He had escaped the horrors of the last few months. He started a new life with his new family. His life was returning to normal, his scars healing. Until they found him. After his loved ones were taken to their world...to their horrors. Now, Jake must follow, hoping it's not too late. But will he reach them in time...before they are turned against him?

From horror author Terry M. West comes Gruesome: A Gathering of Nightmares, a collection of some of his best fiction.  

It happens every year. A select few disappear, never to return. From The Falkland Islands to the Himalayas, Puerto Rico to England, people are vanishing without a trace or explanation. A young man who's lost everything stumbles across an ancient secret. Can he unlock the mystery? Will he find those who need him? Can he escape the Unknown? 

Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of extreme stories, the hardcore stuff that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos, the transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex, and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect.

The night uncovers all we wish not to see. A troubled man enters a dusky park before sunset. A young woman follows, hidden in shadow. Both have returned to the park to take back something the past has stolen from them, to make right six long years of suffering, and to find justice or perhaps redemption - or maybe they'll settle for some old-fashioned revenge. But something evil is alive and awake in those woods, creatures that care nothing for human motivations. They’re driven by their own insatiable need: a ravenous, bottomless hunger.

Nathan Pepper seemed like an ordinary baby -- except for a mouth full of scary sharp teeth. Because his life began with his grandmother strongly recommending that he be destroyed as soon as possible, it's safe to say that Nathan was not destined for a typical existence.

The streets of Redwood, California, are being stalked by a brutal serial killer known as The Scattershot Slayer - a tall, lanky man who kidnaps and tortures his victims before creating grotesque pieces of public art with their mutilated bodies. Viola Santoro, a freelance journalist, is tracking Scattershot for her independent investigation in hopes of writing an exposé. After she unwittingly captures the serial killer's attention, she receives the scoop of a lifetime.

Some stories tiptoe up and whisper in your ear - all sweetness and gumdrops and happy-ever-after-after-there-you-go. Then, there are the weird ones. We're talking talking-chickens, blue plague spam monkeys, tug boats of unbridled and fetid fecundity, tulwar-swinging cab drivers, malls that maul you, gnawing on screwdrivers and jig-lining elder gods coming at you faster than a ride-on mow-down massacre mower shopping cart caravan. This is a collection for the seriously messed up minds of all you listeners who have grown tired of the trite detritus of day-to-day storytelling.

A serial kidnapper is preying upon women. He abducts them and then locks them in one of the cages dangling from the ceiling in a soundproofed basement. There, he sits quietly and just watches them, returning night after night, hoping he'll be in the room at the moment his beautiful captives finally starve to death.

Wild Things... They've been with us forever - prowling the smoky roadhouse dives that are their watering holes and hunting grounds. Predators, lurking amidst the human herd. Changing shape at will. Lusting for blood and meat they are gods in the wild. Gods in disguise. And they feed on the spark inside each of us. Syd was just another lonely working class guy singing the steel-town blues. Then he met Nora. She's sensual, Erotic. Amoral.

A mysterious house sits on a corner block on a hill in St. John's, Newfoundland, in one of the oldest cities in North America, a nondescript, three-story wooden cube, going slowly to seed. When local cops, John Green, Janis Lodge and Todd Wiggins are sent to investigate a multiple murder on the top floor of the property, they start opening doors and uncovering secrets. But like peeling the layers off an onion, each door opened only leads them deeper into the mystery. There are houses like this all over the world, and those who suffer are drawn to them, as John, Janis and Todd have been drawn. They have found their way in. Can they find their way out again? And at what cost? 

A neglected 12-year-old boy does nothing to report the death of his mother in order to compete in a spelling bee. A tragic coming-of-age tale of horror and drama in the setting of a hot New Orleans summer.

In Sacrum Umbra you were treated to tales from the shadows, the literary darkness that lives within all of us. Here you will find tales of another sort, the type you might find in the less wholesome end of the collective unconscious and the very depths of the gut. From stories of childhood gone horribly wrong to sex and madness with an impossible cost, this is where you'll find the more gruesome end of the spectrum.

From Chicago Horror author Wayne Allen Sallee comes this collection of zombie stories, told in the way only Sallee can - brutal, stark, filled with pain.

Brinkley Springs is a quiet little town. Some say the town is dying. They don't know how right they are. Five mysterious figures are about to pay a little visit to Brinkley Springs. They have existed for centuries, emerging from the shadows only to destroy, to kill. To feed. They bring with them terror and carnage, and leave death and blood in their wake. As the night wears on, Brinkley Springs will be quiet no longer. Screams will break the silence. But when the sun rises again, will there be anyone left to hear?