"An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation ... An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. The case seems ironclad, especially when Anderson...

The story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting;' Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its...

"One of the most original American writers, Edgar Allan Poe shaped the development of both the detective story and the science-fiction story. Some of his poems--"The Raven," "The Bells," "Annabel Lee"--Remain among the most popular in American literature. Poe's tales of the macabre still thrill readers of all ages. Here are familiar favorites like "The Purloined Letter." "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," together...

Two years after losing her husband of twenty-five years, Lisey looks back at the sometimes frightening intimacy that marked their marriage, her husband's successes as a novelist, and his secretive nature that established Lisey's supernatural belief systems.

Sam Waters is desperate to have a pet. But his parents say that first, Sam must prove he's responsible. So he takes an after-school job in a pet store called Little Shop of Hamsters. To his horror, Sam soon finds that cute, little hamsters can become very UNCUTE monsters. Suddenly, Sam isn't fighting for a pet--he's fighting to survive! Could the souvenir he got in HorrorLand have anything to do with this?

"Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. The title story "The White People" is an exercise in the bizarre leaving the reader disoriented and on edge. From the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside-down, as his character Ambrose explains, "there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill deed'" setting the stage for a tale entirely...

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually...

An acclaimed horror editor presents 24 terrifying tales from such authors as Garth Nix, Livia Llewellyn, Richard Kadrey, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Margo Lanagan and Gene Wolfe that remind us that evil is all around us.

Cooper Klavan and his sister, Anna, are fishing with their parents at a woodland pond when they come across an injured bird. Anna, a huge animal lover, insists on taking it home to rehabilitate. But the bird really does not want to be rescued. It bites Anna. Soon, she is behaving very strangely: perching high up in trees and gathering sticks to hide in her room. Cooper doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, but his sister seems to be going to the...

A darkly luminous new anthology collecting the most terrifying horror stories by renowned female authors, presenting anew these forgotten classics to the modern reader. Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein: few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published...