Horror Town

In this short story, Zeke had enough of big city life, but something has followed him to the backwoods. Every predator, natural or unnatural, gets only one chance to learn how dangerous it is to push a country boy in the corner.

Always up for trying something new, Kath and her friends from the fiber and needlework group TGIF - Thank Goodness It's Fiber - are visiting Cloud Hollow Farm for the day to learn the fine art of dyeing. With spring in the air, the friends head out to greet the sheep. But the sheep are more interested in something else - two bodies spread under a tall tree. And one of those bodies is someone they know. Kath's friends nudge her to investigate.

Jared, having once triumphed over a ruthless demon, believes he’s ready for anything. But as he settles back into the familiarity of home for a well-deserved college break, an unexpected visitor shatters his confidence—a ghost, not of malice but of warning, leaves him with a cryptic message of impending doom.

Someone is terrorizing the elderly and vandalizing their homes in a certain neighborhood in Spookie. As usual, Abigail Sutton, a freelance artist, and her boyfriend, Frank Lester, a retired homicide detective, are called in to help find out who's doing these awful acts. The two seem to have an uncanny knack for unraveling mysteries and getting to the bottom of such strange happenings. Some of the old people think it's ghosts in their basements, in their homes, doing these destructive deeds, but Frank doesn't believe in ghosts while Abigail isn't so sure.

In an isolated town, far within the icy mountains, an unspeakable horror roams the woods. A dark past drives wedges between the people who must unite if there is to be any hope to save the town and its isolated inhabitants.

The white wolf King Vladimir Tarquinius is King of the Lycans. He is struggling to get his people safely from the Carpathian mountains to the United States, to avoid the evil Blackthorn who wishes to destroy everyone he cares about. He thinks he shall spend his life in the service of his people, with no regard for his own happiness. He unexpectedly meets Gloria Daniels, a young mother struggling to survive. Her beauty captivates Vladimir - can he win this young woman's love? Can he save his people? Can he avoid Blackthorn?

High in the ridges of Appalachia, Emily Child carries a secret that could kill her. Pregnant, but not in the way she dreamed of, her body has turned against her, and time is running out. While her husband searches in desperation, Emily follows an older trail: the half-forgotten path to the Isabella, the midwife who raised her, a woman whispered about in both reverence and fear. Guided by memory, folklore, and the voices of the hills themselves, Emily must navigate not only the dangers of her own failing body but also the haunting pull of a world where the line between healing and myth blurs.

When five friends are invited to a religious celebration in a small, isolated town, they are initially showered by the townsfolk with gifts and attention. As the days go by, however, it becomes clear that the community is not as innocuous as it initially presented itself. Mysterious, robed figures violently beat people who express different opinions, strange rituals take place in the church at night, and armed gunmen patrol the town perimeters–all under Prophet Martin’s orders.

On the surface, Ashford, Vermont, seems like a quaint New England college town, but to those who live among the shadowy remains of its abandoned mills and factories, and beneath its towering steel bridges, it's known as Burntown. Eva Sandeski, who goes by the name Necco on the street, has been...

Thirteen years ago, Jori Trahan’s boyfriend vanished without a trace. Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance. Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length - including murder - to keep their dark secrets buried.

Last February, the second Tuesday of the month was just like any other day in the life of Michael Spire. He'd never been one to believe in ghosts or things that went bump in the night, but sometimes things change. Don't they?

Fourteen-year-old Eric Ross is struggling. His father is in prison for murder. His mother has slipped into addiction. Even if he can survive the bullying and the sudden run of disappearances, he has little hope for a future outside of the sleepy Massachusetts fishing town he calls home. But there is something far more important on his mind. He found her down beneath the local entertainment pier, and she seems just about perfect. Except for the teeth. But she doesn't want to simply be a part of his world. She wants more . . .

Things still linger in the creeks, swamps, and low places of our childhoods. They never venture into the road, nor rise to stand in open fields. They crawl about in the spider corners of aging barns, moan from mist-choked river banks, and stand hunched and patient in the shadows as we age and die. These beings neither heaven nor hell can claim.

When her life as a New York City attorney becomes an unbearable moral burden, Lois Golden packs up her teenage daughter Janet and heads to rural Vermont to fulfill her childhood dream of owning a small-town inn. However, this inn holds a wealth of dark secrets, full of deceit, death, and horrifying experiments that have left an undeniable mark of evil. When a vengeful spirit emerges, forcing all within the inn to experience their greatest fears, will Lois be able to fight back and salvage her dream from the nightmare it has become?

The Grimes sisters aren’t normal—even by witches’ standards. For weeks, Fiona has been having chilling visions of death, and Eleanor sees restless spirits nearly everywhere she goes. It doesn’t help that Mountain Shadow is a strange place to begin with, where rumors of curses fly as fast as saltwater taffy on a warm summer day. When a string of gruesome murders rocks the small town, Fiona and the rest of her coven begin to worry that a fellow witch may be the killer. Even worse? A witch hunter has just moved in next door, and he suspects the coven.

Detective Matthew Cunningham is haunted by ghosts. He spends his days skulking through Boston, lost in depression and angst. His wife loves him but cannot stand his darkness much longer. He needs to be given a direction to face and a problem to confront. And a problem does come.

It's time for Blue Plum's annual historical festival, and everyone-including Kath and her spunky fiber and needlework group, TGIF-is getting in on the action. Expert spinners are being gathered, and a businessman has approached Kath about using the second-floor windows of her store for part of a reenactment. But the reenactment ends in real-life bloodshed when local baker Reva Louise Snapp is shot-with a bullet from a modern-day gun.

In November 2014 Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and sister to death with a hammer. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation. King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself as he questions whether Arla's responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out.

Natalie and Rose are transported in their imaginations to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, where one of their ancestors survived in a lifeboat for 50 days. Natalie struggles when her daughter, Rose, is diagnosed with type-1 diabetes, but the researching and retelling of Grandad Colin's story provides them both with a way to fight through. Louise Beech has always been haunted by the sea, and regularly writes travel pieces for the Hull Daily Mail, where she was a columnist for ten years.

An isolated Welsh island seemed like the perfect escape for a convict on the run, a jilted woman, and a policeman seeking a quiet life. When the surly locals turn to murderous violence, the three visitors are forced to flee together, trying to stay one step ahead of their increasingly insane pursuers. The bad news keeps coming. There are too many to fight. There is no escape from the island. And the worst storm in years has just begun. They can only run and hide as they face a night of horror and madness. If they don't work together, then none of them will live to see the light of day.