It came in the dead of night-a rhythmic creaking sound that only the children could hear. Jackie and Johnny tried not to listen. But it called to them, whispering of evil, luring them into the darkness of the attic. With its brightly colored saddle and painted-on eyes, it was the most beautiful rocking horse Jackie and Johnny had ever seen. But as they took turns riding it, they didn't see its tail twitch or its lips curve into a terrifying grin....

The locals were ecstatic when the carnival pulled into Holland, Nebraska. They shrieked in delight on the lightning-fast rides. They gasped in shocked fascination at the chilling collection of freaks and human oddities. But all the while, piercing red eyes glared out at the townies from the shadows of the midway. Eyes that burned with vengeful hatred. Eyes that lusted for blood . . . Only Mayor Margin Holland and his beautiful teenaged daughter Linda...

Angelic Child She was a beautiful child, a perfect child. With her blonde hair and baby doll prettiness, she was the picture of angelic innocence. Phillip Baxter pushed aside his uneasiness about his strangely self-possessed daughter. She was just an ordinary kid. And, to his relief, she did act like an ordinary kid when he brought home a special present just for her . . . Devil's Toy Alone in her room, Nora couldn't wait to open the antique jack-in-the-box....

Wings of Death They'd flown north from Central and South America, appearing one day in the southern wetlands of the U.S. like ominous ink stains in the twilight sky. With each sunset, more appeared, first hundreds then thousands. Massing into a great black cloud of terror, the vampire bats were beating their wings in time with the panicked heartbeats in the towns below. No one knew how to stop them as they fell onto their prey like dark, deadly...

Black Wilder has waited a long, long time to come Whitfield. But he is no stranger to patience. A Year, ten years, a hundred years. Time has no meaning for him. He just waits until the moment is right and then emerges-silently and unmercifully. As night falls heavily on the small prairie town, red-rimmed eyes look out from tightly shut windows. An occasional snarl rips from once-human throats. Shadows play on dimly-lit streets, deepening the gloom...

Toy Land There they were, just as he remembered. Rooms and rooms of them. Dolls. Toy soldiers. Clowns. When he was a kid, his Aunt Cary's toy collection should have been a child's paradise. But instead he had been terrified by their staring eyes... Toy Hell Twenty years had passed since Jay Clute set foot in Victory, Missouri. Twenty years of trying to forget that night--that hellish night of unimaginable horror. Now his Aunt Cary was dead, and...

The Devil's Disguise Cats. The town was alive with them. All kinds. Black, white, fat, scrawny . . . They lived in the streets, in the back yards, in the swamps of Becancour. Sam, Nydia, and Little Sam had never seen so many cats. The cats' eyes were glowing slits as they watched the new-comers. And their furry tails were slowly switching back and forth . . . Evil. The town was ripe with it. It seemed to waft in from the swamps with the hot, fetid...

It was in the summer of 1958 that the horror surfaced in the town of Whitfield, erupting like a festering boil, spewing its corruption on everyone near it. Those who survived the terror remember it as the summer of The Digging-the time when the hot wind began to blow, when The Devil's creatures rose from the putrid bowels of the earth, when the inhabitants of Whitfield were touched by . . . The Devil's Heart Now it was summer again in Whitfield....

It had been years since wolfsbane grew on the bayou, yet everyone who lived in Ducros Parish, Louisiana, knew that someday it would appear again. With its pretty yellow flowers and lovely green leaves, wolfsbane was as beautiful as it was deadly. And when the townspeople saw the ancient root once again spring from the earth, they knew it wouldn't be long before they heard the terrifying howls in the night... There were those who called the tales...

Light It could only be seen in the dead of night. The satanic glow swirled above the old railroad tracks, pulsating with evil, flickering with the light of hell itself. And it Drew the young people of Good Hope to its shimmering core like moths to a flame... Dark The eerie change in the slumbering Missouri town could only be seen by one child. Innocent ten-year-old Heather sensed the chill of darkness in her schoolmates' vacant stares, the evil...