Showing results by author "Elizabeth Massie" in All Categories

Twenty-six brand-new tales of ghosts, spirits, and the afterlife to chill even the most hardened listener to their very marrow. Grandmasters and newcomers alike serve well to petrify with stories to keep you lying awake in the dead of night - long after the last of the light has died - listening for that telltale scratching at the door, a soft whisper of disembodied voices, and the icy caress of long-dead fingers upon your ankle.

AFRAID opens the collection with a new poem, "Afraid," which plays with the question, "Why do we read horror?" The 13 stories that follow include darkly light-hearted tales such as "Donald Meets Arnold," "Sweet Kitty," and "Sink or Swim," the graphically terrifying "Pit Boy" and "Los Penitentes," the darkly sinister "Brazen Bull," "Flip Flap," "Triptych of Terror," "Bargain Basement," "Now I'm With the Invalids," "Next Door Collector," and "Thundersylum," and the other-worldly and introspective "Beggars at Dawn."

With an Introduction by Shirley Jackson Award-winner Gemma Files, this outstanding anthology of all things monstrous includes spine-chilling stories from Bentley Little, Simon Clark, Elizabeth Massie, Tim Waggoner, Sumiko Saulson, plus some of the best emerging horror writers working today.

According to legend, the sineater is a dark and mysterious figure of the night, condemned to live alone in the woods. He may come out only when a death in the community occurs. As the mourners turn their backs in fear, the sineater devours food from the chests of the dead, thereby absorbing the sins of the departed and freeing the soul to enter heaven. Yet in a small mountain town, the order has been broken. The sineater has a family of his own, even though they must avert their gaze on the rare occasions he visits them.

When 12-year-old Hilary Wilson’s family moves from Pennsylvania to Justice, Illinois, she finds herself feeling angry, frustrated, and lonely. To make matters worse, bully Frank Simmons, whose favorite pastime is scaring people, decides Hilary should be his next victim. Along with his friends Audrey and Todd, Frank challenges Hilary to join his “Cemetery Club”, which meets inside the huge, imposing Resurrection Cemetery and consists of a series of creepy pranks.

Cascade County, Montana...Middle schoolers Johnel Walker, Tony Walker, and Elliot Green have formed a summer book club. But when Elliot shows them a crusty, dirt-coated, ancient book he discovered in an abandoned cabin and says it’s one they should read next, Johnel and Tony aren’t impressed. They want Elliot to put the book back. Yet the book - or what’s inside it - has other ideas. Each Ameri-Scares novel is based on or inspired by an actual historical event, folktale, or legend specific to the state in which the story is set.

Can ancient, unknown creatures surface in your own backyard? Twelve-year-old Pablo has lived in a small California desert town his whole life, and the sticky black tar puddle by the corral fence has been little more than a nuisance to walk around or step over. But when an earthquake cracks open the bottom of the puddle and mysterious rock-like eggs begin floating up to the top, Pablo and his best friends, Lauren and Victor, realize they have a mystery to solve.

Twelve-year-old Gabe Williams and 11-year-old Isabel Diaz are camping on Brown Mountain with the Outdoor Adventures Camping Club. While there are lots of fun things to do, such as riding four-wheelers, hiking, and tubing, neither Gabe nor Isabel wants to be there. Gabe had wanted to stay home and hang out with his friend. Isabel, whose parents had recently died, just wants to be left alone. One night, camp leader Mike tells the campers about the legend of the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights.

Melody Martin is thrilled to be back in Tennessee to spend a week with her best friend, Jamie Snavely, over the winter break. Without Melody knowing it, however, Jamie has invited another girl, Gwen Jones, to join them for a sleepover. Melody never liked Gwen because the girl constantly brags and makes up wild stories that can’t be true, such as an encounter with the infamous Bell Witch spirit. To make things worse, a sudden blizzard knocks out all the power and phone service to the area.

Anne and Julie, on a school field trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, are having fun looking at the aquatic creatures and talking about other students. But suddenly, in one darkened, deep sea room, Anne vanishes and a strange girl in ragged clothes appears in her place. Anne has switched places in time with a runaway slave named Millie. Now in the year 1849, Anne is captured by a cruel slave catcher and held as a thief on his sailing ship.

It all started with the best of intentions. Kate McDolen, an elementary school teacher, knew she had to protect one of her students, little 8-year-old Mistie, from parents who were making her life a living hell. So Kate packed her bags, quietly picked up Mistie after school one day, and set off with her toward what she thought would be a new life. How could she know she was driving headlong into a nightmare? The nightmare began when Tony jumped into the passenger seat of Kate's car, waving a gun. Tony was a dangerous girl, more dangerous than anyone could have dreamed.

Sometimes the world is a very dark place. You know the magic is still out there, but it feels distant or displaced. Voices in the Darkness is an attempt to create a link, to bring some of those voices together in a single work of art. Six award-winning authors lent their talent to this work. The stories are unique and dark, filled with wonder and emotion.

Twelve-year-old Danny has escaped the children's home where he has lived since he was four, returning to the Shenandoah Valley to find his parents and demanding to know why they gave him up.

A small-town psychic’s trailer burns, leaving little in the wreckage but her lovely green couch. A great find for a couple who make their living scavenging and selling secondhand items. Yet, Madame Cruller’s couch is imbedded with something unpleasant, and we’re not talking fleas.

Identical twin sisters Carrie and Taylor thought their trip to a Catskill Mountain resort with their parents would be an ordinary summer vacation. But soon Carrie, angry that her parents are treating the twins like little kids instead of almost-teens, decides to protest by sneaking off and hiding in the mountain wilderness for a while. Little does she know that she is running away into a tangled and terrifying magical trap that will require all the courage she has as well as the help of her sister to escape.

Homegrown is a story of longing, despair, and hope at a children's home in the mid-1980s. Three teenaged boys - Howard, Mark, and Cooter - have lived at the Protestant Children's Home for much of their lives. Worldly and wise sixteen-year-old Howard is the role model. Fifteen-year-old Mark is the angry rebel. And fourteen-year-old Cooter, the only true "orphan" of the bunch, is the peacemaker, doing his best to make everybody happy and to diffuse bad situations with outrageous humor.

Her family was killed and her home destroyed, during the brutal Civil War. Penniless and desperate to find a new life, 18-year-old Katina Monroe flees from Georgia to Chicago, disguised as a boy. In this great city, she finds work as “William,” acting in a small theater and dreaming of writing brilliant plays that will someday bring her wealth and fame as a woman in her own name.