T. M. Wright

Jack Erthmun does not believe that the dead actually speak to him. But in their own way they tell him so much. Jack is a New York City police detective with his own very peculiar ways of solving homicides, and those ways are beginning to frighten his colleagues. He gets results, but at what cost? What's happening to Jack Erthmun? This may be Jack's last case — he's assigned to a series of unspeakable killings, gruesome murders with details that make even seasoned detectives queasy. But as he goes deeper into the facts of the case, facts that make it seem no human killer can be involved, Jack begins to get more and more erratic. Is it the case that's affecting Jack? Or is it something else, something no one even dares to consider?

An unsuspecting phtographer visiting Manhattan, Abner Cray encounters a wide variety of people who have just two things in common — they are all dead, and they want him to join them.

Ryerson Biergarten is always willing to offer his psychic services to the forces of law and order. But when he tries to help police find a serial killer who is hiding his victims in odd corners of office buildings, he is met with distrust and suspicion. Ryerson knows the eerie places between life and death, but this time he needs the help that police are refusing to give.

The Waiting Room, by American artist Abby Heller-Burnham, was painted and first shown in Philadelphia in the Aughts.

It's a nice house on a country road. Jack and Erika Harris expect to be happy there. It doesn't matter that they're living in a deserted suburb where, years ago, murders and mutilations destroyed the residents. It doesn't matter...until those that caused the deaths come back — those that sprang from the earth. Those that need. Those that are not human. The Harris's nice house stands between them and what they must have. Nothing has ever mattered more.

A little boy briefly outlines his activities at school.

From Carlisle Street, the children's voices call. Their strange eyes stare through the tall grass in the middle of a country field. In darkened air beneath a bright blue sky, their desolate mother's scream falls into silence. Beside an unseen lamppost, among the darkening trees, a gentle killer, smelling of cloves, waits to repeat, I love you. Carlisle Street's people want. They need. They're here. Now.

Homecoming. Now once again, after so many centuries, they stood upon the island. Manhattan Island. The place which, before the buildings had been put up to cut the sky apart and before the subways sliced through the earth, had been the place of their birth. The place where they had first sprung up. The place that had nourished them, and given them pleasure, before men had found them and driven them away. But they had survived. Survived to this moment. And now they had returned to reclaim the island that had given them the strength of life and the power of death...and soon every man, woman and child on the island would know it.

Fifteen years is a long time. Memories fade away, but the horror remains. Fifteen years ago, two newlyweds perished at the edge of the woods. Now a development of one-family homes stands where their farm once was. For Janice McIntyre and her husband, this new community by the quiet, lovely woods is a perfect place to raise their expected child. Except for the ghosts...

A new husband and a new home, what more could a newlywed want? Unfortunately, home is an isolated neglected farm house near an encroaching woods. And each day Rachel's husband grows quieter and more introspective. Worse, she cannot ignore the menacing woods she sees from the porch windows. They are the hiding place for abandoned children. But are they truly children and, if not, what are they? Paul Griffin always felt very uncomfortable with New York City's noise and harsh urban atmosphere. He needed the old pattern, the one he had known as a boy with the father he loved. The small farm house in upstate New York wasn't much of a birthright. But, it would be home for Rachel and Paul at least until their plans to renovate and sell the house are realized. At first, Rachel feels uncomfortable with the silence and isolation. She is determined to make it work. But, slowly, inexorably, it becomes clear that more than nostalgia brought Paul home. It was something more subtle and more powerful. It was a pattern within himself, one which had been interrupted over two decades before, one which had to be played out. It was as sacred, immutable, and frightening as the inevitable transition of the seasons. It is visible on the faces of the dark and beautiful children that now come into their lives, leaving a legacy of terror. A pattern that can destroy anyone who would interfere with it.

Is there anybody out there? / Stephen Jones -- The handover ; Night falls, again ; One one three ; And a place for everything ; Old flame ; A London story ; REMtemps ; The intruders (novel excerpt) / Michael Marshall Smith -- Dinner at Baldassaro's / Lucius Shepard The age of sorrow / Nancy Kilpatrick -- Eels / Stephen Gallagher -- Hearing aid / Who dies best / Stephen Volk -- Rainy day people / T.M. Wright -- If you see me, say hello / Thomas Tessier -- The luxury of harm / Christopher Fowler -- D-Leb / Allen Ashley -- Call waiting / P.D. Cacek. Between the cold moon and the earth / Peter Atkins -- Summer's lease / Chaz Brenchley -- Distress call / Connie Willis -- Thumbprint / Joe Hill -- Mud skin / Paul Jessup -- Discovering ghosts / Tim Lebbon -- In fetu / James Cooper -- The last testament of Seamus Todd, soldier of the queen / Graham Joyce -- Peep / Ramsey Campbell -- This rich evil sound / Steven Erikson -- Graduation afternoon / Stephen King -- Nothing prepares you / Mark Morris -- Closet dreams / Lisa Tuttle.

Shaw is in Fiji to sell a stolen painting to the crime boss, Vornis. It will be the deal of a lifetime, if Shaw can pull it off. But then Vornis parades his latest toy around in front of him—a captured DEA agent whose time is running out. It’s none of Shaw’s business, and it doesn’t matter that under any other circumstances Lee would be exactly Shaw’s type: he’s young, he’s hot, and he might even have a personality if they hadn’t beaten it out of him. Too bad there’s no way Lee is getting off the island. Too bad there’s nothing Shaw can do for him. And too bad there are some lines that even Shaw won’t cross. Keeping his hands off Lee proves harder than he thinks, but Shaw’s not stupid enough to fall for the tortured captive of a dangerous crime boss, is he? If he did, it wouldn’t be just his job he would be risking—it would be his life.