU...

Here are the stories written on the Book of Blood. They are a map of that dark highway that leads out of life towards unknown destinations. Few will have to take it. Most will go peacefully along lamplit streets, ushered out of living with prayers and caresses. But for a few, the horrors will come, skipping, to fetch them off to the highway of the damned ...Gathered together for the first time in one volume, here are fifteen mind-shattering stories from the awesome imagination of W...

"[A]n intelligent thrill ride" "A Must Read Psycho-Slasher." David J. Sharp, Horror UndergroundNew Paris, Ohio has a problem …Teenage girls are disappearing, leaving their small town in panic. Luke and Garrett, two high school seniors, escape from the growing paranoia with the well-worn routine of a fishing trip. But when their boat breaks down and the storm of the century rolls in, they’re forced into a different sort of refuge …one that may cost them thei...

Imaginative, gripping stories, along with the brilliant title novella set in Maine after the 2000 election, carry the weight of real emotion and revelation and showcase the impressive versatility of a rising talent.Owen King is a writer interested in the choices we make when we're most conflicted. A young husband must decide whether or not to commit a ghoulish crime; a baseball player in a fantastic 1930s Coney Island is assailed by the guilt of an illicit romance;...

Little Gail London and her friend Joel Quarrel are out on a cold and lonely morning at the end of summer, when they make the find of the century: a dead plesiosaur, the size of a two-ton truck, washed up on the sand. With the fog swirling about them, they make their plans, fight to defend their discovery, and face for the first time the enormity of mortality itself... all unaware of what else might be out there in the silver water of Lake Champlain.

From New York Times bestselling and award-winning novelist, Douglas Clegg, comes a nightmarish epic that spans 20 years in the lives of a handful of friends who experienced -- as teenagers -- a terrifying apocalyptic event in their small desert town."Horror at its finest!" -- Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly.The high desert town of Palmetto, California, has turned toxic after twenty years of nightmares --In Los Angeles, a woman is tormented by ...

Andy Carpenter's accountant, Sam Willis, is stunned to receive a phone call out of the blue from Barry Price, a high school friend he hasn't spoken to in years, pleading for help with something too frightening to discuss on the phone. Barry needs Sam's financial acumen and lawyer Andy Carpenter's legal expertise—and he needs them immediately. But when Sam almost runs over an injured dog lying in the road on the way to Barry's house, he can't drive off without waiting for help to arrive. By...