While staying at the remote and reputedly haunted Maine inn run by her father and pregnant stepmother, sixteen-year-old Cynda feels increasingly isolated from her father's new family and finds solace in the attentions of a charming but mysterious guest.

Drawing on dark fantasy and the fairy tale as well as horror and wild humor, ten acclaimed authors pay homage to the gothic tale in wide-ranging stories of the supernatural and surreal.

Lungewater / Joan Aiken -- Morgan Roehmar's boys / Vivian Vande Velde -- Watch and wake / M.T. Anderson -- Forbidden brides of the faceless slaves in the nameless house of the night of dread desire / Neil Gaiman -- The dead and the moonstruck / Caitlin R. Kiernan -- Have no fear, Crumpot is here! / Barry Yourgrau -- Stone tower / Janni Lee Simner -- The prank / Gregory Maguire -- Writing on the wall / Celia Rees -- Endings / Garth Nix.

New sitter -- The snooping sitter -- Doglicks -- A small child and a large sitter -- Lupe and the forgetful family -- Poppy -- Life as a 900 number -- Sitting in Egypt -- Sit! -- Toads and slime -- Double pay -- Cat-bit -- Three brothers -- That knocking on the wall -- A sitter and a find -- My guardian angel -- New sitter.

Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.

Four teenagers who have desperately tried to conceal their responsibility for a hit-and-run accident are pursued by a mystery figure seeking revenge.

Suspicious and uneasy about the atmosphere at her new boarding school, fourteen-year-old Kit slowly realizes why she and the other three students at the school were selected.

Role playing takes on a terrifying cast when 17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a school fair, begins to see actual visions.

Ashley Reeves, journalist, receives a letter promising him a once-in-a-lifetime story. The only thing is, his life is exactly what it might cost him. The letter is from Reginald Mather, a man who at first seems no more than an eccentric collector of insects, living in isolation on a remote island. But when Ashley finds himself stranded with Mather and unearths the horrific truth behind the collector's past, he is thrown headlong into a macabre nightmare that quickly spirals out of control. Ashley's life is in danger. . . .And Mather is not the only enemy. . . . Gruesome, compelling, and terrifying, The Hand of the Devil will make you never want to leave the house without bug spray again.

The show-shoers / George R. Stewart -- The birthday boys / Beryl Bainbridge -- The other side of luck / Greg Child -- Cadillac desert / Marc Reisner -- The seventh man / Haruki Murakami -- To build a fire / Jack London -- A descent into the maelstrom / Edgar Allan Poe -- The hyena / Paul Bowles -- "Come quick! I'm being eaten by a bear" / Larry Kanuit -- The wolves of Aguila / Peter Matthiessen -- The crematioin of Sam McGee / Robert W. Service -- The Marfa lights / Judith M. Breuske -- They bite / Antony Boucher -- The red man / Eric Martin -- Hunters in the snow / Tobias Wolff -- For everything its season / John Long -- McTeague / Frank Norris.