Book excerpt: From Bram Stoker Award-nominated authors Josh Malerman, the newly minted master of modern horror, and John F.D. Taff, the "King of Pain;" to the mind-bending surrealism of Erik T. Johnson; the darkly poetic prose of J. Daniel Stone and the transgressive mania of Joe Schwartz, I Can Taste the Blood offers up five horror novellas from five unique authors whose work consistently expands the boundaries of conventional fiction. I Can Taste the Blood opens the doors to a movie theater of the damned; travels the dusty, sin-drenched desert with an almost Biblical mysterious stranger; recounts the phantasmagoric story of birth, death and rebirth; contracts a hit that’s not at all what it seems; and exposes the disturbing possibilities of what might be killing Smalltown, U.S.A. As diverse as they are, in voice and vision, the work of the five celebrated authors assembled in this stunning volume of terror share one common theme, one hideous and terrifying nightmare that can only be contained within the pages of I Can Taste the Blood. Five Unique Voices. Five Disturbing Visions. One Nightmare. If it's groundbreaking horror stories you want. It's I Can Taste the Blood you need.