Introduction : just four words / Neil Gaiman -- Blood / Roddy Doyle -- Fossil-figures / Joyce Carol Oates -- Wildfire in Manhattan / Joanne Harris -- The truth is a cave in the Black Mountains / Neil Gaiman -- Unbelief / Michael Marshall Smith -- The stars are falling / Joe R. Lansdale -- Juvenal Nyx / Walter Mosley -- The knife / Richard Adams -- Weights and measures / Jodi Picoult -- Goblin Lake / Michael Swanwick -- Mallon the guru / Peter Straub -- Catch and release / Lawrence Block -- Polka dots and moonbeams / Jeffrey Ford -- Loser / Chuck Palahniuk -- Samantha's diary / Diana Wynne Jones -- Land of the lost / Stewart O'Nan -- Leif in the wind / Gene Wolfe -- Unwell / Carolyn Parkhurst -- A life in fictions / Kat Howard -- Let the past begin / Jonathan Carroll -- The therapist / Jeffery Deaver -- Parallel lines / Tim Powers -- The cult of the nose / Al Sarrantonio -- Human intelligence / Kurt Andersen -- Stories / Michael Moorcock -- The maiden flight of McCauley's Bellerophon / Elizabeth Hand -- The devil on the staircase / Joe Hill.