Book Preview “Hey, shithead, this look like a fucking bed-and-breakfast to you?” The voice was gruff, gravelly. At this hour, it had to be a cop, security guard, or maybe just an angry homeowner. Whoever it was, Tray Stouffer didn’t move within the folds of the musty quilt. Sometimes, when you’re still enough, they go … Read more
Book Preview There it was again, that incessant ping. I turned the ringer off. Why am I hearing text notifications? Why am I hearing anything? Apple’s gone to shit without Steve Jobs. Sam Porter rolled to his right, his hand blindly groping for the phone on the nightstand. His alarm clock crashed to the floor … Read more
Book Preview It swirled around him deep and thick, eating the light and leaving nothing behind but an inky void. A fog choked his thoughts—the words tried to come together, tried to form a cohesive sentence, to find meaning, but the moment they seemed close, they were swallowed up and gone, replaced by a growing … Read more
Book Preview “J.D. Barker’s Forsaken is a remarkable debut, a gripping tale of suspense in the tradition of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Saul. Truly the birth of a new master in the genre.” Praise for Forsaken “Incredibly written, supremely creepy. I don’t say this lightly: J.D. Barker is a force to be reckoned … Read more
Book Preview Harvey, Half-Devoured The great gray beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive. Here he was, buried in the belly of that smothering month, wondering if he would ever find his way out through the cold coils that lay between here and Easter. He didn’t think much of his chances. More than likely he’d … Read more
Book Preview My thanks to: Doug Bennett, who got me into Penton_ville-and out again-in the same day and later furnished me with his insights on prisons and the prison service; to Jim Burr, for his mind’s eye tour of White Deer, Texas, and for the New York adventures; to Ros Stanwell-_Smith, for her enthusiastic detailing … Read more
Book Preview The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker Copyright 1986 I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost Who died before the god of Love was born. -John Donne, Love’s Deitie So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box that he didn’t hear the great bell begin to ring. The device … Read more
Book Preview committed, right from the first, the littlest. “What are you waiting for?” Homer said, seeing Jaffe linger. “You’ve got work to do. The sooner it’s started, the sooner I can find you more. “ Randolph stepped into the room. It was large, painted the same bilious yellow and battleship gray as every other … Read more
Book Preview The air was electric the day the thief crossed the city, certain that tonight, after so many weeks of frustration, he would finally locate the cardplayer. It was not an easy journey. Eighty-five percent of Warsaw had been leveled, either by the months of mortar bombardment that had preceded the Russian liberation of … Read more
Book Preview The burning man propelled himself down the steps of the Hume Laboratories as the police carsummoned, he presumed, by the alarm either Welles or Dance had set off upstairs appeared at the gate and swung up the driveway. As he ran from he door the car screeched up to the steps and discharged … Read more
Book Preview He is a transformer of human flesh; a creator of monsters. If a Supplicant comes to him with sufficient need, sufficient hunger for change-knowing how painful that change will be-he will accommodate them. They become objects of perverse beauty beneath his hand; their bodies remade in fashions that they have no power to … Read more
Book Preview PART SIX He Enters The House Of The World I am a man, and men are animals who tell stories. This is a gift from God, who spoke our species into being, but left the end of our story untold. That mystery is troubling to us. How could it be otherwise? Without the … Read more
Book Preview Everything the blind woman had told Harry she’d seen was undeniably real. Whatever inner eye Norma Paine possessed-that extraordinary skill that allowed her to scan the island of Manhattan from the Broadway Bridge to Battery Park and yet not move an inch from her tiny room on Seventy-fifth-that eye was as sharp as … Read more
Book Preview Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story Copyright 2001 by Clive Barker Scanned from an Advanced Readers Edition For David Emilian Armstrong There are a lot of people to thank for helping me bring this one home. It was a devil of a book to write, for a host of reasons. For one thing, … Read more
Book Preview page 209 THE LAST ILLUSION WHAT HAPPENED THEN – when the magician, having mesmerised the caged tiger, pulled the tasselled cord that released a dozen swords upon its head – was the subject of heated argument both in the bar of the theatre and later, when Swann’s performance was over, on the sidewalk … Read more
Book Preview Like a flawless tragedy, the elegance of which structure is lost upon those suffering in it, the perfect geometry of the Spector Street Estate was only visible from the air. Walking in its drear canyons, passing through its grimy corridors from one grey concrete rectangle to the next, there was little to seduce … Read more
Book Preview My thanks to: Doug Bennett, who got me into Pentonville-and out again-in the same day and later furnished me with his insights on prisons and the prison service; to Jim Burr, for his mind’s eye tour of White Deer, Texas, and for the New York adventures; to Ros Stanwell-Smith, for her enthusiastic detailing … Read more
Book Preview Barberio felt fine, despite the bullet. Sure, there was a catch in his chest if he breathed too hard, and the wound in his thigh wasn’t too pretty to look at, but he’d been holed before and come up smiling. At least he was free: that was the main thing. Nobody, he swore, … Read more