by Robert Essig
Del James unleashes an extraordinary collection of snapshots from hell—our hell. Here are spine-chilling stories of everyday people, all caught up in terrible urges—sex and obsession, addiction and violence—all sharing the universal language of fear. . . .
A heavy-metal dreamer locked in a savage war with his television set. An artist seduced by a vampire. Two boys trapped by an urban legend come to life—or a drug-induced nightmare. A modern-day gladiator engaged in a brutal death match. A rock-and-roll star who years to be with the one good woman he has ever known—and so ignites a blaze of mad destruction.
After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier - and is now ready to kill again ...
A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell's The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and '80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell's masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. Seven other horror classics by Michael McDowell are available from Valancourt Books.
1946. A sleepy Tennessee town. A young farm boy coming of age. And a creature of unspeakable horror… Ten-year-old Jeb Sweeny had troubles aplenty. A sick grandmother, a shell-shocked father with the mind of a child, and a terrifying creature that had appeared from nowhere, wreaking havoc in the darkness of night. At first it had devoured only farm animals, but now it had turned its sinister cravings upon human fare. Children began to disappear and spirited away to a hidden cave… including Jeb’s best friend, Mandy. Jeb’s only hope to defeat the evil critter is to journey into the dark heart of the monster’s origin… a hellish providence known as Fear County. A place of shadow and depravity, filled with horrors so diverse and unimaginable that it boggled the mind and burdened the soul. Together, Jeb, his father, Sam, the traveling bluesman, Roscoe Ledbetter, and Jeb’s bluetick hound, Buckshot, would cross the border into boundless evil and madness… in search of the fabled Granny Woman and the hope of a magic conjured of goodness and light.
For years, the Jackson family vacationed at their matriarch's old Victorian house on Gull Island, a place of superstition and legend off the southern coast of the U.S. One particular summer, young Beau follows his cousin Sumter into a shack hidden among the brambles and windswept trees near bluffs overlooking the sea.
And within Neverland, the mysteries and terror grow...
Her brother Ethan is dead. then why does he visit and why does he leave the doors open for Lucy and her sisters -- doors that whisper of the place that claimed Ethan's body and mind?
"Don't be afraid, Lucy."
The world of sleepy houses and glimmering summer lawns is losing its hold on Lucy Brill. Her parents don't have the answers - they don't even have the questions. ethan has changed everything. Ethan, whose drug-racked body lies in the morgue...Ethan, who beckons Lucy to follow.
"Welcome, Lucy, Welcome."
Lucy will follow, blinded by light, her head filled with anger. lucy Brill is going away...to the place that took her brother's life, where evil waits with open arms.
Out of the darkness of the fetid Hudson River, the undead rose to eat their victims alive....
Horror-movie monsters burst from late-night TV screens — to turn their viewers into victims.
Biker gangs of decomposing corpses rode the highways of America, on the hunt for unsuspecting motorists....
Take a front seat in the baddest nightmare in town. Superstar Izzy Stark has the power to make your dreams — and nightmares — come true. He's the master of disaster, the guru of gore, the doctor of doom, the duke of death and destruction -- and you can't escape this command performance.
This first-ever reprint of Garrett Boatman's rare '80s paperback horror gem Stage Fright (1988) features a new introduction by Will Errickson and the original cover art.
Nicholas is a would-be poet and video-store clerk with a weeping hole in his hand - weeping not blood, but a plasma of tears...
It began with Nakota and her crooked grin. She had to see the dark hole in the storage room down the hall. She had to make love to Nicholas beside it, and stare into its secretive, promising depths. Then Nakota began her experiments: First, she put an insect into the hole. Then a mouse...
Now from down the hall, the black hole calls out to Nicholas every day and every night. And he will go to it. Because it has already seared his flesh, infected his soul, and started him on a journey of obsession - through its soothing, blank darkness into the blinding core of terror...
Young Leon and Ursula had little except each other. Mother was driven by a psychotic need to clean—constantly—everything in sight. Father was consumed by his medical practice and an analytical approach to life. But he understood the sensual hunger growing inside his children’s young bodies. He knew they could help each other answer, “The Need.” Father had Science. Father had Reason. And he had Pin.
Pin who answered all the children’s questions in a voice not unlike the doctor’s. Father’s clever trick. Father’s brilliant illusion. But then there was the accident and Mother and the doctor were dead. Still there was Pin—who had so much to tell then even yet…whose enigmatic stare held such wisdom. There would just be the three of them now. Quiet Leon, beautiful and frightened Ursula, and wise, implacable Pin. They were all each of them would need. Ever.
Hollywood, 1996. When Monster Magazine reporter Clint Stockbern sets out to interview the legendary '50s horror movie director Landis Woodley, he uncovers a bizarre story of real-life horror.
Flashback to Hollywood, 1957. Woodley is shooting his latest zombie movie, Cadaver, in a real morgue when he has a brainstorm that will help him pinch some pennies. But when zombie make-up effects are replaced by real corpses, a deadly curse begins to take its toll on those foolish enough to become involved with the filming of the soon-to-be cult classic, Cadaver.
Robert Essig is the author of over a dozen books including Stronger Than Hate, Death Obsessed, and Shallow Graves (with Jack Bantry). He has published well over 100 short stories, most recently in Double Barrel Vol. 3 and Welcome to the Splatter Club. More recently the Editor of Chew on This!
Robert lives with his family in East Tennessee. Find out what he's been up to at robertessig.blogspot.com