The Best Horror of the Year-Volume Two

Celebrities take refuge in a white-walled mansion as plague and fever sweep into Cannes; a killer finds that the living dead have no appetite for him; a television presenter stumbles upon the chilling connection between a forgotten animal act and the Whitechapel murders; a nude man unexpectedly appears in the backgrounds of film after film; mysterious lights menace the crew of a small plane; a little girl awakens to discover her nightlight—and more—missing; two sisters hunt vampire dogs in the wild hills of Fiji; lovers get more than they bargained for in a decadent discothèque; a college professor holds a classroom mesmerized as he vivisects Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death' . . .

What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the seventeen stories included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.

Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft Unbound, Tails of Wonder and Imagination), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Two.

Cover Art by Santiago Caruso

Ebook
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, March 2010

Distributed by Night Shade Books
1423 33rd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94122

Electronic version by Baen Books
https://www.baen.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-59780-173-7
ISBN-10: 1-59780-173-9

The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two
© 2010 by Ellen Datlow

This edition of The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two
© 2010 by Night Shade Books

Cover art by Santiago Caruso
Cover design by Michael Ellis
Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

Introduction, story notes, and arrangement © 2010 by Ellen Datlow.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

Night Shade Books
1423 33rd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94122
http://www.nightshadebooks.com

"Lowland Sea" by Suzy McKee Charnas. Copyright © 2009 by Suzy McKee Charnas. First published in Poe edited by Ellen Datlow, Solaris Books.

"The End of Everything" by Steve Eller. Copyright© 2009 by Steve Eller. First published in Phantom edited by Paul Tremblay and Sean Wallace, Prime Books.

 

"Mrs. Midnight" by Reggie Oliver. Copyright© 2009 by Reggie Oliver. First published in The Fifth Black Book of Horror, edited by Charles Black, Mortbury Press.

 

"each thing I show you is a piece of my death" by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer. Copyright © 2009 by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer. First published in Clockwork Phoenix 2 edited by Mike Allen, Norilana Books.

 

"The Nimble Men" by Glen Hirshberg. Copyright© 2009 by Glen Hirshberg. First published in The Rolling Darkness Review 2009 Bartlett: A Centenary Symposium.

 

"What Happens When You Wake Up In the Night" by Michael Marshall Smith. Copyright © 2009 by Michael Marshall Smith. First published as a chapbook by Nightjar Press.

 

"Wendigo" by Micaela Morrissette. Copyright © 2008 by Micaela Morrissette. First published January 2009 in Weird Tales # 352, November/December 2008 issue.

 

"In the Porches of My Ears" by Norman Prentiss. Copyright © 2009 by Norman Prentiss. First published in Postscripts 18: This is the Summer of Love, PS Publishing, Spring. 2009.

 

"Lonegan's Luck" by Stephen Graham Jones. Copyright© 2009 by Stephen Graham Jones. First published in New Genre 6, summer 2009 issue.

 

"The Crevasse" by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud. Copyright© 2009 by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud. First published in Lovecraft Unbound, edited by Ellen Datlow, Dark Horse Books.

 

"The Lion's Den" by Steve Duffy. Copyright© 2009 by Steve Duffy. First published in Cern Zoo, Nemonymous Nine, edited by D.F. Lewis, Megazanthus Press.

 

"Lotophagi" by Edward Morris. Copyright© 2009 by Edward Morris. First published in Farrago's Wainscot 11, July 2009 issue.

 

"The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfall" by Kaaron Warren. Copyright© 2009 by Kaaron Warren. First published in Exotic Gothic 3, edited by Danel Olson, Ash-Tree Press.

 

"Strappado" by Laird Barron. Copyright© 2009 by Laird Barron. First published in Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow, Solaris Books.

 

"The Lammas Worm" by Nina Allan. Copyright© 2009 by Nina Allan. First published in Strange Tales III edited by Rosalie Parker, Tartarus Press.

 

"Technicolor" by John Langan. Copyright © 2009 by John Langan. First published in Poe edited by Ellen Datlow, Solaris Books.