Shadows Over Main Street: An Anthology of Small-Town Lovecraftian Terror

What happens when idyllic small-towns, and the simple folk who inhabit them, collide with inexplicable evil borne of a vast and uncaring cosmos?

Imagine a series of stories set in a golden era of American life, where worldly troubles are regarded from a distance, if at all.

Hear the buzz of playing cards clipped in children’s spokes echo down quiet lanes. Smell the faint aroma of rich tobacco smoke from an old man’s pipe on a shady boulevard. Listen to the gossip of small towns where everyone knows everyone’s business.

Or do they?

Sometimes, deadly secrets lurk out in the barn.

Sometimes, unimaginable evil awaits us in the root cellar.

Sometimes, we fall under the sway of the Shadows Over Main Street.

Foreword: Lovecraft’s Longest Shadow by Ramsey Campbell
The 21st Century Shadow – Stephanie Wytovich
Χταπόδι Σαλάτα – Nick Mamatas
The Black Pyramid – Kevin Lucia
Mountaintown – Chesya Burke
This Stagnant Breath of Change – Brian Hodge
The Floodgates of Willowhill – Mary SanGiovanni
Odd Quahogs – James Chambers
The Thing with a Thousand Legs – Tim Curran
Undergrounders – Aaron Polson
The Flesh or the Father – T. Fox Dunham
White Picket Fences – Richard Thomas
The Friendless Bodies of Unburied Men – Gary Braunbeck
Estranged – Adrian Ludens
Red Hill – Rena Mason
The Abomination of Fensmere – Lucy A. Snyder
The Crisis – Cameron Suey
The Ogre – Lisa Morton
Boss Cthulhu – Jay Wilburn
Homecoming – John Sunseri
A Fiddlehead Party on Carpenter’s Farm - Josh Malerman

Cover art by Luke Spooner. Interior illustrations from Paul Carrick, Vincent Chong, John Coulthart, Galen Dara and HagCult.

Edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward