True Horror

This book contains 101 bite-sized horror stories that are intended to scare and unsettle you. These are real peoples' accounts of the creepy and the occult - of their near-misses with madmen and paranormal entities. Each chapter is a short, stand alone campfire tale, a retelling of a frightening or gruesome incident that has stuck with the teller, something that gives them pause to this day when they find themselves alone in the dark. These stories have been collected with the knowledge that real life is scarier than fiction.

From honour killings and cannibalism to corporate espionage and cultish conspiracies, the hosts of India’s most popular true crime podcast, The Desi Crime Podcast, bring you twenty chilling cases from across South Asia – including two never aired before. Join Aishwarya and Aryaan as they uncover hidden details of infamous cases that grabbed headlines around the world – and those that did not.

The dead do not rest till they get what they want. You have arrived in the hills. In here, you are surrounded by dense, menacing forests, enveloped in a deadly silence... You never know what lurks here in the cold, dark night. Do not walk alone after sunset in the hills. A beautiful woman in white haunts the Lonely pathways, looking to enchant and ensnare men... All the people who died in accidents here... They say you hear their screams at night. And the deserted lodges sitting amidst lush greenery and calm streams...

Why not get two tales of pure terror for the low price of only one? If you are not frightened by the body-snatching of husband and wife by the long-forgotten spirits of the wife's great-great-grandfather and his "beloved" and their plan to wreak havoc and carnage upon mankind, surely, your mind will be twisted and left in shattered awe at the forlorn story of a woman driven mad by her own nightmare and its abrupt thrust into reality, tearing away everything that might have left her whole...or you.

The Sins of the Past: Kevin Kendrick must come to terms with his grandfather not being who he's always been thought to be and that he killed Kevin's real grandfather decades ago. As times wears on, Kevin feels his mind slipping away, with each tick of the clock stealing something from him. Can he learn to forgive and put everything in the past, where it's always been, or can he, a mild-mannered man, bring justice full circle?

Serial killer Gary Heidnik's name will live on in infamy, and his home, 3520 North Marshall Street in Philadelphia, is a house tainted with the memory of unbelievable horrors. What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive - some for four months - half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched....

Suburbia. Shady, tree-lined streets; well-tended lawns; and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths.

Two soldiers wander through a mist, into enemy hands, soon after, taken to an abandoned cabin, to be tortured for information about the whereabouts of a Union gold payroll shipment. The Confederate deserters seem to forget their history with the place and discover that old crimes live on with those that no longer do. The dead sometimes ache for revenge, and might just tear a man into shredded meat or worse.

You may know Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat from Paranormal Activity, the 2007 found-footage horror film that launched a blockbuster franchise. Now, inspired by the fictional haunting that brought them together, the friends and former co-stars are examining real-life stories of demonic possession, tracing the phenomenon from its earliest known accounts to its modern-day headlines.

Why not get two delightfully-frightening horror stories for the price of one? When Marion cut open the tree, all he found of his best friend was a finger, never again, in more than 70 years, any trace of him. Now, that finger is all that he can give to the only other person to ever search for Nunzio Calabrisi.

"The Masquerade of Death": Targar Negary entombs his only surviving child in a sarcophagus, possibly thinking her to be a victim of the Black Plague that is sweeping Europe. Poor Talis must endure agonizing and seemingly-endless hours of torture within her tomb, wondering who emplaced her there and why, if it was her father, seeking some sort of punishment. With Talis' air running out, she does not believe that she can survive this entombment and find out the reason for it.

The name “Hollywood” conjures up fantastical images of bright lights, glamorous dreams, and impossible riches. From its humble beginnings as a ranch sprawling northwest of Los Angeles in the late 1800s, Hollywood has spanned lifetimes as a factory of dreams, a dazzling place where all things are possible.

In Captive in Iran, Maryam and Marziyeh recount their 259 days in Evin. It’s an amazing story of unyielding faith - when denying God would have meant freedom. Of incredible support from strangers around the world who fought for the women’s release. And of bringing God’s light into one of the world’s darkest places - giving hope to those who had lost everything, and showing love to those in despair.

To his neighbors, Anthony Sowell was a friendly and helpful former Marine. But they didn't know about his dark side - or the gruesome secret inside his house. Sowell's secret life was revealed to the nation on October 29, 2009, when a Cleveland Police SWAT team entered his house to arrest him for an alleged rape. They didn't find Sowell, but they encountered a nightmarish scene: two decomposed bodies in his third-floor living room. Eight more bodies were hidden throughout the house and buried in the back yard.

Do you love a good scary story? What about stories based on actual events? We hear of these scary stories all the time, and we’re disappointed when we find out it was only an elaborate YouTube hoax someone manufactured on their computer. But once in a while, we come across something truly bizarre with no explanation. In Paranormal Horror Stories, David M. Curtis has compiled over 23 short stories of the most shocking and mysterious paranormal events that have actually taken place in the world.

Sharon Marshall was a brilliant and beautiful student whose future was filled with promise—until her murderous, fugitive father drew her into a lifetime of deception that became one of the most baffling cases in the annals of American true crime.

The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm provides detailed insights from the original criminal investigation as well as the perspectives of the man who survived Herb's attempt on his life. This chilling book also features actual supernatural evidence - from EVPs and psychic confirmations to first-hand accounts of the disembodied hands and voices that regularly manifest on the estate.

A girl murders her own father and mother in cold blood. A whole village of people disappears without trace, and all anyone saw were strange lights in the sky. An Egyptian mummy, disturbed after thousands of years, leaves a trail of horrible disasters. Incredible? Impossible? Too awful to imagine? But someone, somewhere has sworn that each of these sinister stories is true...

Unearth the terrifying and true tales behind some of the scariest horror movies to ever haunt our screens, including the Enfield poltergeist case that was retold in The Conjuring 2 and the serial killers who inspired Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs. Behind the Horror dissects these and other bizarre tales to reveal haunting real-life stories of abduction, disappearance, murder, and exorcism.

Built in 1847 on the banks of the Ohio River, the Bellaire House is reputed to be one of the most haunted houses in America. Since the early 20th century it has earned a reputation as a hotbed of paranormal activity, with reports of apparitions, curses, psychic assaults, and violence.