Christmas Horror

Ebenezer Scrooge is mean and unpleasant. He dislikes people and Christmas especially but on this particular Christmas Eve he’s visited by the ghost of his business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. As Ebenezer sees the effects he’s had on people’s lives, he is transformed.

It starts with the Christmas bell, scratched and worn in one of Grandma Anne's boxes in the attic. Once they put it on the tree, Anne starts to say terrifying things and act strangely. Candace and her mother assume it's her dementia talking - until they start to have dangerous encounters with a fiendish being. As the secrets of Anne's past involving her twin sister rise to the surface, the women face sinister horrors from a dark force looking for revenge. Will any of them be able to survive, or will they fall prey to the malevolent secret Grandma Anne is harboring from her past?

Picking up where the first book left off, Michael Carter sells the magical house on Festive Lane to a new and unsuspecting family, the Hills. A much different family nucleus than the Carters, Harry and Susan Hill, are dealing with a myriad of challenges brought on by the sudden custody of three stepchildren awarded to them by Susan's recently deceased sister, Carin.

There seems to be nothing strange with family Christmas Eve visits...or is there? From Barry T. KuKes' vibrant imagination comes an emotional, enigmatic tale of a magic house that brings the dead back to life every Christmas Eve, in The Christmas House and The Christmas House II: Martha's Return.

It’s late December between Ground Zero and Fatal Error, a winter of discontent for Jack who’s perhaps spending too much time hanging at Julio’s. An old contact, Edward Burkes, convinces him to take on a missing-person fix. As usual, nothing is as it seems, and the missing person isn’t exactly a person. In fact, it’s like nothing anyone has ever seen. And in the middle of all this, the mysterious Madame de Medici hires him to safeguard a valuable object. Simple, right? Not even close. Yep, Jack is back and, as usual, weird trouble is on his heels.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is perhaps the most famous ghost story of all. For nearly 200 years, this tale has singlehandedly extended the haunting season from autumn through winter, and ghost lovers everywhere are happy about that. Traditionally, A Christmas Carol is told and retold each year in every form from plays to movies and TV shows. But, originally, the tale was read aloud as folks sat by the hearth, drinking mulled cider or hot cocoa as they warmed their hands at the fireplace. Many of us first heard the tale as children.

A compilation of five chilling stories from M.R. James, including four previously unreleased stories and originally recorded for the Radio 4 Woman's Hour in Christmas 2007. MR James is an important part of the nation's celebration of Christmas. In the oral tradition, many of his 30 or so tales were penned as Christmas Eve entertainments and read aloud to gatherings of friends.

The Darkness of New Orleans dozed fitfully during the war years, waiting for its chance to play with its toys again. It was a Darkness as carefully hidden as the gates to the small courtyards that lurk between buildings in the French Quarter. In the Le Prete Mansion, a movie is just now wrapping up, having spawned madness in trying to film a seductive tale of death and mystery. Disenfranchised spirits have been sent to the hell of their birth. One lost spirit has found a new home in the body of a French Quarter policewoman.

Lucy normally loves planning for the holidays, but this year, Tinker's Cove has fallen on hard times. With so many residents struggling, Christmas festivities are a luxury some can't afford. But the story's not so bleak at Downeast Mortgage, whose tightfisted owners, Jake Marlowe and Ben Scribner, are raking in profits from everyone's misfortune. Half the town is in their debt, so when the miserly Marlowe is murdered, the mourners are few and the suspects are many. Scribner believes Marlowe's ghost has come to warn him of his own demise, and when he starts receiving death threats, Lucy wonders if there's more to the omen....

That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister ‘tomorrow will be better’, and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price. And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart....

As harsh weather descends on the Texas Hill Country, it’s looking nothing like Christmas at the fort in Ashley Oaks. That is, until Jenni decides the children survivors deserve gifts and a holiday celebration. Christmas during a zombie apocalypse. What can go wrong?

Gabrielle Greene has just been crowned the worst girl who ever lived, and she doesn’t know it yet but she’s leaped to the top of Krampus’ naughty list. Krampus, the mysterious sinister Winter King. Krampus the warden of Christmas who comes calling once a year seeking wicked children to haul back to his snowy lands.

Something festive is growing in the sewer... After last year’s tragedy, Douglas’ parents are ignoring Christmas. But when Douglas finds an eerie strand of lights slithering through the sewer, he unwittingly unleashes merry terror upon his neighborhood’s tacky lights contest. String lights spread like invasive kudzu, turning festive decorations into surreal, predatory nightmares.

It's the most wonderful time of year...or is it? Christmas Eve is a night of mystery and magic, but not always in ways we expect. Things lurk in the shadows, and they're not the least bit jolly or merry. Let's just say some presents are better left unopened. 'Tis the season to be screaming along with our 13 tales of holiday horrors. Ghosts. Monsters. Demons. And more! This Christmas, be careful what you wish for....

A renovation. In the countryside. Just over an hour's train ride from London. An ideal family home. Sold unseen. At auction. Married couple Al and Liz Greenaway love London, but when they discover an impressive country property for sale. A fine house. Once. Solitary, romantic, isolated, and quiet. So quiet that, for the first time in years, Liz can hear her own thoughts as long buried memories emerge. And there's an echo in them, a whisper... For someone else in the house, memories are emerging too.

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. Whether it’s a long-lost returning soldier wondering how best to return to the arms of his family without too great a risk of shock... Or a prodigal son whose taken path has driven pain into his own and others hearts… These stories reveal much about the human condition.

Christmas in New Orleans—a city brimming with cheery jazz, red and green bulbs lighting the streets, the spicy aroma of gumbo, and the cold chill of spirits asking Santa for the gift of redemption. After a string of challenging cases, paranormal investigator Kimberly Wantland is looking forward to spending the holidays quietly with her friends in the Big Easy. But ghosts don’t rest at the Cardinal Hotel. 

A hot holiday toy that brings terror to a department store. A man caught in a blizzard as he searches for help for a dying friend. A girl who wakes up to surprise visitors on Día de los Muertos. A man who recounts a sick and twisted Thanksgiving. A boy who becomes intrigued by a mysterious house and the girl who resides there during fall break. A family man who struggles with a dilemma that may cost him his soul.

Christmas was never a peaceful holiday at Clark Mansion. But Bob and Emma are not aware of its gory past when they purchase the mansion. They dream of raising their family in the expansive home, but their dreams become living nightmares. Emma and the kids witness horrifying sights. Emma is stalked by a madman who wants to control her. Too late, Bob and Emma realize that the mansion holds nothing but evil. As Christmas approaches, the family tries to make an escape. But Clark Mansion is dying to repeat its horrific Christmas past. Can Emma’s family make it out alive?