Scary Science Fiction

When Kara Westfall was six years old, her mother was convicted of the worst of all crimes: Witchcraft. Years later, Kara and her little brother, Taff, are still shunned by the people of their village, who believe that nothing is more evil than magic…except, perhaps, the mysterious forest that covers nearly the entire island. It has many names, this place. Sometimes it is called the Dark Wood, or Sordyr's Realm. But mostly it's called the Thickety.

Reading someone's diary is bad but Slappy is already evil, so how could anyone resist finding out all of this dummy's terrifying secrets? Zoey and Billy Traister find a large suitcase in a trash pile in the empty lot behind their house. Inside: a grinning ventriloquist dummy. Who would throw out a perfectly good dummy? They bring it home and quickly find out why the dummy was tossed in the trash.

Thirteen-year-old Molly doesn't know how she got the short end of the stick - being raised by her neglectful father - while Dustin, the older brother she's never met, got their mother and the keys to the family estate. But now the siblings are both orphaned, she's come home for her inheritance, and if Dustin won't welcome her into the family business, then she'll happily take her half in cash. There's just one problem: The family business is a mortuary for monsters.

When a new family moves into a house in Pendle, they discover a witch's bottle filled with curses. Soon the spirits of those accused of witchcraft in the infamous Pendle Witch Trials of 1612 are released, wreaking havoc in the area. Eve, Clovis and Tom are enlisted to investigate in their latest and most challenging mission yet. Together with their mentor, Professor Rufus, they must go up against the ghosts of the Pendle witches. But the ghosts are hellbent on possessing the descendants of those who were responsible for their deadly trials.

“Then it stopped. Its head flowed around on its shoulders, as it seemed to have discovered the crib. It loomed there motionless, examining the small cage from across the room. Then Pat knew - it was looking for her.” A true ghost story! Based on a real incident that the author's mother experienced as a child. It's a snowy night in a spooky new house and Pat fears bedtime because when the lights go out a malevolent entity stalks the dark!

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths - for good and evil - of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies.

The last thing Tasha Washington wants is to move from her home in Savannah to a trailer park in Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia. But when her mother dies and Tasha is taken in by her father—a man she’s never met, who abandoned her mom when Tasha was just a baby—she doesn’t have much of a choice. At least, she thinks, she won’t have to spend much time with him—something that becomes clear when he dumps Tasha with her grandmother and disappears to be with his new girlfriend.

Meet Hex. She's a fairy-tale witch! Hex has magic powers. She likes to fly around and play tricks on people. But don't worry. Hex is not real. She's one of the monsters you meet in stories. She just wants to tell you about fairy-tale witches. Learn how a witch scares villagers. Meet different kinds of witches around the world. And find out where witch tales come from. You'll have a creepy time with this monster buddy!

Gretas neues Schuljahr schreit danach, großartig zu werden – oder auch nicht! Denn ihre ziemlich verrückte Hippie-Oma Gigi hat sich das Bein gebrochen und reist kurzerhand mit ihrem Glitzerfunkel-Wohnwagen zu ihr und ihren beiden Vätern. Statt coolen Mädelstreffen steht nun Omasitten auf dem Plan. Doch als Greta zufällig entdeckt, dass ihre Oma durch die Mikrowelle mit Geistern sprechen kann, ist der Sommer gleich gar nicht mehr so doof.

There are dinosaurs in Spooksville! Huge meat-eating lizards attack people in their cars. Flying reptiles swoop down and lift kids away. But where did these dinosaurs come from? Adam and his friends discover a doorway that connects present-day Spooksville with 60 million years ago. It’s through this portal that the dinosaurs are emerging and attacking the town. Who created the passageway? And can it be closed before all of Spooksville is destroyed?

Adam says he can’t remember where he was for the two months he went missing in a Florida swamp. That’s not true. He does remember. The truth: He was driving with his parents, and the car crashed when his father swerved to avoid colliding with a giant Sasquatch-like creature standing in the highway. Haunted by his parents’ disappearance and hounded for claiming to have seen Bigfoot, Adam sets off into the deadly wilderness on a hunt for answers as to what really happened that night.

Time is running out for the star crossed lovers, the teenagers thrown together by fate who were supposed to be trying to kill each other. The undead infection is spreading in Scarlet, slowly worming its way through her body. As they race across the wastelands to the last outpost with advanced medical facilities, their fathers go to war. The cult begins its advance on the free states headquarters and Casey's ruthless cannibals are gathering their forces for their own attack. No one gets to sit this one out. Everyone fights.

Then you don't mind sitting by a vampire's tomb at midnight. Or being locked up with the mummies in a dark museum. Or you might like to join the mysterious boy who lurks in the shadows at Saint Michael's. Or the ghost who waits by the side of the road. Or maybe, when you are home alone, you'd like to listen to these spine-chilling tales...and try to believe they won't happen to you!

Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of 19th-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a 16-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school. Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known....

Richard Hsieh's life is about to become a total nightmare. His dad studies dreams and they hook his new Slappy doll up to the dream machine as a joke. All of a sudden, Richard's dreams are becoming scarier and scarier. Each time, seeing Slappy, his birthday present, come to life and wreak havoc. But they're only dreams, right?

Ian was the one who chased the majestic buck into the forest. (His motto: act first, think later.) Kendra didn't want to become separated from the other sixth graders, but she followed Ian anyway, despite what her analytical mind told her. PJ followed him too. Even though he was scared, he figured he might catch some amazing footage with his video camera. They all hoped to return to the hiking trail before anyone noticed they were gone. However, the mountain had other plans for them: dark, sinister plans that only nightmares are made of.

In a town surrounded by deadly mist, and filled with oddities, two young siblings become orphans. And that's the best thing that's happened to them all day. Howard Howard was a Wrecker (a brute and bully by profession) who was brutal and bullish to his children - Aubrey and Aubrey's sister. Howard Howard deserved to be turned into mince, and thanks to a mysterious duo called The Grinders, that's exactly what happened to Howard Howard.

When Adam and his friends stay up late one night, they see bright lights in the sky. Lights that look suspiciously like flying saucers. Then, the next night, one of the saucers lands by the reservoir, and the creatures who come out of the ship don’t look like people at all. Their heads are too large, and their eyes are too big and black. Worse, they want Adam and his friends to come with them for a little ride in space. They practically drag the kids into their ship. Then the flying saucer takes off! Can Adam and his friends figure out a way to get home?

While developing a new system to maintain Morganville's defenses, student Claire Danvers discovers a way to amplify vampire mental powers. Through this, she's able to reestablish the field around this vampire-infested Texas college town that protects it from outsiders. But the new upgrades have an unexpected consequence: people inside the town begin to slowly forget who they are - even the vampires.

Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumored to hide a monster. And 200 years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig's family that was meant to last forever. But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It's time to break the spell.