Scary Science Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Sunshine is reluctantly gaining control over her powers as a Luiseach. But while she explores her mystical lineage, she discovers a dangerous discordance - one only she can heal.

Ora wants to win the Strong Monster Contest. The first place winner gets a statue of gold! Ora works. She trains. She cannot think of anything else. Maybe Ora needs to learn that gold isn't everything.

Without the evil vampire Bishop ruling over the town of Morganville, the resident vampires have made major concessions to the human population. With their newfound freedom, Claire Danvers and her friends are almost starting to feel comfortable again. Now Claire can actually concentrate on her studies, and her friend Eve joins the local theatre company. But when one of Eve's castmates goes missing after starting work on a short documentary, Eve suspects the worst.

It’s Day Zero and the Texas zombie virus is quickly spreading throughout the nation. As the infected become fast moving flesh eaters, survivors across the country band together to battle against the onslaught of the undead. In The First Week series, several different groups from coast to coast face off against the growing horde. From the military in the Carolinas and Kansas, to cowboys in North Dakota, to the police in El Paso, and several points in between.

This collection of tales is for fans of ghost-story writer Mary Downing Hahn’s scary but not too scary books. Even the stories without actual ghosts are spooky. Each tale turns something ordinary - a pigeon, a white dress, a stranger on the bus, a puppet - into a sinister link to the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behavior in the present can lead to serious trouble. All the stories have a young person as their central character, so all will resonate easily with young listeners who enjoy the eerie, the creepy, and the otherworldly.

It’s winter in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, where the mist is thick and the salt spray is rattling the windows of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor. It seems that Violet Parma, a fearless girl around his age, lost her parents at the hotel when she was a baby, and she’s sure that the nervous Herbert is the only person who can help her find them.

What if nothing was as it seemed? What if the ground beneath your feet was not made of solid earth and stone but had been hollowed into hundreds of tunnels and passageways? What if there were mysterious forces in these tunnels, mere inches below you as you sit in class or eat a banana? What if it were up to just two kids to stop these forces? What would it feel like to know the fate of an entire town rested on your shoulders? Twelve-year-old Gran Flowerpetal is about to find out.

What is it about the old Wilder Creek Bridge that makes Lewis Barnavelt so curious - and so afraid? When Lewis and his best friend Rose Rita Pottinger set out to explore the bridge and the deserted farm nearby, they discover shocking secrets - and a horrifying monster. Even Lewis's Uncle Jonathan and the magical Mrs. Zimmermann may not be able to vanquish this ferocious creature!

Sure, Dracula can live forever, but he really just wants to hit the beach! To catch some waves, the blood-sucking bat will need a little help. That’s why he’s captured the brainy Buzz Beaker. Now, this wacky whiz kid must turn the Lord of the Vampires into the King of the Beach, or he could be the monster’s next meal.

A vengeful writer sends his enemies mysterious blank books, which turn them into phantoms! The Librarian and the Specialist must save a young boy from the evil ghost writer.

Three Claws is visiting his friend Snorp in the city. Snorp is so nervous. He always gets hurt when he plays with Three Claws. Maybe if they play it safe and stay inside, no one will get hurt.

Twelve-year-old haunt huntress apprentice Evangeline Clement spends her days and nights studying the ways of folk magic, honing her monster-hunting skills while pursuing local bayou banshees and Johnny revenants. With her animal familiar sure to make itself known any day now, the only thing left to do is prove to the council she has heart. Then she will finally be declared a true haunt huntress, worthy of following in the footsteps of her long line of female ancestors.

Most kids have enough to deal with between school, homework, extracurricular activities, and friends, but Molly Bigelow isn't your typical tween. By day, Molly attends MIST - the Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology - but it's what she's learning outside of school that sets her apart from her classmates. Molly is a zombie hunter, just like her mother.

Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she's struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn't easy - not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she's really safe.

In this story, Jack and Annabelle meet the monster Barry and set out to find their new friend Marty. Monster World is counting on them to find Bellion, and they are determined to not let everyone down.

Marzana and her best friend are bored. Even though they live in a notorious city where normal rules do not apply, nothing interesting ever happens to them. Nothing, that is, until Marzana's parents are recruited to help solve an odd crime, and she realizes that this could be the excitement she's been waiting for. She assembles a group of kid detectives with special skills - including the ghost of a ship captain's daughter - and together, they explore hidden passageways, navigate architecture that changes overnight, and try to unravel the puzzle of who the kidnappers are.

This is the original classic story of Bram Stoker's undead monster. It has influenced Western portrayals (including Buffy and Angel) of vampires and vampirism for nearly a century. Even after all this time, Bram Stoker's Dracula remains the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing.

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths - for good and evil - of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies.

When Veronica and her friend, Kirk, decide to investigate why, they stumble upon a more sinister plot than they ever could have imagined. One of Veronica’s high school teachers is crippled by the fact that his dead daughter has never returned as a ghost, and he’s haunted by the possibility that she’s waiting to reappear within a fresh body. Veronica seems like the perfect host. And even if he’s wrong, what’s the harm in creating one more ghost?

The Apocalypse does not end. The Changed will grow in numbers. The Spared may not survive. Even before the EMPs brought down the world, Alex was on the run from the demons of her past and the monster living in her head. After the world was gone, she believed Rule could be a sanctuary for her and those she’d come to love. But she was wrong. Now Alex is in the fight of her life against the adults, who would use her, the survivors, who don’t trust her, and the Changed, who would eat her alive....