horror fiction

When middle school students Whitney and Ben visit a college library for a research project they venture through a door marked "Special Collection Sinister History" and meet the evil Archivist who collects tales of the world's oldest, most terrifying creatures and uses magic to bring them to life. In graphic novel format.

It has been a busy summer of makerspace projects at the library and monster hunting for the three members of the Super Secret Monster Patrol, and the puddles that are appearing all over town are a clue to the identity of another monster--an angry hydra water monster who is obsessed with cleaning up (literally) the town of Stermont, even if it means drowning all the messy children who live there.

The Cane family's idyllic facade covers a dysfunctional family headed by an absentee, military father and a depressed, addicted mother. And though the five beautiful, teenage sisters who round out the family put on a good show, behind closed doors, they can't stand one another. But when the youngest and most beloved sister, Rose, dies, their mother abandons them and the remaining sisters band to together. You see, Rose comes back from the dead with a need to feed on human flesh in order to remain undead, and her sisters are determined to keep her with them--dead or alive.

Josie always liked visiting her grandmother in the countryside, but when her mother loses her job in the city and they're forced to relocate along with Josie's sister, Annie, she realizes she doesn't like the country that much. Especially because Grandma Jeannie has some strange rules; Don't bring any dolls into the house, and never, ever go near the house in the woods behind their yard.

When Casey's sister goes missing, Casey is forced to pretend Sutton was a perfect sister despite their dislike for each other, and when Sutton mysteriously returns with no memory of where she was Casey starts uncovering her sister's secrets.

"[A] story about a family that inherits a house in Vermont full of shadows, whispers and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger discovers that the house is haunted by a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them--then consume them--in order to rise from the grave and live again . . ."--Provided by publisher.

"When Sophia Galich was twelve, she starred in her older sister Layla's amateur horror movie Vermillion, which recorded raw footage of her very real reactions to scenes her sister concocted in their old Californian house on the coast--Cashore House. In the years after the film's release, Sophia's relationship with her sister became more strained, while her memories of the now-infamous house fueled her nightmares. Vermillion amassed an army of fanatical fans who speculated about the film's hidden messages, and it was rumored that Layla made a pact with the devil--her soul in exchange for fame and arcane knowledge. Sophia dismissed this as gossip . . . until Layla disappeared. Now, Sophia must study the trail of clues Layla has left behind, returning to the very place where it all began. As she gets closer and closer to Cashore House's haunted heart, she must once again confront the ghosts of her childhood. But the house won't reveal its secrets without a fight"--OCLC.

"Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors--Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax--have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they've been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished--an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions. As soon as they begin, they're dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen's grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules: They have one night to complete seven challenges or they'll all be stuck in this world forever. Once inseparable, the survivors now can't stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices--blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse. And once again, not everyone will make it out alive"--Provided by publisher.

"From haunted, hungry Victorian mansions, temporal monster--infested asylums, and ravaging zombie apocalypses, to southern gothic hoodoo practitioners and cursed patriarchs in search of Black Excellence, 'All These Sunken Souls' features the chilling creations of acclaimed bestsellers and hot new talents"--Provided by publisher.

Twelve-year-old Halle Thompson dreams of starring in a horror movie someday, so she can't believe her luck when she gets a chance to visit Price Manor, the home of her favorite director Maximus Price. Soon after she arrives, Halle discovers creepy, squid-like creatures have attached themselves to the faces of the manor's staff, putting them in a zombie-like stupor, and although Paisley and Argyle, Maximus's twin children, think it's just another of father's pranks, Halle realizes there's something more sinister going on. The three kids team up to stop these monsters and possibly save the world before it's too late.