by Ellen Datlow
“The Gallows Necklace” copyright © 2003 by Sharyn McCrumb.
“Brownie, and Me” copyright © 2003 by Charles L. Grant.
“Velocity” copyright © 2003 by Kathe Koja.
“Limbo” copyright © 2003 by Lucius Shepard.
“The Hortlak” copyright © 2003 by Kelly Link.
“Dancing Men” copyright © 2003 by Glen Hirshberg.
EDITED BY ELLEN DATLOW
Blood Is Not Enough
A Whisper of Blood
Vanishing Acts*
Alien Sex
Lethal Kisses
Little Deaths
EDITED BY ELLEN DATLOW AND TERRI WINDLING
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Sixteen Annual Collections
Snow White, Blood Red
Black Thorn, White Rose
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
Black Swan, White Raven
Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers
Silver Birch, Blood Moon
Black Heart, Ivory Bones
A Wolf at the Door
The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest
Swan Sister
*available from Tor Books
“Something New and Disturbing.”*
“Datlow again proves she’s one of the top editors in the horror field, collecting sixteen memorable ghost stories together in a single volume, proving that there’s plenty of life left in this subgenre … . Highly recommended.”
—Hellnotes
“A terrific tome with a variety of top-notch tales. Has the power to stay with you forever. The stuff from which urban legends are made.”
—Cemetery Dance
“The final pages, in which seconds crawl by and the solitary seeker confronts the dark, are genuinely creepy. Transforms well-known fictional tropes into something new and disturbing. These ghosts show us how much darkness there is in the human heart, and how much bleakness in human society. These are important things for fiction to accomplish.”
—The New York Review of Science Fiction*
“The Dark contains some very fine writing, a sample of the best the horror genre has to offer, and should challenge those dullards who still insist that it isn’t on a par with the finest literature. One of the finest collections of short fiction the horror genre has seen in recent times.”
—The Third Alternative
“What better way to spend a cold winter night than curled in front of the fireplace with a good ghost story or sixteen?”
—The Dallas Morning News
ABOUT THE EDITOR
ELLEN DATLOW is editor of SCI FICTION, the fiction area of SCIFI.COM, the Sci Fi Channel’s Web site. She was fiction editor of Omni for more than seventeen years, and also edited the webzine Event Horizon.
She has edited a number of anthologies, including Little Deaths, Alien Sex, Lethal Kisses, Vanishing Acts (a science fiction anthology on the theme of endangered species), and with Terri Windling, she edits the annual Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. In addition, she and Windling have coedited A Wolf at the Door and Swan Sister (for middle grades), The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, and the six-volume adult fairy tales anthology series beginning with Snow White, Blood Red. She has won the World Fantasy Award six times, the Bram Stoker Award once, and the Hugo Award once. She lives in Manhattan. Her Web site is www.datlow.com.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE DARK: NEW GHOST STORIES
Copyright © 2003 by Ellen Datlow
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781466817685
First eBook Edition : April 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The dark : new ghost stories / edited by Ellen Datlow.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 0-765-30445-7 (PBK)
EAN 978-0765-30445-2 (PBK)
1. Ghost stories, American. 2. Ghost stories, English. I. Datlow, Ellen.
PS648.G48D37 2003
813’.0873308—dc21
2003054336