Horror Recs: Short stories, novellas, and anthologies

Don't just fear what you're hiding from, fear what you're hiding with.

Cassie's night of babysitting goes to hell when bombs explode in the distance, planes fly overhead at low altitudes, and alerts on her phone tell her to seek shelter. Luckily, the boy she babysits tells her his father has a bunker in the yard.

When they make their way to this underground shelter, they soon discover they aren't alone. Something is living in the bunker, lurking in the walls, and it's hungry.

What started as a simple night of babysitting, will descend into a psychological and claustrophobic nightmare Cassie couldn't have prepared for.

Maverick Hall has spent years trying to forget the chilling events of his thirteenth birthday in the summer of 1999. That fateful night, he and his best friends ventured through a seemingly innocuous tunnel on their bikes -- a journey from which not all of them returned.

Now, as an adult, Maverick is haunted by a sinister force that compels him to return to his old neighborhood, a place shadowed by secrets, deceit, and an unsettling sense of death. Drawn back against his better judgment, he must face the dark forces that have lurked in waiting, eager for his return. As Maverick confronts the shadows of his past, he finds himself entangled in a web of mystery that threatens not only his sanity but his very survival.

This harrowing tale of memory, fear, and the power of the unseen delves deep into the heart of a nightmare that refuses to be forgotten, beckoning Maverick to resolve the terrifying mystery that has haunted him for decades.

Scott King's podcast investigates the 1995 cold case of a demon possession in a rural Yorkshire village, where a 12-year-old boy was murdered in cold blood by two children. Book six in the chilling, award-winning Six Stories series.

In 1995, the picture-perfect village of Ussalthwaite was the site of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, in a case that shocked the world. Twelve-year-old Sidney Parsons was savagely murdered by two boys his own age. No reason was ever given for this terrible crime, and the 'Demonic Duo' who killed him were imprisoned until their release in 2002, when they were given new identities and lifetime anonymity.

Elusive online journalist Scott King investigates the lead-up and aftermath of the killing, uncovering dark and fanciful stories of demonic possession, and encountering a village torn apart by this unspeakable act.

And, as episodes of his Six Stories podcast begin to air, King himself becomes a target, with dreadful secrets from his own past dredged up and threats escalating to a terrifying level. It becomes clear that whatever drove those two boys to kill is still there, lurking, and the campaign of horror has just begun.

A story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.

One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks--and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

It's 1900, and Louise Wilk is taking her dying husband from Manhattan to the upstate orchard estate where he grew up. Dr. Edward Wilk is wasting away from a mysterious affliction acquired in a strange encounter: but Louise soon realizes that her husband's worsening condition may not be a disease at all, but a transformative phase of existence that will draw her in as much more than a witness.

At the bitter end of the 19th century, a loyal wife cares tenderly for her dissolute husband as he nears his death from a mysterious, gruesomely corrosive disease. Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum is a sumptuous excursion into surreal body horror and an unsparing exploration of the extreme frontiers of connubial devotion. Ruthnum delivers a uniquely unsettling Gothic love story-and it is first and foremost a love story.

There is no plague in Enfaire. Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things but twisted forms... unholy shapes. And there are rumours, too--of a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet, even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more.

It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

His Black Tongue is a tale of medieval horror, plunging the reader into the plague-torn land of 14th century France, when pestilence and death walked hand-in-hand, and life was little more than a sputtering candle, waiting to be put out. But there are worse things than death, than sickness and decay... and it comes upon leathery black wings.

TOC

His Black Tongue

The Bone Fields

The Knights of the Non-Euclidian Table

Necropolis

The Breeding Mound

The Blessed Tomb

Walking through his own house at night, a fifteen-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew.

The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save them . . . at terrible cost.

From Kill Creek's Kansas--four gothic novellas.

In The Door in the Field, a construction worker's bad day becomes a far worse night when drinks at an off-the-books bar send him down an unforeseeably bloody path.

In The Boy in the Woods, something evil has infected the counselors at a summer camp, and a young boy will have to do anything he can to survive the night.

In One Half of a Child's Face, a woman spying on her daughter and ex-husband notices an odd painting hanging in an empty apartment . . . one that seems to call to the building's children.

In Wear Your Secret Like a Stone, a big-box clerk discovers that her book pick for a Halloween display echoes a dark secret hidden beneath the idyllic facade of her hometown.

“Am I dead?” Mebuyen sighs. She was hoping the girl would not ask. Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap's debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in her new novella, “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” to the terrifying tension of the urban legend “Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez.”

Good Girls

A Cup of Salt Tears

Milagroso

A Spell for Foolish Hearts

Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez?

Syringe

Asphalt, River, Mother, Child

Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)

Only Unclench Your Hand

How to Swallow the Moon

All the Best of Dark and Bright

Misty

A Canticle for Lost Girls

Here there be gods and monsters – forged from flesh and stone and vengeance – emerging from the icy abyss of deep space, ascending from dark oceans, and prowling strange cities to enter worlds of chaos and wonder, where scientific rigor and human endeavour is tested to the limits. These are cosmic realms and watery domains where old offerings no longer appease the ancient Gods or the new and hungry idols. Deities and beasts. Life and death. Love and hate. Science and magic. And smiling monsters in human skin.

Premee Mohamed's debut collection of contemporary cosmic horror and dark fantasy heralds the arrival of a new and vibrant voice on the cutting edge of modern speculative fiction.

Below the Kirk, Below the Hill

Instructions

The Evaluator

At the Hand of Every Beast

The Adventurer's Wife

The General's Turn

Sixteen Minutes

Fortunato

The Honeymakers

Four Hours of a Revolution

For Each of These Miseries

Everything as Part of Its Infinite Place

No One Will Come Back For Us

Willing

Us and Ours

The Redoubtables

Quietus

Story Notes

In 1987, Congressman Benjamin Hardy III died by suicide on live television amidst accusations of political corruption. Years later, rumors of a recording surfaced among VHS trading groups and urban legend chat rooms. Dubbed the "Duncan Tape," after the deceased cameraman who attempted to sell the video, the rumors allege that anyone who watches the tape is driven to suicide.

Or so the story goes. In truth, no one has ever seen the supposed Duncan Tape, presumably because it doesn't exist. It's a ghost story perpetuated on the forums and chat rooms of the internet, another handful of bytes scattered across the Information Superhighway at blistering 56K modem speeds.

For Robby and his friends, an urban legend is the last thing on their minds when a boring Friday night presents a chance to download porn. But the short clip they watch turns out to be something far more graphic and disturbing, and in the coming days, they'll learn even the most outlandish urban legends possess a shred of truth...

Lonely, broke and depressed with a serious case of OCD, Gia finds herself at a crossroads when her financial troubles lead her to Nathan, a mysterious and affluent man she encounters on a sugar daddy website.

Desperate for a solution, Gia is intrigued by Nathan's unconventional offer: in exchange for living as his devoted pet, all her debts will be erased. But the longer Gia is in captivity, the more animalistic she becomes.

"Taaqtumi" is an Inuktitut word that means "in the dark"--and these spine-tingling horror stories by Northern writers show just how dangerous darkness can be. A family clinging to survival out on the tundra after a vicious zombie virus. A door that beckons, waiting to unleash the terror behind it. A post-apocalyptic community in the far North where things aren't quite what they seem. With chilling tales from award-winning authors Richard Van Camp, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Aviaq Johnston, and others, this collection will thrill and entertain even the most seasoned horror fan.

Iqsinaqtutalik Piqtuq: The Haunted Blizzard by Aviaq Johnston

The Door by Ann R. Loverock

Wheetago War II: Summoners by Richard Van Camp

Revenge by Thomas Anguti Johnston

Lounge by Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley and Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley

Utiqtuq by Gayle Kabloona

Sila by K. C. Carthew

The Wildest Game by Jay Bulckaert

Strays by Repo Kempt

Eddie's parents may be arguing about the disappearance of his infant brother Danny, but Eddie's facing a terror all of his own. There's a strange figure outside that claims it has Danny safe and sound-all Eddie needs to do to get his brother back is open that window.

Eddie's father is filled with guilt over his relationship with his own lost brother. His mother has been abandoned to navigate her grief and terror alone. And his grandmother carries a disturbing, all-too-relevant truth about their shared family history.

As minutes tick by and hope for Danny grows ever smaller, the very fabric of their world disintegrates, welcoming eldritch terrors of unspeakable provenance to their doorstep. The family is losing a decades- long struggle against an entity that is not of this world, and its hunger threatens to swallow them whole.

A world-weary woman races against the clock to survive a deadly forest in this dark, otherworldly fairytale from Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author Premee Mohamed.

At the northern edge of a land ruled by a merciless foreign tyrant lies a wild, forbidden forest ruled by powerful magic.

Veris Thorn--the only one to ever enter the forest and survive--is forced to go back inside to retrieve the tyrant's missing children. Inside await traps and trickery, ancient monsters, and hauntings of the past.

One day is all Veris is afforded. One misstep will cost everything.