Dracula's Guest & Other Tales of Horror / Fall River Press (ePub)

Vengeful ghosts, ravenous rats, gypsy curses, and the walking dead await you in Dracula's Guest & Other Tales of Horror, a collection of the best short macabre fiction of Bram Stoker, author of the immortal vampire classic Dracula. Written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the twelve tales and one full story-cycle reprinted in this volume shine a light on the shadowy side of Victorian fancy. Selections include:

• “Dracula's Guest”—On Walpurgisnacht, when the devil walks abroad, an unwary traveler takes refuge in a tomb, saving himself from wolves and wild elements for an even greater horror to come.
• “The Burial of the Rats”—In the slums of Paris, the hungry poor partner with hungrier vermin to dispose of the corpses of robbery victims.
• “The Judge's House”—The magistrate's house lay untenanted for a long time—that is, by all but the haunting presence of the evil judge himself.
• “The Squaw”—A mother wronged stalks the man who wronged her with bestial cunning.
• “The Secret of the Growing Gold”—Murder will out when the tresses of the victim snake their way to the killer.

In addition to these excursions into the macabre, this volume reprints in full Stoker's dark fantasy collection from 1882, Under the Sunset. Originally intended for younger readers, the eight interconnected fables from this book are brim full of sorcery, monstrous creatures, fey beings, and supernatural scenarios that make frightful fare for readers of all ages.