Showing titles in Anthologies & Short Stories

Thirty years hasn't changed Las Vegas - the desert just got dirtier. The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip's most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives.

A woman flees the hospital even as her infant son is breathing his last breaths. An aging construction worker comes to grips with the end of the only life he's ever known. A deadbeat father meets his son for the first time, only to be blindsided by the boy's birth defect. A man steals a corpse in order to give his father the burial he wanted.

Why do you suppose some combat veterans give up the sport of hunting? Is it because they gain empathy with the hunted, or hunting a prey less cunning than they has lost its allure. Richard Connell, in this short story “The Most Dangerous Game” takes us where the hunter becomes the hunted. This hunter is not being hunted by a beast less cunning or calculating than he is, like a lion or a tiger. No, this hunter is a master at his craft, crueler and only slightly better armed than he is.

The Screaming Skull is one of F. Marion Crawford's Uncanny Tales, which was first published, posthumously, in London in 1911 and was issued two weeks later in America as Wandering Ghosts.

> Comfortable is a coming-of-age story about a young girl who learns in her senior year that her parents are getting divorced; wants to find a proper romantic relationship; studies martial arts for self-defense; and is confronted by two attackers, whom she takes out and kills in self-defense. It features a rather stunning conclusion.

This is a story from the "Great Ghost Stories" collection.

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?

It’s bad enough that its venom-dripping chelicerae can slice through flesh like warm butter. Worse? It’s right there under the bunk. It’s a fact now. To make it through the night, the children must obey the rules: don’t get out of bed, stay out of the shadows, and don’t wake the beast. But as the threats multiply, so do the rules of survival. And with the safety of dawn still hours away, the fun is just beginning.

Thirty-four years ago, on October 31, poor Hannah Talbott took part in a scavenger hunt gone violently wrong. The mean girls made sure of it. To this day, for a haunted local mother, the most unsettling Halloween costume of all is an urban legend they call Hannah-Beast. It’s a reminder of the past she can’t forget. Especially tonight when it’s come back, so close to home.

While renovating her Victorian home, Ana Clementine finds an ornate door buried under forty years of earth. Once she restores it to the attic, she starts hearing whispers, her loving husband has become a stranger, and her baby daughter learns a chilling new word. Maybe Ana has unlocked the house’s secrets. Or maybe she’s becoming just a little unhinged herself.

Bad things have been happening since Mia began to mature. Her dad left. Boys at school can’t keep their hands to themselves. A lecherous stepfather has moved in. Her only refuge is an abandoned lot on her suburban cul-de-sac, crawling with feral felines - one of which follows Mia home. Ghostly white and affectionate, she is Mia’s new companion and - as Mia’s tormenters will soon discover - her fierce protector.

After years of traditional treatments and therapies, Derrick still suffers from pain ineluctable enough that it has become his identity. Then he hears of an exclusive, very private New York clinic that promises relief. It comes highly recommended by a friend. The multisession remedy unfolds as a sensorial wonder that’s so illuminating it’s enough to bring tears to Derrick’s eyes. It’s all working so well. So unexpectedly well.

This is a story from the Chilling Ghost Stories collection. In Rats by M. R. James, Mr. Thompson comes to regret his decision to investigate a locked room in a country inn.

Pittsburgh has recently (and more than once) been called the most livable city in America; yet the old image of smoky skies and steel mills spewing forth grit has never quite disappeared. Its history as a dirty industrial center is a part of its residents, a part of their toughness. The people of the steel city fight.

Violet Strange is no ordinary well-to-do young New York City debutante. Unbeknownst to family and society friends, she leads a secret life as a professional sleuth for a private detective agency. On a mission to raise money for an undisclosed project, the determined and gutsy young debutante diligently snoops around sleepwalking widows, violent and sinister characters, whispering clocks and concealed tombs, connecting clues to solve tales of murder, mystery and intrigue.

JA Konrath, known for the Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels thrillers set in Chicago, offers this collection of short stories and novellas from the Jack Daniels universe. Join Jack Daniels, her partner Herb Benedict, private eye Harry McGlade, and part-time criminal Phineas Troutt, in this omnibus of 15 stories. These were previous published in magazines and anthologies, and many are long out of print. On the Rocks - Suicide or murder? Lt. Jack Daniels solves a locked room mystery.

When young dive-bomber pilot is dismissed for reckless behavior, he’s reassigned to the Black Cat squadron as the co-pilot of a giant Catalina seaplane, The Sea Witch. He’s thrown into a whole new world, where a Catalina carries five tons of bombs, a half-dozen machine guns, and a crew that walks a fine line between valor and a death wish.A daring rescue mission forces them deep into enemy territory, where the crew of the Sea Witch must band together as never before.

Pilot Pete England used to think there was nothing more exciting in the world than flying off into the wild blue yonder. But lately, the blue yonder hasn’t been wild at all...it’s been downright dull. Pete’s hungry for adventure - and he’s about to get his fill. Pete has fallen into a rut, flying the same route - New York to DC - with the same passengers, day after day after day. He might as well be driving a bus...until “her highness” climbs aboard. Apparently a princess, and for one flight, she’s bought up every ticket on the plane.

He’s a handsome American Lieutenant in the French Foreign Legion. She’s a beautiful woman who’s as fiery as the North African sun...and as mysterious as the far side of the moon. And she’s all his - bought and paid for in the village square. Put them together, and you’re sure to get fireworks.

Wrongfully accused, Spar has been condemned to suffer the brutality of the guards and the conditions on Devil’s Island. But they haven’t broken his will, and now, escaping, he has one mission in life: revenge. Spar’s out to kill the man who put him into the devil’s hands. But he’ll have to take on a gallery of rogues who are as treacherous as the waters of the Caribbean.