Scary Stories For Adults

It all started as stories - playground tales handed down for generations, stories of plague graves, vanished children and hidden steps leading to a festering underworld. A world so real you could almost smell it.... But when another child goes missing, Fraser wonders if there's some truth in the tales.

Colby Blanchard is the popular cheerleader with the grades, the hunky boyfriend, and the homecoming crown in the bag. Then things go bad - like turning-into-a-vampire bad. And complicating things is the fact that her orthodontist father has removed her canine teeth to give her a perfect smile, so she can't even do the vampire thing properly. Luckily, he's fitting her with some new headgear so she can feed. (So now she's not just a vampire but a dork.)

Working at the mall is supposed to be fun. Trish’s job at Muffin-Mania is hardly intellectually challenging and her boss is a piece of work, but it’s worth it to have a job in the same building as her two best friends, the Hanson twins. And the hot guys who hang out there are an added bonus. But something isn’t right about this mall. It’s the oldest mall in the state, remodeled over a dozen times without rhyme or reason, and there are many strange nooks and secret passages behind the bright gleaming storefronts. Someone has been stealing housewares, furniture, and food, and now a mysterious man with ash-gray hair and a whisper-soft voice has started harassing Trish on the phone.

Teenager Murray Keifer just doesn't fit in at school. And it doesn't help that his mother is too busy entertaining male friends to be involved in his life. His only friends are "Dearly" and "Beloved": dead people buried in the local cemetery. That's right, Murray talks to the dead. But Murray's peaceful and unusual world is torn asunder when he hears the voice of missing teen Nikki Parker, buried in someone else's grave.

On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh, known throughout their small western Pennsylvania town simply as the Twins.

Josh is by far the best zombie Torcher around - at least, he is in his virtual-reality zombie-hunting game. Josh has quickly risen through the player ranks, relying on the skill, cunning, and agility of a real Torcher. Charlie is the top-ranked player in the game. Since all the players are shrouded in anonymity, Josh never expects Charlie to be a girl - and he never expects the offer she makes him: to join the underground gaming league that takes the virtual-reality game off the screen and into the streets.

The Capulets and the Montagues have some deep and essential differences. Blood differences. Of course, the Capulets can escape their vampire fate, and the Montagues can try not to kill their undead enemies. But at the end of the day, their blood feud is unstoppable. So it's really quite a problem when Juliet, a vampire-to-be, and Romeo, the human who should be hunting her, fall desperately in love. What they don't realize is how deadly their love will turn out to be - or what it will mean for their afterlives....

Thruppence and Tim don't know what to expect when they ring the bell at the house with dusty windows. The Ministry of Ghosts has been given three months to prove the existence of ghosts! As it seems that children are particularly magnetic to ghosts, Thruppence and Tim are added to their ghost-catching team. And although neither of them are scared by talk of ghosts or monsters, they could never have imagined what happens next....

When 13-year-old Eric Parrish comes across glowing mushrooms in the woods behind his house, he's sure there's a scientific explanation. But when they start encroaching on the town - covering the football field and popping up from beneath the floorboards - Eric knows something's seriously wrong. Not that much else is going right.... Then a runaway girl from a nearby boarding school warns Eric that the fungus could portend doom.

Jack is spending the summer on a private island far from modern conveniences. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, no one else on the island but a housekeeper and the two very peculiar children in his care. The first time Jack sees the huge black mansion atop a windswept hill, he senses something cold, something more sinister than even the dark house itself. Soon, he feels terribly isolated and alone. Yet he is not alone. The house has visitors - peering in the windows, staring from across the shore. But why doesn't anyone else see them...? And what do they want?

Never say their name! If you do, they will find you! If they find you, they will eat you! Thirteen-year-old Oz Griffin knows it's his fault that the Takers are eating everyone in sight. He also knows that a comic book written by a neighborhood boy is the key to defeating them. But every time he and his band of survivors try to read the comic book, the Takers draw closer. Can they get to the end of the story before the Takers devour them?

It's just another long, hot summer - until Derek Cliver and his friends join an exciting new mail-order club. The Terror Club allows Derek and his friends to create their own monsters. And it gives them the opportunity to "dispose" of those they despise most. But the game turns terrifyingly real when the monsters they create come to life - and actually murder their rivals. Now, as the body count rises, Derek and his friends must somehow undo what they've done ... before they become the next victims!

In Ghostgirl: Homecoming, Hurley continues the story of Charlotte Usher, who finds herself dead but unable to rest in peace…yet. Before she can cross over, Charlotte must help other teens through problems of their own. When Petula, a popular cheerleader, and her sister, Scarlet, end up in comas, Charlotte aims to save them—but her helping hand may do more harm than good.

Though Carolyn’s mother never expected to inherit Glanton House from long-lost Aunt Hazel, she wants to make the most of the opportunity. Planning to turn the creaky waterfront mansion into a hotel, she moves Carolyn down to the seashore. But this house has a nightmarish history. As the story goes, Captain Glanton spent so long at sea that his wife, believing him dead, took a new lover. When her husband finally returned, her new love - a mysterious drifter - brutally murdered him, and she went mad with grief.

'Jax' Pherson has power, enough power to know her future will end in service to the dark coven her father controls. Unless she can stay hidden in a small community in the mountains of North Carolina. She must find a way to live without magic and deny the darkness she feels welling up inside her - the same dark power that fuels the covens around the world. All she wants is a normal life. A boyfriend. Friends. Some place to belong. But all too soon, Jax's barely begun new life hangs in the balance....

Thirteen-year-old Jessamine Grace and her mother make a living as sham spiritualists - until they discover that Jess is a mesmerist and that she really can talk to the dead. Soon she is plunged into the dark world of Victorian London's supernatural underbelly and learns that the city is under attack by ghouls, monsters, and spirit summoners. Can Jess fight these powerful forces? And will the group of strange children with mysterious powers she befriends be able to help?

If you move around enough, every new school starts to look the same. But it doesn’t take an hour for Marlee Fleming to realize that Edison, Missouri, has a sinister secret. There’s something strange about Marlee, a power she doesn’t quite understand. Certain objects make her hear and see things no one else can. This power makes her feel sick, and she wishes she knew how to make it stop. But when she opens her new locker on her first day in Edison, she hears screaming so loud she nearly passes out.

The entity is ancient. It has taken form before, in other places, other guises. This time the place is Buffalo. The form is that of a magnificent woman...created from the dreams of a child. The eternal hunger is immense. The entity must feed. And it's prey is human. Psychic detective Ryerson Biertgarten is appalled at the savagery of the first killings. Far worse lies ahead, for the detective as well as the city. He is falling in love with a wonderful woman - but Joan will die - unless he can stop... The Devouring...

In Old Scratch Wood on Dartmoor, quarrelling cousins Matt and Tilda find a buried skull. And from that moment black things begin to happen. Birds and animals turn bad, and there are rumours of the return of an ancient curse known as the gabbleratchet. But what can Matt and Tilda do to stop it...? This thrilling recording contains special bonus material, only available on this audio edition, featuring the character Gabe and the real curse of old Scratch Wood...

Life's a beach . . . and then you're undead? In this must-have collection, five of today's hottest writers tell supernatural tales of vacations gone awry. Lost luggage is only mildly unpleasant compared to bunking with a witch who holds a grudge. And a sunburn might be embarrassing and painful, but it doesn't last as long as a curse. Of course, even in the most hellish of situations, love can thrive.... From light and funny to dark and creepy, these stories have something for everyone. You definitely won't want to leave this collection at home!