Scary Horror

Vlad’s running out of time. The Elysian Council has given him only weeks to live, and that’s if the Slayer Society doesn’t kill him - along with all the citizens of Bathory - first. Then there’s the issue of Vlad’s father, who may or may not still be alive after all these years. Oh yeah, and that tiny little detail in the Pravus prophecy about Vlad enslaving Vampirekind and the human race. So much for college applications.

I must be brave. I must do what has to be done. I am Alice. Alice is the most powerful witch the county has ever seen. She may one day be the most evil. But Alice is also the best friend - and true love - of Tom Ward. Together they work to defeat the Fiend - the world's greatest evil - once and for all. They have nearly everything they need, all except a blade hidden in the Dark, the Fiend's domain. So Alice ventures there to find it. She faces the most terrifying creatures in existence. And she once again battles old enemies who bear grudges: Bony Lizzie, Bloodeye, and more.

They didn't mean it. They didn't mean to hit the boy. There was a party, and it was an accident... that wasn't who they were. They were pre-law, a football player, bound for New York. No one could know, so Barry, Julie, Helen, and Ray swore one another to secrecy. But now, a year later, someone knows. Julie receives a haunting, anonymous threat: "I know what you did last summer." The dark lie is unearthed, and before the four friends know it they need to outsmart a killer... or they will be the next to die.

Journalist Heidi Cohen is in Cape Cod investigating the sources of recurring toxic algae blooms along the coast. A local named Jimmy has his own theory for her. Every year the fetid growth gets worse—but it’s been going on longer than anyone knows. Decades ago, something happened to Jimmy that he’s never forgotten. Is Heidi ready for the real story?

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.

Joss McMillan’s perfect life crashes down the night he witnesses his sister’s murder - at the hands of a vampire. He then finds out his family’s secret heritage: They are part of the Slayer Society, a group whose mission is to rid the world of vampires. Joss is their new recruit. As Joss trains, bent on seeking revenge for his sister, he discovers powers that could make him the youngest, strongest Slayer in history. But there is a traitor in the Society, one whose identity would shake Joss to the core... if the traitor doesn’t kill him first.

Buddy wakes up in the middle of a garbage dump, filled with a certain awareness: he’s a teddy bear; he spent time at a Store waiting for his future to begin; and he is meant for the loving arms of a child. Now he knows one more thing: Something has gone terribly wrong. Soon he finds other discarded teddies - Horace, Sugar, Sunny, and Reginald. Though they aren’t sure how their luck soured, they all agree that they need to get back to the Store if they’re ever to fulfill their destinies.

How much fear can one man take? Marcus Holt thought his worst memories were behind him. A veteran of the Vietnam War, the tough old soldier is haunted by nightmares of brutal conflict. But he’s about to discover that his battle for survival has only just begun. Professor Abel Worthe is brilliant, wealthy, and utterly immoral. He is an expert in a very particular field: the study of fear and death. Using his vast resources, Worthe has purchased a collection of haunted houses and paranormal sites, hidden across the world.

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.

Claire Danvers' college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead has made things relatively safe - for a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking Claire, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring.

Shane Ryan is no stranger to violence. He still carries the scars left by his battles against supernatural evil. But when a new enemy targets the people Shane served with in the Corps, the retired Marine finds himself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse. With only his young friend Tom Daniels to watch his back, Shane travels across America. Every move he makes is monitored. Everything he says or does is watched. And if he fails to follow this mysterious villain’s instructions, his fellow Marines will die.

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.

The tattooed plus sign on Finnegan's hand marks him as a Positive. At any time the zombie virus could explode in his body, turning him from a rational human into a ravenous monster. His only chance of a normal life is to survive the last two years of the potential incubation period. If he reaches his 21st birthday without an incident, he'll be cleared.

The Strauss family is on knife’s edge. Sam is a resentful stay-at-home dad. Rachel feels the restlessness in her blood returning. Their children are getting out of hand. And a recent mudslide has forced the wolves out of the woods to look for food. As dusk falls and tensions rise, the family must come together to survive the night—from the threats outside and those within.

Devin and his sister Violet are visiting their Uncle Jack in an old house by the seashore. Jack was a sailor and he has collected strange and fascinating items from the sea. Exploring a back room, Devin and Violet discover a locked trunk. A pirate's chest. They manage to get it open - and see that it's filled with antique jack-in-the-boxes. Huh? Up pops a very ugly, mean-looking puppet, an old pirate with a dirty red bandana over his long greasy hair. "Thanks for letting Sailor Jack out!" he rasps. Will Jack return them to their uncle? Just how much is a pirate's promise worth?

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.

Thanks to its unique combination of human and vampire residents, Morganville, Texas, is a small college town with big-time problems. When student Claire Danvers gets the chance to experience life on the outside, she takes it. But Morganville isn't the only town with vampire trouble. Claire never thought she'd leave Morganville, but when she gets accepted into the graduate program at MIT, she can't pass up the opportunity. Saying good-bye to her friends is bittersweet, especially since things are still raw and unsettled between Claire and her boyfriend, Shane.

Walking corpses, dancing bones, knife-wielding madmen, and narrow escapes from death - they're all here in this chilling collection of ghost stories, collected and retold by folklorist Alvin Schwartz. Brought to spine-tingling, flesh-crawling life by acclaimed Broadway actor (and master ghoul) George S. Irving, these horrific tales are guaranteed to raise goosebumps. Let the faint of heart beware.

American poet, critic, and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe is universally recognized for his cultivation of the macabre in fiction. His stories are characterized by an original kind of supernatural horror, often using the awareness of death as a catalyzing force in its own right. His tales and poems brim with psychological depth and intense imagery, made vivid through his musical language and hypnotic rhythms, which are especially captivating when heard aloud.

Get ready for 13 terrifying tales to keep you up at night. Bruce is back with more short scary stories.