Kim White is a very popular cheerleader. She’s pretty, healthy, and comes from a well-off family. She has everything a girl of 16 is supposed to want. And she’s sick to death of it. In search of something to pull her out of her suicidal thoughts, she begrudgingly decides to lose her virginity, having heard it’s a life-changing event.

When you’re 45, getting divorced, and disillusioned from years of soul-sucking work in corporate America, there isn’t much to look forward to. With his personal life just as deep in the dumps as his professional life, Mike Ashbrook figures a janitorial job would be somehow fitting, but what he finds is a different kind of clean-up service. Now Mike is wrist-deep in human waste. As a crime-scene cleaner, when the police are done, his job is just beginning. His biggest problem now, besides wiping up blood, guts, and other nastiness, is his new coworker, Sage.

Jake Leonard has more than his share of trouble. He’s close to 40 now and still suffers from bipolar disorder and the painful memories of the psychotic episodes that derailed his life and sent him behind bars. He lives in the rural South, where he spends his days breaking horses and his nights training dogs in solitude. His 19-year-old girlfriend Nikki is the daughter of the sheriff, and she’s just getting worse with drugs, alcohol, and satanic metal.

As Nicky Hector—the unstoppable slasher from the Lunatic horror movie franchise—Jonathan Zain reached levels of fame once unimaginable to a young actor. On top of headlining fifteen films, he appeared on MTV, had his own 976 number, and became one of the most recognizable faces of the 1980s. But that was thirty years ago. Now it’s 2010, and Zain is a has-been celebrity making his living signing autographs at fan conventions, a relic of the bygone slasher movie boom.

When Jackie is released from prison, his boss Pino sends a limo to pick him up. Even fresh out of the joint, ruthless Jackie is ready to work, collecting money for the mob and using his special training to take care of bad accounts—permanently.

The abandoned house at the end of Millhaven Road stands on blighted and barren ground, as if nature itself shuns this tainted place. It is known simply as Dead End House, and unspeakably terrible things happened there long ago.

After the loss of a child along with a slew of agonizing misfortunes, Nick and Jess decide to end their lives. Unable to cope with the misery that fills their days, they commit one last act together and die in loving relief. But when Nick wakes up, he soon realizes that death isn't the gentle darkness he expected. Panicked and horrified, he struggles to understand the twisted abominations and hellish world he's now trapped in.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. Margaret is staying.

Hildreth House. On a moonlight night in early spring, 27 people entered the mansion's labyrinthine halls, to partake in an orgy of diabolical debauchery, the likes of which beggared description. And one by one, 26 of them were butchered in place. The 27th body was never recovered.

Raised in a household so filthy it was stomach-spilling, Vera involuntarily evolved into a neat freak. Upon discovering she and her disabled husband, Daniel, are expecting, she needs fast cash. Her obsession with cleanliness sprouts the concept that her skills can be put to use in a unique way. She takes a stab at the booming door-to-door vacuum sales business of 1988. All is going well until she arrives at the steps of a house that will change her forever. The steps of an evil that resurrects the ghastly memories she so desperately tried to wash away.

Welcome to Hopkins Bend, the remote little Tennessee town where the backwoods inhabitants are cannibals and the local law operates a sex-trafficking ring. Unlucky travelers are frequently ensnared in the town’s sinister web. Some are held captive and tortured while others face even more gruesome fates. And beneath it all is the town’s darkest secret, the curse of the depraved and mutated Kincher clan.

Cassie's night of babysitting goes to hell when bombs explode in the distance, planes fly overhead at low altitudes, and alerts on her phone tell her to seek shelter. Luckily, the boy she babysits tells her his father has a bunker in the yard. When they make their way to this underground shelter, they soon discover they aren't alone. Something is living in the bunker, lurking in the walls, and it's hungry.

Plagued by nightmares of torture and intense violence, a writer suffering from trauma-induced memory loss seeks to solve the mystery of his missing past. The only clue is a single page of an unfinished manuscript found in an old manual typewriter, in a fleabag motel, in a small West Virginian town called Luntville. It is here that the writer will seek answers, believing that if he finishes the book he was writing, his memories will return.

In the summer of 1994, psychologist Daniel Hill buys a rustic farmhouse nestled in the rolling hills of West Virginia. Along with his wife and teenage daughter, the family uproots their lives in Ohio and moves south. They are initially seduced by the natural beauty of the country setting. That soon changes when they discover a hidden room in the basement with a well, boarded shut and adorned with crucifixes. Local legends about the previous owner being an exorcist come to light, but by then, all Hell has broken loose.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities, and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers The Troop and The Deep.

Kim White is a very popular cheerleader. She’s pretty, healthy, and comes from a well-off family. She has everything a girl of 16 is supposed to want. And she’s sick to death of it. In search of something to pull her out of her suicidal thoughts, she begrudgingly decides to lose her virginity, having heard it’s a life-changing event.

Once you get it, you simply cannot stop screaming. You can’t eat or sleep. It drives you more and more insane until you can’t stand to be alive a second longer. When the phenomenon hits Chuck's city, the chronically unemployed pervert joins a band of misfits to make his final stand.

These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers. Lori is just such a fanatic. Her obsession is with Edmund Cox, a man of sadistic cruelty who butchered more than 20 women. She’s gone so far as to forge a relationship with him, visiting him in prison and sending him letters on a regular basis. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she eagerly accepts it. She has no idea of the horror that awaits her.

When Jackie is released from prison, his boss Pino sends a limo to pick him up. Even fresh out of the joint, ruthless Jackie is ready to work, collecting money for the mob and using his special training to take care of bad accounts—permanently.

After the death of her estranged father, Tracey returns to the remote cabin she grew up in. As a traumatized veteran of the Vietnam War, Tracey’s father subjected her to rigorous survival training under brutal conditions, believing it was for her own good. She escaped and never looked back. Now in her fifties with a criminal record, Tracey returns to claim the property she’s inherited.

As Nicky Hector—the unstoppable slasher from the Lunatic horror movie franchise—Jonathan Zain reached levels of fame once unimaginable to a young actor. On top of headlining fifteen films, he appeared on MTV, had his own 976 number, and became one of the most recognizable faces of the 1980s. But that was thirty years ago. Now it’s 2010, and Zain is a has-been celebrity making his living signing autographs at fan conventions, a relic of the bygone slasher movie boom.

While her parents attend a work party, eighteen-year-old Ella Romero is left in charge of her two siblings—thirteen-year-old Nicholas and eight-year-old Arianna—at their secluded lake house. In her usual fashion, Ella invites her friends to hang out while her parents are away, too. It was supposed to be an easy, quiet, normal night.

The year is 1875 and outlaw Salem Covington has spent the last 20 years collecting stories, possessions, and lives. Nicknamed "The Black Magpie" for his exploits during the war, Salem has carved a bloody trail across the western territories. Informed that his mentor, Comanche shaman Dead Bear, has been murdered. Salem vows vengeance on the perpetrators. Enlisting the help of an army scout and preserving the body of his mentor in a specially made coffin, he sets out in pursuit. But the choices of Salem's past that earned him the moniker "Black Magpie" are riding hard behind him.

A small town is ruined by black rain, and two police officers find themselves face to face with the creatures lurking in the flooded streets. In the wild west, an aging gunslinger returns to his favorite brothel, only to encounter a fathomless black tar that's devouring everyone within. Paramedics find a remedy for a zombie virus outbreak - but can the survivors come to terms with their cannibalism? These stories and more fill Growing Dark, a collection of Kristopher Triana’s darkest short stories.

Tom Hargrave is a Vermont rancher with a love for animals and a special affection for his granddaughter, Paige. After the untimely death of his daughter, Paige is left in his care, and Tom sees raising her as a chance to redeem himself for his failures as a parent. Paige is a quiet and withdrawn 11-year-old, and while Tom struggles to connect with her he keeps on trying, wishing his wife Betty were still alive to help him understand the heart of a little girl.