Something dark is lurking in the Louisiana bayou: a methodical killer with a penchant for medical experimentation is hard at work completing his most harrowing crime yet, taunting the authorities who desperately try to catch up. But forensic pathologist Dr. Wren Muller is the best there is. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of historical crimes, and years of experience working in the Medical Examiner's office, she's never encountered a case she couldn't solve. Until now.

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that got her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government "rehabilitation camp." She might have survived the mysterious disease that killed most of America's children, but she and the others emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control. Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

Unfortunately there is nothing normal about Standard. There has been an evil that has been awakened, and now the residents are slowly going crazy. Men for no reason are coming home and murdering their families, and dark forms are appearing in people's mirrors. The evil is spreading, and now it is up to ex-Chicago cop Rob Alletto to find it.

Thomas Usher has a terrible gift. Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

Kelsey has lived most of her life in a shadow of suspicion, raised to see danger everywhere. Her mother hasn't set foot outside their front door in 17 years, since she escaped from her kidnappers with nothing but her attacker's baby growing inside her - Kelsey. Kelsey knows she's supposed to keep a low profile and stay off the grid for their protection, but that plan is shattered when her dramatic car accident and rescue by volunteer firefighter and classmate Ryan Baker sparks media coverage.

The human race has turned to dust. August Morrison faces it after rising from the depths of a dark matter research facility in Arizona. His co-workers. His daughter. All of them: dust. Friends and colleagues around the world don’t answer their phones. The city of Phoenix burns. He is alone. As a world without mankind starts to crumble, August fights not just for survival, but for his very sanity. On the other side of the country, Poe McDowell watches her parents crumble into dust just moments after being shoved inside a coffin-like device that spares her from the same fate.

Nothing can save Alex Sennefer's life. That's what all the doctors say, but his mother knows it's not true. She knows that the Lost Spells of the Egyptian Book of the Dead can crack open a door to the afterlife and pull her son back from the brink. But when she uses the spells, five evil ancients - the Death Walkers - are also brought back to life. An ancient evil has been unleashed. Mummies are awakening. New York is overrun with scorpions. And worst of all for Alex, his mom and the Lost Spells have both disappeared.

Discover original horror stories from around the world. Each author chose a letter of the alphabet and was given complete artistic freedom to make something horrible happen. Some stories will be mysterious, others creepy or even profound, but all are crafted to thrill and terrify you to the last word.

The coauthor of Beowulf’s Children strikes out on his own with this novel of mystic revelation and martial arts. What if the disciplines we know as the martial arts, meditation, and fasting were mere fragments of a greater, more powerful killing art? What if that hidden discipline could produce in a man the power to manipulate matter and energy at will? What if the effect on the mind were so deadly that, uncontrolled, the result would be an inhuman killer?

Ben Stone is terrified. He's terrified because he weighs 601 pounds and needs his right leg amputating. He's terrified because a crane will shortly lift him from his fourth-floor flat and lower him 44 feet to an ambulance waiting below. He's terrified because he hasn't been outside in nine years, and he doesn't know who will look after his beautiful dog. He needn't worry, though, because the world is about to end.

It is the morning hours in the small town of Hammond and, as the town wakes up it finds that there is something spreading. Something that is not seen until it is too late because by then, you are already infected. At that point, they are already... Hatched.

You open your eyes for what you know is not the first time and you remember nothing. You find out that a catastrophic event known as the Kollaps has destroyed life as we know it. Something crucial has been stolen - but under no circumstances can you know what or why. You’ve got to get it back or something bad is going to happen. And you’ve got to get it back fast, so they can freeze you again before your own time runs out. Paralyzed from the waist down, you’re being carried around on the backs of two men who don’t seem anything like you at all.

In a time when prisons no longer contain inmates behind concrete and steel, the convicted serve their time while asleep, rehabilitating in virtual reality while blissfully unaware of their crimes. Roger Parker is a professional prison breaker, skilled at navigating these strange penal dream worlds and extracting those imprisoned there - for a price. Parker wants out of the game, but a powerful senator, desperate to save his son, convinces Parker to pull one last job.

Darkness lives within.... Cash strapped, working for agencies and living in shared accommodation, Stephanie Booth feels she can fall no further. So when she takes a new room at the right price, she believes her luck has finally turned. But 82 Edgware Road is not what it appears to be.

Far in the future, the Earth is surrounded by a half-mile thick layer of space junk, some of it trash, some of it giant advertising billboards, some of it space-winni vacationers. But Priest, a sexist narcotics detective for The Authority is more interested in the terrorist group whose strange new weapon took a pot shot at his city and atomized everything inside its target area--including his arm. Priest finds himself partnered with the tough and sexy Rehna, a fellow Authority officer, and Gawyn, a brilliant little girl whose gruff attitude matches Priest's.

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring wardrobes, shattered Brooka glassware, and vandalized Liripip sofa beds—clearly someone, or something, is up to no good. To unravel the mystery, five young employees volunteer for a long dusk-till-dawn shift and encounter horrors that defy imagination.

The New York Public Library: a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and long hallways. For one night this building is to be the venue for a contest. The rules are simple: seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Stephen Swain is plunged into a fight for survival. In this contest, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all.

Thomas Usher has a terrible gift. Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

Supernatural bounty hunter Alice Werner loves her job. She gets paid the big bucks to take down her targets and doesn't ask her clients too many questions as long as the money's good. But when a girl goes missing and the case feels all too familiar, Alice can't help but act. Concern for the girl's safety draws her into a risky case. Compassion keeps her involved when the stakes begin to rise. Desperation forces her to call on an old flame for help.

You open your eyes for what you know is not the first time and you remember nothing. You find out that a catastrophic event known as the Kollaps has destroyed life as we know it. Something crucial has been stolen - but under no circumstances can you know what or why. You’ve got to get it back or something bad is going to happen. And you’ve got to get it back fast, so they can freeze you again before your own time runs out. Paralyzed from the waist down, you’re being carried around on the backs of two men who don’t seem anything like you at all.

A goldfish named Ian is falling from the 27th-floor balcony on which his fishbowl sits. He's longed for adventure, so when the opportunity arises, he escapes from his bowl, clears the balcony railing and finds himself airborne. Plummeting toward the street below, Ian witnesses the lives of the Seville on Roxy residents.

Thirty years ago, in a facility buried beneath a vast Wyoming emptiness, an experiment gone awry accidentally opened a door. It is the world’s best-kept secret—and its most terrifying. Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the President of the United States.

Alina Chase has spent her entire life in confinement. With the science of soul printing now a reality, she is protected for her own safety and the safety of others because her soul has done terrible things...or so she's told.

Darkness lives within.... Cash strapped, working for agencies and living in shared accommodation, Stephanie Booth feels she can fall no further. So when she takes a new room at the right price, she believes her luck has finally turned. But 82 Edgware Road is not what it appears to be.

Brilliant engineer Marcus Flynn has been sentenced to 11-H37 - a hard labor prison planet better known as the Razor, where life expectancy is short and all roads are dead ends - alongside the galaxy's most dangerous criminals. At least until the Lost Prophet goes active. In a few hours, prison guards and staff are evacuated, the prisoners are left to die, and dark mysteries begin to surface. Only Flynn has the skills and knowledge to unravel them, but he will have to rely on the most unlikely of allies.

Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped "Do Not Investigate" and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner - extravagant even by Hell's standards - everything changes.

Myke Cole is an expert at ratcheting up suspense and delivering pulse-pounding adventure that leaves audiences breathless. In Shadow Ops: Control Point, the world has seemingly gone mad. People are waking up with magical powers, such as the ability to raise the dead or call forth storms. The only thing staving off a plunge into chaos is the Supernatural Operations Corps, headed by Oscar Britton. But when Oscar exhibits a power of his own, the hunter becomes the hunted.

A survivor of undead suburbia, mountain man Augustus “Gus” Berry is extremely careful when it comes to his actions and movements. He takes no chances and painstakingly weighs every decision—until he sets out for the hospital at the edge of town, hoping to discover a treasure trove of essential supplies. Soon, Gus will experience terror the likes of which he's never encountered before . . .

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the 16-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage - alive - is making headlines across the globe. Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn't on the passenger manifest.

After a centuries' long apocalypse, humanity has returned to its violent roots. The few ragged settlements that remain fight each other for what little the Nothing provides and will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Charlize Smith doesn't know it yet, but her hometown might be the last civilized place on Earth. Born a Defect and forced to undergo a slew of dangerous experiments, Charlie dreams of the day when she can finally set out on her own. But when a tragedy pushes her to the edge, she's arrested and thrown onto a truck bound for the Nothing - where she's probably going to die.