Banquet for the damned

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V. C. Andrews

**Melody Logan knew her beautiful mother, Haille, was unhappy in their hardscrabble mining town....** But with her wonderful father's unwavering love, Melody always felt safe -- until a dreadful mine accident ripped her from her family's moorings. She was still devastated by her father's death when she left West Virginia with Haille to follow her mother's dream of becoming a model or actress. But first they stopped in Cape Cod to visit her father's family at last. Melody knew only that her grandparents had disowned their son when he married Haille -- just because she was an orphan, her mother said. Yet moments after Melody first laid eyes on dour, Bible-spouting Uncle Jacob, nervous Aunt Sara, and her cousins -- handsome Cary, whose twin, Laura had been killed recently in a sailing accident, and sweet, deaf little May -- Haille announced that Melody was to live with them. Sleeping in Laura's old room, Melody was awash in a sea of grief and confusion, with only her beloved fiddle to comfort her. Then Cary revealed the truth he's gleaned about her parents -- a sad, shocking story that only puzzled her more. Melody knew nothing of the dark deceptions that would soon surface... the devastating betrayals she would face before she glimpsed the faint, beckoning lights of a safe harbor....

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Charles L. Grant

Contents: • Introduction (Final Shadows) • essay by Charles L. Grant 1 • The Boarder • shortstory by Wendy Webb 12 • Magpie • shortstory by Stephen Gallagher 29 • Fastening • shortstory by Julie R. Good 39 • Past Tense • shortstory by Brian Hodge 50 • Under the Boardwalk • shortstory by Lori Allen [as by Lori Negridge Allen ] 58 • The Picnickers • novelette by Brian Lumley 79 • Fry Day • shortstory by Melanie Tem 89 • Out Behind the Shed • shortstory by Bill Pronzini 95 • Fear a' Ghorta • shortstory by Peter Tremayne 108 • The Sweetest Rain • shortstory by Nancy Holder 120 • Wrong Side of the Road • shortstory by Norman Partridge 136 • Island of the Seals • shortstory by Samantha Lee (variant of The Island of the Seals 1977) 143 • Thirteen Lies About Hummingbirds • shortstory by Michael Bishop 162 • The Stone Face • shortstory by Colin Greenland 181 • Medusa's Child • shortstory by Kim Antieau 191 • The Tape • shortstory by Jessica Palmer 200 • The Dark Places in Between • shortstory by Karen Haber 216 • I'll See You on Saturday Night • shortstory by Guy N. Smith 227 • Beijing Craps • novelette by Graham Masterton 250 • Samhain • shortstory by Bernard Taylor 268 • The Mermaid • shortstory by Tanith Lee 279 • Rescheduled • shortstory by Mike Chinn 285 • Going Away • shortstory by Craig Shaw Gardner 296 • A Father's Dream • shortstory by Chet Williamson 307 • The Magic House • shortstory by Lynn S. Hightower 320 • When They Gave Us Memory • shortstory by Dennis Etchison 336 • A Sailor's Pay • shortstory by Jack Cady 354 • Something About Camilla • shortstory by Juleen Brantingham 366 • Parallax • shortstory by Nicholas Royle 378 • The Door • shortstory by Sharon Webb 391 • Photo-Call • shortstory by David Sutton 403 • Against the Skin • shortstory by Mark Morris 418 • Of Natural Causes • shortstory by Ashley McConnell 432 • Mulberry's Crystal • shortstory by Brian Mooney and Stephen Jones 441 • Together • shortstory by David Garnett [as by David S. Garnett ] 456 • The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves • novelette by David Morrell

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John Saul

For more than three decades, bestselling novelist John Saul has been summoning macabre masterpieces from the darkest realms of his imagination. With each new book, his instinct for playing upon our deepest dread has grown only stronger and more sinister. He's never been afraid to push the boundaries of suspense and confront us with what frightens us most. After his father's untimely death sends fifteen-year-old Ryan McIntyre into an emotional tailspin, his mother enrolls him in St. Isaac's Catholic boarding school, hoping the venerable institution with a reputation for transforming wayward teens can work its magic on her son. But troubles are not unknown even at St. Isaac, where Ryan arrives to find the school awash in news of one student's violent death, another's mysterious disappearance, and growing incidents of disturbing behavior within the hallowed halls. Things begin to change when Father Sebastian joins the faculty. Armed with unprecedented knowledge and uncanny skills acquired through years of secret study, the young priest has been dispatched on an extraordinary and controversial mission: to prove the power of one of the Church's most arcane sacred rituals, exorcism. Willing or not, St. Isaac's most troubled students will be pawns in Father Sebastian's one-man war against evil--a war so surprisingly effective that the pope himself takes notice of the seemingly miraculous events unfolding an ocean away.But Ryan, drawn ever more deeply into Father Sebastian's ministrations, sees--and knows--otherwise. As he witnesses with mounting dread the transformations of his fellow pupils, his certainty grows that forces of darkness, not divinity, are at work. Evil is not being cast out . . . something else is being called forth. Something that hasn't stirred since the Inquisition's reign of terror. Something nurtured through the ages to do its vengeful masters' unholy bidding. Something whose hour has finally come to bring hell unto earth.From the Hardcover edition.

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Del James

It has 339 pages and is a collection of short dark fiction stories released in 1995 by Dell Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Publishing, part of the "Abyss" line of psychological horror. It features an intro by W. Axl Rose and the short story entitled "Without You," which inspired the Guns N' Roses video "November Rain".