Showing results by publisher "Valancourt Books" in 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.

Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) has earned a reputation as one of the finest horror writers of the modern era, but his work has been out of print and nearly unobtainable for many years. His seminal volume In a Lonely Place collects eight of his best tales, including "In the Pines," a classic ghost story evocatively set in the Tennessee woods, "Beyond Any Measure," an original take on the vampire story.

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.

After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty.

In the isolated farming community of Harlowe, where life has changed little over the past several decades, John Moore and his wife Mim work the land that has been in his family for generations. But from the moment the charismatic Perly Dinsmore arrives in town and starts soliciting donations for his auctions, things begin slowly and insidiously to change in Harlowe. As the auctioneer carries out his terrible, inscrutable plan, the Moores and their neighbors will find themselves gradually but inexorably stripped of their freedom, their possessions, and perhaps even their lives ...

Sir Charles Ravenstreet, in his mid-50s, is unmarried, childless, and lives only for his work in the fast-paced world of business. When he is forced out of his job to make room for someone younger, Sir Charles finds himself at a loose end and facing the dismal prospect of an empty future.

An ancient vampire has descended on Isherwood, Indiana, turning its townspeople into a legion of bloodthirsty monsters, and only one man can stop them. Chris Stiles, once a Vietnam War soldier, is now the ultimate vampire hunter. With the help of the ghost of his dead brother, who was killed by the monsters, and an arsenal of high-powered weaponry, Chris is ready for a new war - this time not with the Viet Cong, but against an army of the Undead!

When a brilliant scientist seeking to solve the problem of world hunger tries to create giant mushrooms through genetic manipulation, what could possibly go wrong? But those who die quickly are the lucky ones. Those who survive infection by the fungus will be transformed into something unthinkably monstrous...

"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.

J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) was a versatile and prolific novelist and playwright, but in The Other Place (1953), he shows an unexpected talent, proving himself a master of the weird tale. In "The Grey Ones", Mr. Patson visits a psychiatrist after he becomes convinced that a race of demons masquerading as men are plotting the overthrow of the human race...but what if he's not insane? In "Guest of Honour", a banquet speech becomes a horrifying affair when the keynote speaker realizes his audience is made up of monstrous and menacing creatures.

Something deadly is stalking the corridors of the King's Cross train, preying on the passengers. It once attacked commuter Mark Davies and threw him from the train. Ex-policeman Les Chadderton is obsessed with the murders and suicides on the Easst Coast mainline. His own wife has been among the victims. Together, Davies and Chadderton must board the Ghost Train and face their own fears made real, travelling on a one-way ticket on the Nightmare Express....

It has many names: Bigfoot...Yeti...Sasquatch. But whatever it is, it’s out there in the woods and leaving a trail of blood and severed heads behind it. For John Moon, a half-mad Indian, it is a spirit that holds the key to his inner self. He worships its power and he’ll kill to protect it. Desperate, exhausted, half-starved, Moon will follow it wherever it goes. For Raymond Jason, killing it has become an obsession. He was the only survivor of a hunting trip to the Rockies where the hunters became the monster’s prey.

Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido’s first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations.

Once passionate about the theatre, playwright Martin Cheveril is now disillusioned and contemplating a change of career. His new play, a bitter and cynical piece, is about to premiere when something strange happens. After stumbling upon an old pamphlet about a talented young actress named Jenny Villiers who died in 1846, Cheveril dozes off and finds himself somehow transported back to the theatre of her day. By some mysterious means, he will find himself a spectator of the tragedy of Jenny's life and death-a tragedy whose effects will echo strangely into the present day.

Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was one of the most popular and prolific English authors of his time, best known for his historical fiction and novels for boys. But it was in the field of the macabre and supernatural that Walpole was at his best, and this collection of 16 tales contains many of his finest.

Dr. John Gladstone, a scientist in Victorian London, is thrust into the world of the vampire after his carriage runs over a young man of angelic beauty named Niccolo. When Niccolo kidnaps Gladstone's child and vanishes, the doctor must go in pursuit, with the help of his daughter, Ursula, who is enticed by the lure of eternal life, and Lady Hespeth, whose demure exterior hides a dangerous obsession. Why are the vampires taking children, and what is the connection to Gladstone's experiments with a deadly virus?

Sally Ann and Martha. Two women, searching for love. Finding terror. During a terrifying storm, a gentle childhood is destroyed by a twisted man who promises love but delivers nightmare. In the lightless depths of an underground labyrinth, unseen creatures lie in wait for an innocent traveler, cold skeletal hands stretched out in welcome. There is horror in darkness - horror made greater when darkness loves us.

Robert Bloch gave us fiction's most famous knife-wielding maniac in Psycho's Norman Bates, and in The Night of the Ripper (1984), this master of horror fiction offers his own unique take on history's most infamous unsolved murder case.

Hovern Bog. People live in terror of it - especially the residents of Fenchurch St. Jude, the little village located at its edge. They think of it as a living being. When 2,000-year-old bodies are recovered from the bog, perfectly preserved, it is the discovery of a lifetime for archaeologist David Macauley. But close examination of the corpses reveals a curious fact: all were cruelly, mysteriously murdered, gnawed to death by some unimaginable creature.

It was just an ordinary garbage dump on peaceful Cape Cod. No one ever imagined that conditions were perfect for breeding, that it was a warm womb, fetid, moist, and with food so plentiful that everything creeping, crawling, and slithering could gorge to satiation. Then a change in poison control was made, resulting in an unforeseen mutation. Now the giant mutant cockroaches are ready to leave their nest - in search of human flesh!