The graduating class of Bishop Carlbus Prep has a secret.

The Outing Party is a tradition at Bishop Carlbus, a semi-illicit party hosted by a Senior student after the annual Outing, a weekend field trip taken by the graduating class every year. In 1995, Amy Keaton was determined to host a legendary Outing Party, but everything goes wrong. Her classmates are rude. Someone seems to be sabotaging her plans. And as the night goes on resentment and rage start driving everyone to extremes. The party spins out of control, and by the next morning Amy Keaton is dead, and twenty-five kids have a soul-crushing secret.

In 2015, six Bishop Carlbus Prep alumnus—Victor, Kate, Leo, Titus, Ida, and Winnie—gather for the funeral of their old high school classmate Zillah. They soon realize that they are now the sole surviving members of the Class of 1995—everyone else who attended Amy Keaton’s Outing Party is dead. And many of those deaths are bizarre and shocking. Sucked dry by leeches. Consumed by mice. Swept out to sea.

The survivors begin piecing together the events of the last two decades, and wonder: Is someone hunting them? Are they next?

And, maybe, do they deserve to be next?

 

 

We all have secrets. That’s one truth. Another is that secrets are tricky to keep: They want to be shared. In the company of these secrets, societies emerge. They fester and spread. From the esoteric to the pragmatic, history is built on these societies made as much of myth and rumor as blood and bone.

Some societies are real organizations with documented histories. The Freemasons. The Molly Maguires.

Some are patchwork figments of speculation, conspiracy theory, and perhaps even the delicious specter of world domination. The Illuminati.

And some take other forms: from cults to covens to covert operations, secrets can bind us to the society of others or split us apart with sinister intent.

In Sinister Societies, six acclaimed horror writers explore these darker implications:

1. A foster kid finally feels as though she’s a part of something much bigger than the hellish life she was living, when a new home brings her old life into fractious focus.
2. A secret agent—a dancer, singer, assassin—investigates a series of mysterious murders in Europe that point to an invisible killer with inhuman characteristics.
3. In a dark, dreamy town, a line of otherworldly women is tasked with keeping the carnivorous landscape at bay.
4. An accidental murder in a Cleveland, Ohio alleyway during the height of Prohibition—and the discovery of a mysterious book—sparks a series of events that threaten to engulf the entire world.
5. In a late-1800s mining town, the Molly Maguires arrive to help workers fight for better working conditions—but even they can’t save the ones sent to work in Tunnel 17.
6. The Rat King controls the underground, and the Coin King controls the overstreets, but when a pickpocket proves that power can be stolen, chaos reigns.

Join Mercedes M. Yardley, Tom Deady, Sarah Read, Errick Nunnally, Cindy O’Quinn, and Michael Burke as they uncover the darkness that infests the hidden corners of the mind and the soul.

With a foreward by John Skipp. Edited by Linda Hartley.

Spring.

Even in the shadows of skyscrapers, spring sees an awakening in the concrete jungle that we call “the city.”
Spring in the City: A Collection of Dark Speculative Fiction is the next anthology in Ruadán Books’ “…In the City” series that takes place in the different metropolises around the world during the changeable, unpredictable return of life from its cold slumber.

But what awakens is not always beautiful.

• In Stockholm, the vengeful goddess of spring awakens, ready to begin her hunt once again…
• Faced with an impossible choice, Detroit teens must confront a malevolent entity to protect their urban neighborhood from the creature’s insatiable hunger…
• A journalist escapes to Cape Town to research folklore and only encounters terrifying creatures from local legends, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare…
• When mysterious fireballs devastate Tel Aviv, a young girl is gifted with extraordinary powers which she must embrace to confront a prophesied cosmic entity…

Hell hath no fury…

Up-and-coming young artist Jefferson Fontenot has everything going for him: The hot New Orleans art scene has noticed him, and he’s finally found his true love, Nevaeh Parker.

But Fontenot’s bright future hides a darkness known as Gemma Landry— the artist’s lover and art scene influencer. Gemma believes Jefferson’s talent holds the key to her seizing control of the popular Carondelet Street Gallery. But when Gemma discovers Jefferson’s infidelity, she enslaves the artist with a poison she acquired from swamp-dwelling witch Mirlande St. Pierre.

Now trapped in a rotting body and plagued by hellish visions, Jefferson finds himself reduced to a zombie-like servant for his unhinged ex, while Nevaeh is forced to embrace her past, hoping to save the man she loves. As the dark curse courses through Jefferson’s veins, everyone involved soon discovers—in the most brutal of fashions—the terror that awaits when you cross Gemma Landry.

A prisoner inside a ghoul-infested fortress, Erzelle must play her harp for the entertainment of the flesh-eating cult that murdered her parents.

Her nightmare’s upended in the space of a day by the arrival of Olyssa, a fellow musician, and so much more.

Erzelle joins the quest to find Olyssa’s missing sister, a journey across a mutated landscape that leads to an enemy responsible for the deaths of millions.

To end the slaughter, the pair has no choice but to draw on the deadly magic that reshaped the world … a power that’s consuming Erzelle even as she fights to control it.

 

The city.

Noisy, crowded, ever in motion, the city can be more than a setting—it can be a character, as nuanced and as fickle as a human being, with as many traits and quirks as the best mapped out characters. The city can be the ever-present and constant companion (or foe) to the protagonist and antagonist alike.

Winter in the City: A Collection of Dark Speculative Fiction is an anthology of dark speculative fiction tales that takes place in 18 different cities around the world during the bleak—sometimes harsh—season of winter.

After midnight is as dark as it gets…

Whether thanks to an overnight college radio shift or cable pumping flickering videos into TVs across America, the music of the alternative era was the soundtrack to our lives, and sometimes our deaths. 120 Murders is an anthology of power chord crimes and keyboard horrors–the best noir, dark fantasy, and transgressive fiction from writers inspired by grunge, goth, ska, synthpop, and every eclectic sound of the alternative era.