Scary Science Fiction

The rain hasn't stopped for a week, and the 12 guests of the Blue Vein Tavern are trapped by flooded roads and the rising Skidwrack River. Among them are a ship's captain, tattooed twins, a musician, and a young girl traveling on her own. To pass the time, they begin to tell stories - each a different type of folklore - that eventually reveal more about their own secrets than they intended. As the rain continues to pour down - an uncanny, unnatural amount of rain - the guests begin to realize that the entire city is in danger, and not just from the flood.

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen - and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

Furnace Penitentiary: the world's most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth's surface. Convicted of a murder he didn't commit, sentenced to life without parole, "new fish" Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries.

Jenny's friends are lost one by one to a ghostly wolf and a phantom snake, instruments of the sinister but attractive Shadow Man, who has returned from the Shadow World with a deadly game called "Lambs and Monsters."

Nearly escaping from the evil Mr. Zetes, Kaitlyn Fairchild and her psychic team are dismayed when Gabriel defects to the Institute, and Kaitlyn pretends to betray the group as well in an effort to save her friend.

Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son, and apprentice to the local Spook. He has battled boggarts, witches, and the most powerful evils of the Dark. But his most trying task is yet to come. When Tom and the Spook are deceived by one they trust, they find themselves in the most terrifying danger yet. Blood-hungry creatures have invaded a sleepy village. Tom can save the Spook - and the whole county - but only by betraying one of his greatest allies. With everything on the line, Tom must have the courage to stand and fight, and to face a choice that could break his heart.

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....

Darren, the vampire's assistant, gets a taste of the city when he leaves the Cirque du Freak with Evra the snake-boy and Mr. Crepsley. When corpses are discovered - corpses drained of blood - Darren and Evra are compelled to hunt down whatever foul creature is committing such horrendous acts. Meanwhile, beneath the streets, evil stalks Darren and Evra, and all clues point to Mr. Crepsley. Can they escape, or are they doomed to perish in the tunnels of blood?

Two pink flamingos. A whole family of plaster skunks. Joe Burton's dad loves those tacky lawn ornaments. But then he brings home two ugly lawn gnomes. And that's when the trouble starts. Late at night, when everyone's asleep, someone's creeping in the garden. Whispering nasty things. Smashing melons. Squashing tomatoes. No way two dumb, old lawn ornaments could be causing all the trouble. Is there?

What begins with a sense that Michael's deceased grandfather might be inhabiting his body soon escalates to "slipping" into to the river of the dead. When Michael slips, he relives moments of his grandfather's life and tries to help him find peace. But each time he ventures into the river it's harder to come out again. Michael will have to depend on an unlikely group of friends to keep him from slipping... permanently. A penetrating twist on the classic ghost story, full of humor and insight about family relationships.

For most kids, catching fireflies is a fun summer activity. For twelve-year-old Serwa Boateng, it's a matter of life and death. That's because Serwa knows that some fireflies are really adze, shapeshifting vampires from the forests of Southeastern Ghana. Adze prey on the blood of innocents, possessing their minds and turning them into hulking monsters, and for generations, slayers like Serwa and her parents have protected an unknowing public from their threats.

Cooper Foley always had a knack for finding trouble, but nothing he’s ever experienced could have prepared him for his latest adventure: He has landed square in the middle of a border war between the worlds of the living and the dead. At the end of The Light, Book One of the Morpheus Road trilogy, Marshall Seaver learned the truth about what happened to his missing best friend, Cooper. Now the mystery continues to unfold, only this time through Cooper’s eyes. What did Marshall’s terrifying encounters with Gravedigger have to do with spirits from another existence?

Mackie is a Replacement — left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world. Mackie would give anything to live among us. He just wants to play bass guitar and find out more about an oddly intriguing girl named Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem....

Something is terrorizing the villages of the county. People are dying - covered in blood, their faces frozen in fear. But with not a wound on their bodies. Battling creatures of the dark is the job of the local spook, but 17-year-old Thomas Ward never finished his apprenticeship. It will be no easy task to earn the trust of the villagers and to defeat a monster that no one has ever seen. Yet Jenny - a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter - knows an awful lot about this new evil. And she's willing to share what she's learned with Tom…if he takes her on as his apprentice.

My name is Friday St. Salvatore and I’m what’s known as a living vampire. But just means I haven’t died yet. Once that happens...I become the real deal. Except, I’m not really sure if being undead is what I want. I like being human. Or well, humanish. Unfortunately for me, I was just kidnapped by hunters who are hell bent on playing their sick death games. Me and all the other supernaturals they gathered are just the newest trophy’s they plan to hunt - and kill - for sport. The only way out of here? To escape.

Darren is going back to where it all started, back to where he was reborn as a child of the night. But like Darren, the town has changed a lot over the years. Back home, old enemies await. Scores must be settled. Destiny looks certain to destroy him, and the world is doomed to fall to the Ruler of the Night. Travel home with Darren in this, the penultimate book in the saga.

Our greatest fears are brought to life in this collection of spine-chilling tales. An ordinary round of the Lava Game turns terrifying. An old lodge for loggers is haunted by a miserable ghost. A boy thinks he's home alone until he finds evidence someone else is there with him.

Siblings Kareem and Amina are dreading a night with their neighbor and babysitter Old Mrs. Heeley. The only good thing is, she always brings cupcakes. But when they go to get a tasty treat, Kareem and Amina find that the cupcakes seem to be devouring one another. Will Kareem and Amina be able to stop the madness before the zombie cupcakes take over?

Alice's world is falling apart. Her parents are getting a divorce, and they've cancelled their yearly cottage trip - the one thing that gets Alice through the school year. Instead, Alice and her mom are heading to some small town where Alice's mom will be a live-in nurse to a rich elderly lady. The house is huge, imposing, and spooky, and everything inside is meticulously kept and perfect - not a fun place to spend the summer. Things start to get weird when Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that's an exact replica of the house she's living in.

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.