This month, Fiction Vortex is celebrating Halloween with a special all-horror issue. It's still speculative fiction, just with extra scares and mental scars. We know, as well as you do, that true terror isn’t from the dark corners of the world, but from the dark recesses of your mind, and that beneath a thin layer of imagination the true monsters are quite human. FICTION VORTEX: Founded in the 277th year of the Takolatchni Dynasty, Fiction Vortex set...

Macabre meetings, sinister excursions, and deadly relationships; uncanny encounters; a classic ghost story featuring an American god; a historical murderer revived in a frightening new iteration; innovative Lovecraftian turns; shadowy fairy tales and weird myths; strange children, the unexpected, the supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while invent...

Unlucky thieves invade a house where Home Alone seems like a playground romp. An antique bookseller and a mob enforcer join forces to retrieve the Atlas of Hell. Postapocalyptic survivors cannot decide which is worse: demon women haunting the skies or maddened extremists patrolling the earth.In this chilling twenty-first-century companion to the cult classic Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Ellen Datlow again proves herself the most masterful editor of the ...

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch: the reputation-making debut short story collection that paved the way for a new generation of writers. • “Brilliant … Phillips is a virtuoso.” —The Chicago TribuneJayne Anne Phillips's reputation-making debut collection paved the way for a new generation of writers. Raved about by reviewers and embraced by the likes of Raymond Carver, Frank Conroy, Annie Dillard, and Nadine Gordimer, B...

The Beauty of Death Anthology, edited by Bram Stoker Award® Winning Author Alessandro Manzetti.BRAM STOKER AWARDS 2016 NOMINEE - SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGYOver 40 stories and novellas by both contemporary masters of horror and exciting newcomers. Stories by: Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Edward Lee, John Skipp, Poppy Z. Brite, Nick Mamatas, Shane McKenzie,Tim Waggoner, Lisa Morton, Gene O'Neill, Linda Addison, Maria Alexander, Monica O'Rourke, John Palisano, Bruce ...

This fiendish anthology, complied by the horror genre's most acclaimed editor, drags you into the twisted minds of modern literary masters at their fiendish best. Visionary storytellers fill this collection of tales lyrical and strange, monstrous and exhilarating, horrific and transformative.*A sweetly vengeful voice on the radio calls a young soldier out to join a phantom patrol.*A hotel maid who threw her newborn child from a fourth-story window lingers in an interminable...

A dark comedy short story about a man who adopts a stray cat that makes his life a living hell.

Mike escaped from Barb's torment with a well-aimed bullet to his brain. But life doesn't end at death, and Mike's now stuck in Hell with the exact person who was out to get him all along. 'Not a happy camper' is an understatement.This is the third short story in the DEAD(ish) Allsorts series. Timeline-wise, it follows DEAD (and hellbent).Warning: Contains copious foul language. Not suitable for children.

This thirty-poem collection is an eclectic mix of light and dark, playful and spiritual, lyric and narrative free verse. In an intricate dance of sound play, it explores how our perceptions shape our interactions with the world. Here child heroes emerge on playgrounds and in chicken coops, teens grapple with grief and taste first love, adults waver between isolation and engaged connection. It is a book about creative life, our capacity to wound and heal, and the unlikely places we find lov...

Alonso Petersen didn't know what he expected to find inside his grandma's photo-album, but it certainly wasn't unicorns.

He thought Lacey was the perfect one-night stand.Lacey has other plans—ones that'll make him wish they'd never met.

Marciella is sure her mother has deserted her; but is it true?This short story set in Manhattan's Spanish Harlem follows the very peculiar assumptions of one little girl--and how her life was shaped by them.Psychologists make much of childhood influences. But what if the memories we hold are misinterpreted? Marciella came to know the truth, and in an instant, her life was changed forever.