Pretend family….

Jessica loved playing with the family of dolls she had found in the old house. She slipped away to visit them every chance she had, and pretended that she belonged there with this, her family-with her mother, the blond haired woman in the picture on the wall. As she played, she began to realize that sometimes the dolls were not where she had left them. At times she even imagined that she heard them whispering to her. And the name they whispered was – Annabelle – not her real name Jessica.

Protective family…

The dolls were so relieved, happy that Annabelle had finally come back to them. Surely everything would return to normal now – just as it had been. And this time they would protect Annabelle, to make sure that she never left them again…

Breathtaking dolly…

Literally…

There once was an innocent looking dolly, she could eat and breathe through the hole in her mouth. Her single eye stared relentlessly, perhaps malignantly, as though full of evil, watching, waiting. As the years rolled away, she waited in the attic to be picked up, cooed over, and set free to work her will.

Dorrie had lost her father, and did not understand this life and death thing. While her family was busy, she found happiness in the attic, with her new-found dolly. She wasn’t too concerned when her little doll began to move on its own.

But perhaps she should have wondered what the doll was capable of…

Remember Noodle, Indiana?

So does Caleb. It ain’t Noodle anymore

And it’s all Caleb’s fault.

At least that’s how he sees it. And why not? Caleb brought hell to Noodle during his last visit. Specifically, multiple assassins looking to collect on a sizable contract on his head., caring less than nothing about how they’d turn the town into a post-apocalyptic mess.

Only the very nastiest of characters now call Noodle home. Not just for the lawlessness the town is victim to, but for the insanity that takes place within the deeper confines of the town. A town now run by an insidious group of people who look to exploit the very essence of evil in mankind. Exploit it by hosting games of skill, chance, and of course exceptional violence.

And so Caleb has now returned to Noodle to try to make things right. Only this challenge is like nothing Caleb has ever tackled before. It will dig deep, very deep, into his traumatic past, and just might turn that past into a lethal weapon that even a deadly force like Caleb has little defense against.

Haunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell’s masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of Sardonicus, Sanguinarius, and Sagittarius. The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy); the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, perverted, and completely entrancing, Russell’s Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful.

At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. For years it has remained empty, overgrown, abandoned. Soon the door will be opened for the first time in decades. But something is waiting, lurking in the shadows, anxious to meet its new guests…

When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween night in one of the world’s most infamous haunted houses, he reluctantly agrees. At least he won’t be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror. But what begins as a simple publicity stunt will become a fight for survival. The entity they have awakened will follow them, torment them, threatening to make them a part of the bloody legacy of Kill Creek.

It was supposed to be a simple publicity stunt: four famous authors spending the night in one of the world’s most notorious haunted houses.