Death awaits them all ... A man stares into the deep river swirling beneath him - hands tied, noose around his neck - and waits for the order to end his life. Another is trapped for eternity in a room full of corpses. A cowering woman is strangled in the dead of night. These are just some of the countless victims for whom all hope is lost in Ambrose Bierce's chilling stories of death, delusion and the supernatural.