Brian Lumley, a Grand Master of Horror and author of the popular Necroscope® series, opens the collection with the tense “A Place of Waiting.” The moors of Devon, England, are home to many ghosts, but none as fearsome as the red-eyed specter that refuses to accept his death. His only chance of release, however, comes at a terrible cost.

Orson Scott Card puts a new spin on one of literature’s most famous ghosts in “Hamlet’s Father.” What if the former King of Denmark was not killed by his treacherous brother for his crown, but by someone entirely unexpected as punishment for the darkest of crimes? Would his troubled son still seek revenge?

The patrons of an Edinburgh tavern are introduced to a beverage with an unusual history in “The Haunted Single Malt” by Marvin Kaye, a clever and spooky tale about ghost stories and the people who love them.

Tanith Lee offers “Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata,” a chilling story set in an alternate Russia. When a poor man is rescued from certain death by hospitable strangers, he discovers that he is not a guest in their haunted tenement building—he is a prisoner destined to become a sacrifice.