This unique collection of stories features a range of international talent: award-winning authors, masters of horror, rising stars, and fresh new voices in the genre. Take care as you reach into these dark places, for the things here bite, and you may withdraw a hand short of a few fingers.

Antonio Simon Jr’s opener Water, Ice and Vice is a Twilight Zone-esque cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for, as two college students discover a fridge that offers the possibility of fulfilling any vice.

Routine By Mia Bravo is a stand out story as a man’s OCD spirals out of control with bloody consequences. Despite the obvious reasoning for his escalating condition, I enjoyed his descent into madness.

The Pied Piper’s Appetite by Rich Phelan follows the tale of a competitive eater whose gluttonous appetites go further than just food. A likeable tale that borders on noir and surprises throughout as things get more and more messed up and a sinister agenda comes to light.

Highlights from volume two include Toll Road by Antonio Simon Jr (again) in which a kidnapper finds himself on a literal road to hell in tale of bizarro noir.

Boxed, by Brian Cassiday turns up a Hitchtockian heat as a group of strangers find themselves trapped in a lift with a plague of zombies waiting for them on every floor. A tense, enjoyable romp that keeps turn the pressure up until the inevitable bloody finale.

The Enormous Turnip gets a twisted horror retell in We all ate the White Flesh by Chris Lynch, in which a band of starving pioneers find themselves inundated with a food which turns out isn’t as favourable as first thought.

The narration by Wyatt S Gray is suited to each story, although I had a giggle at his attempts to read stories set in the UK; it just doesn’t sound right when and American tries to pull of English sensibilities. Twenty very different tales make up these eclectic collections. Not every tales hits as hard as the last, but they’re all written well, and some will entertain more than others, but there’s definitely something for everyone. Some surprising tales from some up and coming writers that you should definitely keep an eye (and ear) out for.

Dexter LeGrasse thought he was lucky to be alive. He was wrong. The only survivor of a plane crash over the Atlantic, he finds himself washed up on an uninhabited island. Dazed, dehydrated and desperate to escape, he will have to use all his wits just to stay alive in a strange and unforgiving environment. But when he discovers an ancient ruin, he unwittingly unleashes an unstoppable evil and his nightmare truly begins. Primal, merciless and fuelled by a burning hatred, the creature has a hunger that must be appeased. It hunts Dexter wherever he goes, driving him to the edge of his own sanity, and with time running out and no place left to hide it's escape... ...or die.

You find yourself marooned on an island after a devastating plane crash. Waiting for help to arrive, you decide to explore the island, finding a source of water and some sparse supplies of food. You might be able to survive until a rescue party finds you. Exploring deeper, you find evidence of primitive civilisation.
You are alone.
But you are not alone.

I thoroughly enjoyed Maldicion. It’s a simple story of a man alone on an island facing off against an ancient evil that is much bigger and stronger than he, with nothing but the contents of a few suitcases and his wits to fight it with.

At times, it feels like a choose your own survival adventure but without the choices (not a bad thing, because I used to love them) as it moves from dilemma to dilemma, although some of the discoveries feel a little convenient in order to advance the plot, the story is tight and keeps things interesting, which is ideal for the length.

The narration by Nigel Peevers is fantastic and his dramatically rising tones are suited for this story pefectly
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Mixing up The Twilight Zone, parts of Robinson Crusoe, a dash of LOST, and a slice of Lovecraft mythos, Maldicion is a short read of creeping terror, that plunges the main character into a waking nightmare that they can’t wake up from.

It was supposed to be fun. A chance to get away. An opportunity for two sisters to bond and for one sister to heal. It was a small river, calm, slow-moving. Perfect for a leisurely canoe trip on a beautiful summer day. But then they hear a baby crying on the shore, abandoned and overheated. Alie and Carin have to take her with them. They can’t just leave her there. A simple canoe trip becomes a rescue mission. But there’s something on the shore, hidden by the trees. Something that’s following them every step of the way – watching, waiting . . .

Rivers are mystical places; twisting veins of life and death that cut into the land, carving their own path wherever they like. Magic can happen on them, but they can also transport us to darker places downstream, somewhere we don’t want to go, but are carried there regardless.

Deep like the River could’ve quiet easily been another hillbilly horror of modern civilisation versus the creeping horror of buckteeth in the undergrowth, but manages to transcend the (Wo)man vs nature genre and be something much more, something almost otherworldly.

Waggoner gives us two characters with little introduction and plunges them to the strange scenario of finding a screaming infant on the bank of the river, giving the tale a biblical feel from the get go. But things get curiouser and curiouser as they decide to take the baby to safety, but soon find themselves under threat from something lurking behind the cover of the trees.

From here, the pressure gradually increases with each turn as the safety of the foundling is challenged by threats from the shore and the river itself, all leading towards a shocking and unexpected finale.
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Tim Waggoner has created an exemplary piece of American fiction, which feels like a missing episode of The Twilight Zone in its delivery. Atmospheric, brooding and pressurised to the point where you feel it could explode on any page.