Year's Best Hardcore Horror, Volume 3

It was a killer year for horror fiction of the harder kind. Authors, editors, and publishers presented readers with some startling works of horrific imagination, stories graphic in the extreme yet with subtleties suggesting larger meanings, tales that explore humanity by plumbing depths of soulless inhumanity and, in some cases, outright depravity. The stories here represent the best of them, disturbing tales that dig deep and take you into the dark heart of horror itself, unrelenting and unapologetic. “So Sings the Siren”, by Annie Neugebauer, takes us onto a dark fantasy stage for a one-night-only performance of mythological torture. Ryan Harding’s “Junk” gets right to the hardcore stuff with the ultimate dick-pic horror tale. Robert Levy’s “The Cenacle” is a literary cemetery feast you may have a hard time stomaching (Tums won’t save you). Luciano Marano made his first pro sell when he sold “Burnt” to DOA III, and the tale has its own fiery fetishistic twist. Tim Waggoner’s “Til Dea