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 ...

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 ...

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 the latest installment of our column on hor...

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...

"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...

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...

Stephen King hailed Michael Marshall's novel Straw Men as "a masterpiece . . . brilliantly written and scary as hell." Now, Marshall returns with this latest unnerving tale—a creepy, fast-paced thriller that grips you from the first page straight through to its shocking end.Bill Moore already has a lot, but he wants more . . . much more.He's got a lucrative job selling condos in the Florida Keys, a successful wife, a good marriage, a beautiful house. He al...

There are people out there in the shadows, watching, waiting. They are the forgotten. And they're about to turn. From the international bestselling author of THE STRAW MEN.'An intelligent and profoundly unsettling novel' GUARDIAN'Engrossing and uncanny' DAILY MAIL'He's in a class of his own' INDEPENDENTFor David, it should have been the perfect day. But a chance encounter changes everything ...

Michael Marshall Smith’s surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.May we introduce you to Stark.Oh, and by the way — good luck.Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it’s no good chanting ‘go away go away go away’ and cowering in a corner, because a S...

Now a major BBC TV show starring John Simm. Taut, menacing, sinister, gripping, intelligent, action-packed – everything you could want from a thriller.When ex-LAPD patrol cop Jack Whalen’s wife goes missing on a routine business trip to Seattle, his world is shaken.Meanwhile, a ten-year-old girl vanishes from a beach in Oregon after an encounter with a sinister stranger – but it gradually becomes clear that she’s very far from defenceless.Searching for answers in th...

Time travel is one of the staples of science fiction, right up there with aliens, space opera, and robots. Most science fiction authors have written at least one time travel story. This collection samples some of the best.TIME OUT, by Edward M. LernerTHESE STONES WILL REMEMBER, by Reginald BretnorPROJECT MASTODON, by Clifford D. Simak12:01 P.M., by Richard A. LupoffTIME CONSIDERED AS A SERIES OF THERMITE BURNS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, by Damien Broderick