Anthologies & Short Stories

This issue of Weird Tales presents a variety of stories, essays, and poems about cryptids and urban legends. Not to dispel, but to reveal.

When pest controller Nick Grieves and his wife Samantha are called to sleepy Seadale's dockyard in the dead of night, they expect a rat infestation, or maybe an unclaimed exotic pet. But what they find instead is a nightmare from another continent: a terrifying and unnatural creature with a hunger that can’t be contained.

What begins as a relaxing hike in the picturesque Derbyshire Dales soon becomes a waking nightmare for disgraced barrister, Graham Solace. A strange, swirling fog has just arrived and left him utterly lost and in the middle of nowhere. But there’s hope. Upon the next hill appears to be a pub, The Crooked Stag. Surely someone there will be able help to help him get back to civilsation. Right?

Somewhere on the coast of England, Neverbury is a little quaint seaside town with the kind of problems that a lot of quaint little English seaside towns have these days... magicians, lawyers, creeping horrors, changelings, folk music purists, portals to hell, idle gods, ghosts, militant amateur cycling clubs, and a serious problem with something called "Big Chicken".

More Cumbrian Ghost Stories brings you 16 ghost stories, horror stories, weird tales, and dark fairy tales set in the English county of Cumbria and the Lake District by Tony Walker, author of Cumbrian Ghost Stories and narrator of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast. From "The Milk-White Child of Ravenglass" to "A Brief Stop in Barrow in Furness", "The Screaming Skulls of Calgarth", and "The Dalston Vampire", these stories dance around the county of Cumbria to horrify, scare, terrify, and also make you smile and even laugh a bit, depending on the tale.

There is something quite special about this fine collection of tales of terror from the Sceptered Isle, each and every one crafted in the dead of the night by twisted, fevered minds, who have brought crawling and slithering to life the darkest denizens of the blackest shadows to terrify those brave souls amongst you who are brave enough to listen...

Two years have passed since the night Adrian Billard found baby Abigail left on his front steps. Unlike any child he had ever seen, Adrian devoted his life to protecting Abigail. But she's so different, lined with gray scales, violet reptilian eyes, and tiny horns on the top of her head, Adrian was instantly drawn to her. But her appearance wasn't the only thing different about Abigail. In the blink of an eye, with a flash of silver, Abigail is able to lull others into a hypnotic state, essentially altering their personalities, replacing bad intentions with good ones.

The Beast with Five Fingers is a masterwork of early 20th-century supernatural horror, where intellect, skepticism, and rational explanation steadily erode under the pressure of something that should not exist. Set within shadowed libraries, lonely houses, and candlelit rooms, the story follows a man of science confronted by an entity that moves with purpose, memory, and malice—yet defies every known law of nature.

Where grief meets the grave, the hunt begins. When the dead refuse to stay buried, only the American Demon Hunters can stand between the living and the darkness. Hank thought his nightmare ended when his wife died. He was wrong. Drawn to the abandoned observatory by whispers of forbidden magic, he faces an impossible choice: accept her death—or risk his soul to bring her back. What begins as grief soon becomes obsession, and in the quiet town beside Lakeview Cemetery, something ancient is waiting to rise. From the twisted mind of J.

A man, a woman, and a road trip through the sun-blasted highways of West Texas that descends into chaos, blood, and screams. Bleak, cinematic, and unrelenting, Scratch is a fever dream of American horror. A collision of Nick Cutter’s raw realism, Edward Lee’s extremity, and Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic poetry, Scratch delivers a quick, brutal, and bloody fix that lingers long after the final tick.

Dark Tracks: 4 Horror Stories is a chilling collection of short horror tales where isolation, guilt, and the unknown collide. Each story pulls you into a different nightmare — from abandoned places that shouldn’t be entered, to ordinary moments that spiral into something deeply wrong. As the tension builds, reality begins to fracture, and what waits in the darkness refuses to stay hidden. These are not tales of cheap jump scares. They are slow-burning, unsettling stories that linger long after the final word — the kind of horror that creeps in quietly and stays with you.

Since their inception in 2006, Ghost has entertained millions of fans throughout the world. Their style of heavy metal combined with eccentric stage performances have made them a brand all their own. In Tales from the Clergy, seventeen masters of horror share their love of Ghost with a chilling tale inspired by their favorite song. A girl is granted the power to save or kill. A corrupt priest gets what he deserves. A man plunders the sewers and finds something else is after him. A woman has a baby by any means necessary, and then must pay the price.

Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.

Scarlet’s shift at The Burger Box was supposed to be like any other. But something is off about the night. A road block leaves the diner feeling eerie and desolate. The few customers are acting weird, and someone is lurking around in the shadows. Then the first body turns up. Someone is ready to place their Final Order.

A collection of nine gothic tales and poetry to haunt the darkest of nights. From the distant past to the far-off future, horrors lurk and there are no happy endings. Pirates, witches, ghosts, cryptids, and darkness: what will you find waiting for you beyond the smoke and shadow?