The new breed of legends continues... If you came here to read short stories about tranquil lakes, run to the nearest exit. Run as far away as you can from Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and our array of international voices. Tales from The Lake volume two also includes the three winners from Crystal Lake Publishing's Tales from The Lake Horror Writing Competition: 1st: Descending by John Whalen2nd: Forever Dark by Jonathan Winn3rd: Ripperscape by Vincenzo Bilof Beneath this lake you'll find nothing but mystery and suspense, horror and dread. Not to mention death and misery – tales to share around the campfire or living room floor. Dive beneath a frozen lake with Rena Mason's "Winter's Dollhouse"; allow Tim Lebbon to introduce you to "The God of Rain"; don't go into the lake when Jim Goforth takes you to the haunting sit of "Lago de los Perdidos"; and never get...

Carole and her lover thought they had committed the perfect crime, murdering Carole's abusive husband and making it look like an accident. Unfortunately there was a witness, someone far more twisted than they are, with plans for a killing spree of his own.

As her husband descends into insanity, Lydia Danse becomes determined to protect her beloved young son from his father, but a possessive Arthur Danse refuses to give up on the boy he considers his property.

It's the Arizona Territory. The year, 1848. The year the Mexican War ended. Fate and blazing pistols have just thrown together reporter and part-time drunk Marion T. Bell and the very nearly legendary John Charles Hart, mustanger and scout, in the Little Fanny Saloon. Plying the river-trade across the Colorado to the gold fields of California in the north, and war-torn Mexico to the south, the town of Gable's Ferry has sprung up overnight;lacking only a church, a schoolhouse and a jail. Though some would say that only the jail was needed. A rough place in a lawless era. About to become a hell of a lot more so one night when Hart, Bell and the easy-going giant Mother Knuckles stumble upon Elena, a fierce, young, badly wounded Mexican woman near the banks of the Colorado. She's naked. She's been bullwhipped, knifed and branded. And she tells them about the kidnap, rape and servitude she and her sister have endured at the hands of las hermanas de lupo, the deadly Valenzura Sisters and their henchman, the deserter Paddy Ryan, at the well-manned slave-camp across the river aptly called Garanta del Diablo; Mouth of the Devil. It's just three hundred years since Cortez. Only three hundred years since the Old Gods of Mexico were in their full and fearsome flower. Tezcatlipoca, god of the moon and the night. Tlazolteotl, Eater of Filth. Xipe, Lord of the Flayed. Blood for rain. Blood for bounty. For many, like the Valenzura Sisters, they have never died. And Elena's sister's still there.

Hide and Seek is a book about games. Reckless, dangerous games. Games you might even want to play yourself if you're with the right people. But shouldn't. Not ever. In a small Maine town, a group of thrill seeking college kids finds a game of hide and seek in an abandoned house turning into a reality of stark terror.

From Award-winning author and storyteller Jack Ketchum, a collection of bleak stories of loss, and pain. This is the author's newest collection, and includes his Bram Stoker Award-Winning novella - Closing Time.Also included:ReturnsDamned If You DoStation TwoElusivePapaThe FountainDo You Love Your Wife?At Home With the VCRThose Rockports Won't Get You Into HeavenOlivia: A MonologueBrave GirlHonor SystemLighten UpHotlineMonsterConsensualSeascapeSnarl, Hiss, Spit, Stalk

Now I'm way beyond confusion.Now I'm scared.I've slid down the rabbit-hole and what's down there is dark and serious. This is not play-acting or some waking bad dream she's having. She's changed, somehow overnight. I don't know how I know this but I sense it as surely as I sense my own skin. This is not Sam, my Sam, wholly sane and firmly balanced. Capable of tying off an artery as neatly as you'd thread a belt through the loops of your jeans.And now I'm shivering too.In some fundamental way she's changed...

The Woman by Jack Ketchum & Lucky McKee is the powerful story of the last survivor of a feral tribe of cannibals who have terrorized the east coast from Maine into Canada. Badly wounded in a battle with police, she takes refuge in a cave overlooking the sea. Christopher Cleek is a slick, amoral,and unstable country lawyer who sees her and decides to capture her, tame her and maker her his own.

For a very long time, Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee have followed their separate paths of line-crossing, gut-wrenching, no holds-barred storytelling.  Now, those roads have drawn close and merged for a collection of five collaborative stories guaranteed to shock, amuse, disgust, and bring lovers of extreme fiction back for more.  Along with the five stories, the authors have each included the first draft of one of their stories, showing the rough-base that becomes the foundation for their fiction, and giving readers a good chance at separating their voices in the collaborations. Contents include: I'd Give Anything For YouLove Letters From the Rain ForestMasksEyes LeftSleep DisorderGood Seeing You -by Jack Ketchum & the two first drafts: I Would Do Anything For You by Edward LeeAfterword - by Jack Ketchum