Scary Stories For Teens

The second volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading is chock-full of mystery, intrigue, and nefarious activity. Featuring some of the best writers around, and compiled by certified guy Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: Thriller is a pulse-pounding collection of brand-new short stories, each one guaranteed to keep you riveted until the final page.

When Daisy Fitzjohn's mother leaves their crumbling Gothic home early one morning and doesn't return, Daisy, with no one to help her but her imaginary friends, must fight to save her home and her life from a dangerous and mysterious stranger.

It all started as stories - playground tales handed down for generations, stories of plague graves, vanished children and hidden steps leading to a festering underworld. A world so real you could almost smell it.... But when another child goes missing, Fraser wonders if there's some truth in the tales.

Max’s village is absolutely normal in every single way and on every single day—except Wednesday. Most of the townsfolk shutter their windows and lock their doors to hide away from the many peculiar things that happen—things like cats getting stuck in the vacuum cleaner and birthday cakes meeting fiery and horrific ends. But Max is too curious for that, and so, breaking every rule in the village, he searches out the cause of all the Wednesday weirdness.

Working at the mall is supposed to be fun. Trish’s job at Muffin-Mania is hardly intellectually challenging and her boss is a piece of work, but it’s worth it to have a job in the same building as her two best friends, the Hanson twins. And the hot guys who hang out there are an added bonus. But something isn’t right about this mall. It’s the oldest mall in the state, remodeled over a dozen times without rhyme or reason, and there are many strange nooks and secret passages behind the bright gleaming storefronts. Someone has been stealing housewares, furniture, and food, and now a mysterious man with ash-gray hair and a whisper-soft voice has started harassing Trish on the phone.

Teenager Murray Keifer just doesn't fit in at school. And it doesn't help that his mother is too busy entertaining male friends to be involved in his life. His only friends are "Dearly" and "Beloved": dead people buried in the local cemetery. That's right, Murray talks to the dead. But Murray's peaceful and unusual world is torn asunder when he hears the voice of missing teen Nikki Parker, buried in someone else's grave.

Josh is by far the best zombie Torcher around - at least, he is in his virtual-reality zombie-hunting game. Josh has quickly risen through the player ranks, relying on the skill, cunning, and agility of a real Torcher. Charlie is the top-ranked player in the game. Since all the players are shrouded in anonymity, Josh never expects Charlie to be a girl - and he never expects the offer she makes him: to join the underground gaming league that takes the virtual-reality game off the screen and into the streets.

The Capulets and the Montagues have some deep and essential differences. Blood differences. Of course, the Capulets can escape their vampire fate, and the Montagues can try not to kill their undead enemies. But at the end of the day, their blood feud is unstoppable. So it's really quite a problem when Juliet, a vampire-to-be, and Romeo, the human who should be hunting her, fall desperately in love. What they don't realize is how deadly their love will turn out to be - or what it will mean for their afterlives....

To protect those she loves from herself, Jax will leave them all behind. She'll risk everything in a desperate search for answers. Jax Pherson fled the darkest of covens and from her own father's evil. For a brief moment, her courage was rewarded. She found everything she'd ever wanted. A normal life. An amazing boyfriend. An envy-worthy best friend. But her past put them all in danger, forcing a confrontation with the dark covens. In a life-and-death battle to save those she loved from the covens, Jax gained staggering power.

The entity is ancient. It has taken form before, in other places, other guises. This time the place is Buffalo. The form is that of a magnificent woman...created from the dreams of a child. The eternal hunger is immense. The entity must feed. And it's prey is human. Psychic detective Ryerson Biertgarten is appalled at the savagery of the first killings. Far worse lies ahead, for the detective as well as the city. He is falling in love with a wonderful woman - but Joan will die - unless he can stop... The Devouring...

Being a vegan vampire with no social graces hasn't exactly made Maddy popular with other 11-year-olds. But the day she befriends Dakota Underhill changes everything, even if Dakota only promises to be her friend for...well, for that day. Because when the leader of the Knavehearts - the most vicious of the Old World vampires - comes to town, Maddy realizes she's going to need help. She's not strong enough to face the villain alone, and there's something special about Dakota that might make her the perfect person to team up with....

When sixteen-year-old Paige Preston and her mother relocated to Dead Lake, Michigan, they were unaware that a seventeen-year-old previous resident of their house had killed himself by jumping off a cliff into the lake six months earlier. But was it really suicide? Noah Snyder is a ghost. At least he thinks so. Only he's not sure how he died. He recruits the cute Paige to help him get to the bottom of the mystery so he can move on.

Having defeated the Garr, a vicious tree monster who lived within the enchanted woods of Watch Hollow, Lucy and Oliver Tinker now have the home they’ve always dreamed of: Blackford House. Powered by a magical clock and full of curious rooms and improbable knickknacks, Blackford House brims with the promise of new adventures. Yet when a strange governess arrives from England - bringing with her the Kojima twins, Agatha and Algernon - the Tinker children’s once bright future quickly begins to dim. The Kojimas claim to be the rightful heirs to Blackford House.

Deep within the enchanted woods in the town of Watch Hollow stands the once-grand Blackford House, whose halls hold a magical secret: a giant cuckoo clock that does much more than tell time. But when the clock’s gears cease to turn, an evil presence lurking among the trees begins to come out of the shadows.

George and Kate enter Whittaker Magnet School via the "Leave No High-Scoring Child Behind" program. They quickly learn that all Whittaker students do is practice taking tests. Higher scores bring more students, and more tax money! And as if Whittaker isn't strange enough, there may be a demon roaming the halls. Acclaimed author Edward Bloor's Story Time is a darkly hilarious spoof on modern education.

Ernestine Montgomery is the kind of kid who gets things done. She's smart, prepared, and always knows just what to do. But there's big trouble brewing inside the walls of the rambling old mansion where she lives... and only Ernestine can decipher the clues that point in one direction - murder! Can Ernestine solve the mystery before catastrophe strikes?

Tessa Dark and her friends make it to the island, but her feelings are still torn between Joe and Richard. Tessa faces greater challenges when she is welcomed by the mysterious Duncan Grey. Finding themselves in a desperate game of survival, Tessa and her group are left hanging on for their very lives.

While 18-year-old Tessa Dark was serving her prison sentence for murder, the world beyond her cell walls changed forever. The thunder came and destroyed the world she had once known. Trapped inside the prison and faced with no future, Tessa's only glimmer of hope is her friendship with fellow inmate Joe McBride. Despite Tessa's fears, Joe decides to go beyond the prison walls to seek help. But when he fails to return, Tessa is determined to go and search for him.

After Olive Preiss freezes during a theater camp audition, she flees in despair. She finds herself at Maudeville, a beautiful old theater that she's never noticed before. She enters, goes onstage, and sings her song. "Thank you for that lovely audition, darling," comes a voice from the shadows. "I believe I have just the part for you."

Madison Avery's dreams of ever fitting in at her new school died when she did. Especially since she was able to maintain the illusion of a body, deal with a pesky guardian angel, and oh yeah, bring the reaper who killed her to his untimely end. Not exactly in-crowd material. It's amazing that her crush, Josh, doesn't think she's totally nuts.