Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways," Strantzas reveals. "I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer's desktop background. After staring at it day-in and day-out while I worked, I began to wonder about that dark circle of rocks and just what its true purpose might be. "There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfe...

What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night - Michael Marshall SmithFor Michael Marshall Smith, this was one of those stories that dropped straight into his head, but the problem was that he didn't want it: "It wasn't an idea I liked. It was clearly some part of my brain serving up a notion simply because it could, and because it knew it could frighten me with it."It did frighten me, and so I did what I always do when that happens - which is write it ...

"Stemming the Tide" is a short horror story by Simon Strantzas, one of 35 entries in the audio anthology Come Join Us by the Fire.The tide at Hopewell Rocks comes in every six hours and thirteen minutes. Sometimes, it brings the dead with it.Come Join Us by the Fire, edited by Theresa DeLucci, is an audio-only horror anthology of 35 short stories from Nightfire Books, a horror imprint of Tor Books. The collection showcases...

NIGHTMARE is an online horror and dark fantasy magazine. In NIGHTMARE's pages, you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror. This month, we have original fiction from Desirina Boskovich ("Dear Owner of This 1972 Ford Crew Cab Pickup") and Ben Peek ("Upon the Body"), along with reprints by Tia V. Travis ("The Kiss") and Simon Strantzas ("Out of Touch"). We also have th...

In the worlds of Steve Rasnic Tem a father takes his son “fishing” in the deepest part of downtown, flayed rabbits visit a suburban back yard, a man is haunted by a surrealistic nightmare of crutches, a father is unable to rescue his son from a nightmare of trees, a bereaved man transforms memories of his wife into performance art, great moving cliffs of detritus randomly prowl the world, a seemingly pointless life finds final expression in bits of folded paper, a nuclear holocaust brings ...

Substitutions - Michael Marshall SmithMichael Marshall Smith recalls: "This story came about in the simplest way, the way I always enjoy most - something happening in real life that makes you think 'What if?' "Our household gets a lot of its food via an online delivery service, and one day when I was unpacking what had just been dropped at our house I gradually realised there was something...not quite right about the contents of the bags."There's two things t...

Taken from The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22, edited by Stephen Jones.As Smith recalls: "This story came about in the simplest way, the way I always enjoy most - something happening in real life that makes you think 'What if?' "Our household gets a lot of its food via an online delivery service, and one day when I was unpacking what had just been dropped at our house I gradually realised there was something...not quite right about the contents of the bags."Ther...

**Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror“A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark’s combination of historical and political reimagining is cathartic, exhilarating and fresh.” —The New York Times**Named a Best of the Year Pick by NPR | Library Journal | Book Riot | LitReactor | Bu...

An Instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie BestsellerA Barnes & Noble Best Horror Book of 2024A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award NomineeEnter a cold, silent forest and find out what feasts at night in this new gothic tale from bestselling and award-winning author T. Kingfisher, set in the world of What Moves the Dead**.***A very specia...

**A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE“This book is ...

LOCUS AWARD FINALISTWelcome to Rivers Solomon’s dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.**“Every piece is strong and memorable, making this not only likely to be the best anthology of the year, but one for the...