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Ben and Marian Rolfe are desperate to escape a stifling summer in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, so when they get the chance to rent a mansion in upstate New York for the entire summer for only $900, it’s an offer that’s too good to refuse. There’s only one catch: Behind a strange and intricately carved door in a distant wing of the house lives elderly Mrs. Allardyce, and the Rolfes will be responsible for preparing her meals.

"But come back soon", the sign said. Obviously it was a lie. The people in the grocery store just wanted to make sure he couldn't buy the spice he needed to make the recipe he'd selected for that night (recipes must be followed exactly). Obviously they wanted him to eat out...to meet the waitress, Marta, to see her horrible, unspeakable, unbearable ugliness. It was obvious to him: her maimed, twisted face was the living desire to be dead. He had to help Marta be dead.

"They're just kids.... It's only a game." That's what Barbara, a lovely 20-year-old babysitter told herself when she awoke bound and gagged. But the knots were tight and painful and the children would not let her go.

The Templeton family's peaceful lives are plunged into chaos when their young daughter, Ivy, begins to be stalked by a strange man who believes their daughter is the reincarnation of his daughter, Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car crash. Frank De Felitta's Audrey Rose (1975) was one of the best-selling horror novels of the decade, selling over 3.5 million copies, and it remains a chilling classic of modern horror.

Carlotta Moran, a young single mother with three children, suddenly has her life turned upside down when she begins to be attacked in her bed each night, violated by a spectral rapist. This brutal unseen force makes attempts on her life and terrorizes her children, but the worst part is that no one believes her. Among the skeptics is psychiatrist Dr. Sneidermann, who believes Carlotta is psychotic, a danger to herself and her children who should be committed. But two graduate students in parapsychology have a different theory.

Michael Shea (1946-2014) was one of the finest American authors of speculative fiction of modern times, and Polyphemus (1987), originally published as a limited edition hardcover by Arkham House, features the best of his short fiction, in which he deftly blends the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. A landmark collection of modern speculative fiction returns at long last in this edition.

World War III left the world in ruins, but now a new society has sprung up from the ashes, ruled by an unseen dictator who believes a system of strict equality is the best way to prevent future strife. Too much beauty, intelligence, or personality is severely frowned upon. Those who run afoul of the Dictator are punished, sometimes with death and sometimes with a more mysterious and terrible fate, being "emptied".

Built by a madwoman during the Victorian era, Lake House is a 160-room mansion in the Adirondacks with stairways that lead nowhere, bizarre rooms designed to distort the senses, endless series of mazelike halls - and a century-long history of violent deaths. Lauren Montgomery, her son Garrett, and her new rock star husband Stephen Ransom have just arrived at Lake House, anticipating a long and relaxing summer. But what they don't know is that their rental home is actually a labyrinthine puzzle at whose center lurks something unspeakably evil....

A young family receives a welcome surprise when old Uncle Ian dies and leaves them a cottage in north Wales. For Ian's nephew and his wife, Ann, it seems a stroke of incredible good fortune, enabling them to leave their unfulfilling lives in the city for a newfound freedom in the remote seaside cottage. There's just one catch. Uncle Ian's will has a strange condition: The couple must care for his pet cormorant or forfeit the bequest.

When a yacht being used to smuggle drugs sinks, the six smugglers must seek refuge the only place they can - an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the sea. But there's something strange about this oil rig. For one thing, it looks more like a scientific research facility. And for another, there are no people - only piles of clothes with no bodies in them. It soon becomes clear that something is loose on the rig. Something deadly. It's stalking them, one by one, but it's not just a horrible death they have to fear - it's what comes after.

"What are the possibilities of my strength? That is a thought I have never had before. What if some morning as the old woman stood at the head of the staircase she were suddenly to feel a weight thrusting against the back of her legs? What if she were to lunge forward, grasping at the air, striking her thin skull against the edge of a stair? What would become of me if she were found unmoving at the bottom of the stairway?" Such are the thoughts of Baxter, a sociopathic bull terrier on the hunt for the perfect master.

Angelina is a killer. You'd never know it to look at her — until you look into her eyes. Angelina doesn't kill out of hatred or fear — she kills out of love, bringing solace to her victims, guided by the seductive Voice that speaks only to her. Angelina offers you eternal peace — at the cost of your soul!

In the August heat they frolicked on the beaches, fetched sticks, played with the children. Then the summer dwellers left, abandoning them to the island's harsh winter. Ravenous hunger and violent rage have brought them together under a cunning, ferocious leader. Man has betrayed his best friend - now the dogs will have their day. It's a bitter winter, and the dogs of summer have grown hungry...and vicious!

Dan Morley is an aspiring novelist who is well liked by everybody, but most of all by women. But nobody knows that he struggles with a dark and forbidden urge, an irresistible impulse to kill. And when the lust for murder comes over him and he twists his scarf around his victim's neck, there is no escape....

One of the preeminent writers of weird fiction, Robert Aickman is celebrated for his unsettling and often ambiguous "strange stories", but he once wrote that "those, if any, who wish to know more about me, should plunge beneath the frivolous surface of The Late Breakfasters," his only novel, originally published in 1964.

In the aptly titled Offbeat, Richard Matheson, a modern master of strange fiction, offers 13 excursions into the unsettling and bizarre. In these stories you will encounter a major league pitcher with a horrific secret for his astonishing success; an ordinary man who wakes to find himself in a silent, empty world; a death row prisoner with an extraordinary explanation for his innocence; and a novelist whose fictional creations transcend the printed page.

Released from a prison sentence for manslaughter, Sidney De Lakes returns home to West Virginia, where, in order to exorcise the memory of the lover he killed, he must keep his appointment with destiny in the shape of the man known as “the Renderer”. In this story of the powerful, violent passions of four young men in the remote Appalachians, James Purdy has crafted one of his most haunting and memorable works.

Garnet Montrose returns home from Vietnam to small-town Virginia with injuries so terrible that people become ill at the sight of him. Seeking assistance and companionship in his isolation, Garnet hires two young male caretakers, Quintus and Daventry. His interest and curiosity are awakened by the books Quintus reads to him, but in the handsome Daventry he finds a powerful, transformative love unlike anything he has experienced before.

Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) was a prolific author of some 150 books and counted Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, and Graham Greene among her many admirers. Her most enduring work is her tales of the ghostly and supernatural, her favorites of which she collected in 1949 under the title The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories.

Alan and Kate Marlowe are a typical, loving, middle-class couple, with four small children. But they wish they had just one more, a beautiful baby daughter. So when a strange young woman abandons her infant at their house, they view it as a blessing - a godsend - and adopt little Bonnie as their own. But not long after Bonnie’s arrival, terrible things begin to happen to the Marlowes, starting with the death of their son Matthew. As the tragedies mount, Alan suspects that Bonnie is somehow responsible. Is he losing his grip on sanity?