Horror Fiction Stories

Scary stories help children face fear and master it, by portraying the elements of conflict in clear, good-versus-evil terms with good triumphant in the end.

A woman meets her next-door neighbor and loans her a spatula, then starts suffering horrific gaps in her memory. A man, feeling jilted by an unrequited love, becomes obsessed with sorting through his neighbors' garbage in the belief that it will teach him how to better relate to people. A landlord decides to raise the rent, and his tenants hatch a plan to kill him at a team-building retreat. In 10 captivating, unnerving stories, Flowers of Mold presents a range of ordinary individuals who have found themselves left behind by an increasingly urbanized and fragmented world.

Dr. Warthrop is a scientist who tracks and studies real-life monsters. Assisted by his 12-year-old apprentice, Will Henry, Dr. Warthrop discovers a pod of Anthropophagi and launches a hunt to destroy the foul beasts.

All of Edgar Allan Poe’s great short stories in one 16-hour collection.

Marshall Seaver is being haunted. In the first installment of this chillingly compelling trilogy, sixteen-year-old Marshall discovers that something beyond our world is after him. The eerie clues pile up quickly, and when people start dying, it's clear whatever this is - it's huge. Marshall has no idea what's happening to him, but he's soon convinced that it has something to do with his best friend, Cooper, who's been missing for over a week.

Alisa has spent the past five thousand years as a vampire, living alone and fighting for survival. In her loneliness, Alisa cannot resist bringing Teria, a descendant of her human family, into her life. But Alisa is surrounded by death and destruction, and just by knowing Alisa, Teri's life is at risk. Alisa's guilt grows when she becomes involved in a dangerous conspiracy. A top-secret group knows Alisa's secret and will stop at nothing to use her powers for their cause.

Vampire Michael Glass just received the call he's been waiting for all his life. His music has attracted the attention of a heavily connected music producer who wants him to cut a demo and play some dates---which means that Michael will have to enter the human world. But he won't be alone. He's been assigned an undead escort, which includes immortal enforcer Oliver, as well as Michael's human friends: rebellious Eve, oft-misunderstood Claire, and courageous Shane.

When Alexis's little sister Kasey becomes obsessed with an antique doll, Alexis thinks she is just being her usual weird self. Things get weirder, though, when their house starts changing. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner blasts cold air.

Do you hate sleep and love real ghost stories? Then this 50-story collection is exactly what you’re looking for! With terrifying true tales from all around the world, these ghost stories will make you jump at every little sound. We caution you not to listen to these stories if you value good sleep, because these spooky stories will have you sleeping with one eye open! From those bumps in the night to that shadow you notice out of the corner of your eye that vanishes when you look at it, these creepy, chilling stories will leave you on edge and terrified.

A haunting selection of Eve's favorite, chilling, and real-life ghost stories, bound into one amazing collection. In this delicious anthology, you will hear some of the creepiest, real-life paranormal encounters that have happened all over the world! This includes everything from haunted houses to haunted hospitals and hotels, from shadow people to loved ones communicating from beyond - get ready to listen to so much more!

“I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony,” begins one of the most famous tales from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, we follow the straying mind of the unnamed prisoner in his quest for hope in a world of darkness and despair. This episode skyrocketed The Classic Tales Podcast to number 3 on iTunes’ Top 100 Podcasts chart.

After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides listeners with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People”.

What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.

The dark is full of terrifying creatures. And Tom Ward - the seventh son of a seventh son, and the Spook's last apprentice - hasn't seen all of them. Far from the county, one named Slither has lived for hundreds of years, hunting blood. But a dying father binds the monster to a bargain. If Slither will take his two youngest daughters safely to their family in the south, then the eldest daughter, Nessa, is his.

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.

Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she's struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn't easy - not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she's really safe.

"Perfect deadpan marks the opening of Ali Simpson’s The Monster'" writes Susan Merrell of The Southampton Review in her introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading.

Kenny Huldorf is not happy when he learns that he and his family will be moving all the way across the country to Rhode Island, a state smaller than Los Angeles, the city he’s known his whole life. His new home, The Stillwell House, was built in 1789 and, like everything in Providence, it seems old-fashioned and somber. But things start to look a little brighter when Kenny’s mom shows him his new bedroom: a long, open attic with plenty of room and privacy.

All Goff wanted was for his essay on witchcraft to be good enough to win a scholarship to a private academy far away from Spraksville, the miserable, spooky little town he is stuck in. But, if he'd known that Spraksville's history of witchcraft was more than just folklore, he never would have experimented with casting a spell in the cemetery at midnight as research to make the essay great.

It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.