Never one to sit idly, he makes his way toward his father's killer, and unable to control his destructive urges, steps into something way over his head.

As he's about to set on the trail of who was responsible for sending the two killers, he gets a call from someone purporting to be an old friend of his father's, who gives him the name of the man who killed his father. His boss pays for him to take a 'vacation,' and sends a couple of guys to take care of him. Things start going south when a couple of men try to kill him, and he finds a name, Conrad Paxton, written on the back of a card in a wallet belonging to one of the gunmen.

“ Hand of Glory” - The narrator of this story, Johnny Cope, tells his tale in hardboiled mode, which is not strange since he has become a hitman for a local tough-guy gangster.

Excellent story - worth it just for the atmosphere alone!

Later on, after a hike, the women decide to test the waters, so to speak - and the reader is left to wonder if the supernatural is at work here of if it's just, as Lemony Snicket would say, a series of unfortunate incidents. Her arrival coincides with a number of strange dreams Bernice has been having, but Bernice passes off the timing as 'bizarre' and 'too eerie for coincidence.' Off they go, and during a stormy night, the lake's freaky history becomes a topic of conversation to pass the time. Just before the trip is set to get underway, one of the women (Bernice) receives a surprise visit from her niece, who ends up being number eleven on the trip. This year the women are off to a cabin at Lake Crescent, located on the Olympic Peninsula, complete with legendary past: it is rumored to be 'full of demons' who would drag trespassers down to the bottom. “ The Redfield Girls” - For the past ten years, a group of friends, all teachers from the same school, have all come together for a road trip 'along the hinterlands of the Pacific Northwest.' It's a girls' weekend away, where they spend time playing cribbage, drinking wine, reading - anything to unwind before school starts up again.As owner Liam Welloc explains, there are 'plenty of deer and boar on this preserve,' but the real prize is the 'great stag known as Blackwood's Baby.' It is not only 'the equal of any beast' that any of those present have ever hunted, but also the subject of darkest legend in these parts. Set in Washington state, the story begins as hunter Luke Honey has been invited to join a hunting party at the Black Ram Lodge in the forest of Ransom Hollow. “ Blackwood’s Baby” - I've already read this story in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four (Ellen Datlow, ed.)earlier this year, and it was just as creepy this time around.And now, without further ado.the stories.

The beautiful thing that awaits us all