Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night - different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful - Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos of the parahuman world.

Shortly after moving to Salem, Massachusetts, Max Dennison finds himself in hot water when he accidentally releases a coven of witches from the afterlife. Max, his sister, and his new friends must find a way to stop the witches from carrying out their evil plan. Twenty-five years later, Max and Allison's 17-year-old daughter, Poppy, finds herself face-to-face with the Sanderson sisters in all their sinister glory. When Halloween celebrations don't quite go as planned, it's a race against time as Poppy and her friends fight to save her family and all of Salem from the witches' latest vile scheme.

He has been sent to avenge the innocent and punish the guilty. Haunting the dark streets of Cape Noire, he is Brother Bones, the Undead Avenger. Collected here are six classic tales of pulp action and adventure....

Some call it purgatory, others know it as the in-between, but for those poor souls who are trapped there eternally it is simply: The Carnival - macabre mockery where night is never-ending, and a sadistic creature known as the Fool rules with an iron fist. And the Fool has one rule: No one leaves the Carnival. Ever. Christopher, the latest arrival thrust reluctantly through the gates, is certain that he doesn't belong there, and he's damn sure he's not going to be staying. To have any chance of escaping, he must confront not only the Fool, but his own dark past.

After three centuries trapped underground, thousand-year-old Yulric Bile, also known as The Cursed One, The Devil's Apprentice, He Who Worships the Slumbering Horrors, awakens only to find that no one believes he is a vampire. Apparently he's just too ugly. Modern vampires, he soon discovers, are pretty, weak, and, most disturbing of all, good.

After a series of girls are ritualistically murdered on the cold streets of Philadelphia, seasoned detective, Sydney Willows, is forced to work with sexy, alpha vampire, Kade Issacson. While working the case, Sydney finds herself inexplicably drawn to Kade, fighting the passion she feels towards him. Kade, determined to solve the case and mete out justice, is captivated by the independent, fiery detective.

Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers - Mr. Crepsley - is a vampire! Steve confronts the vampire after the show finishes - but his motives are surprising!

Pandemonium: a twilight dimension of nightmare creatures, mythical beings, the undead, and everything in between. To Dead Jack, it’s hell sweet hell. In the first book of the series, the tortured, drug-addicted detective and his associate, the homunculus Oswald, face rogue leprechauns, ghost pirates, a sex-obsessed shark woman, sycophantic ghouls, an insecure fire demon, and a goateed maniac who calls himself the Duke of Pandemonium.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

Finn Wager's luck has run out. Arrested for the one crime he didn't actually commit, he's forced to finish his education at an alternative school. The Revelations Institute is an upscale, private reform school with a 100 percent success rate. Delinquents go in and model citizens come out. But students who don't perform to expectations disappear. And although their bodies return model citizens, their minds are hardly their own. Something evil lurks inside Revelations, and if Finn and his new friend Hope can't find a way to stop it, they'll risk more than their lives.

The stories in this collection provide a wide-angle lens at what comprises the unique expanse of horror fiction today. From hobgoblins and apparitions, to haunted dwellings and cursed possessions, to good intentions gone awry and evil ones turned on the perpetrator, these 20 tales will unsettle, frighten, tickle, and caution, and in the end, listeners may take heed before ever again accompanying their children trick-or-treating, striking up conversations in anonymous chat rooms, or fortifying their homes in an attempt to prevent Halloween vandalism.

My name is Saraphina Proctor...and that’s the only thing I can remember. I woke up alone, surrounded by darkness with no memory. No one here knows who I am, I don’t fit any of the missing persons reports, and the doctors can’t find a single thing wrong with me…my memory…my life…they’re just…gone. But something lurks in the shadows in Salem, watching me…waiting.

Bones crushed, pulled-out guts, candy, and homicidal nuts! What do a brilliant child killer, a hopeful special effects artist, a duo of budding teen spree killers, a student-screwing teacher, and a mutated maniac missing his lower jaw have in common? They're all out this Halloween...How will their paths cross? Who will be butchered? Can anyone survive this bloodbath, or are they all destined to drown in a pool of warm red? This slasher nightmare gives you a seat right beside the killer, but don't get too comfortable. There's a Scary Bastard on the loose....

Here are 16 chilling, never-before-published tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday, Halloween, coedited by Ellen Datlow, one of the most successful and respected genre editors, and Lisa Morton, a leading authority on Halloween. Included are stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick-or-treating in the future.

Valerie Dearborn wants a life as light and fluffy as cotton candy, but it's more like a puffer fish: pointy, unusual, and - if not prepared exactly right - deadly. In London for graduate school, Val knows she's finally free. Her father and ex-almost-boyfriend are back in California and she's out of the Vampire hunting biz for good. Or is she? She draws the attention of Lucas, a 1600 year old Vampire, and King to his kind. He's also wicked hot.