horror stories

"Growing up in the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania, feels like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works when she isn't at school, and takes care of her baby brother, Owen. Like every girl in Winston, she tries to be right and good and holy. If she isn't, the Lord of the Wood will take her, and she'll disappear like so many other girls before her. But living up to the rigorous standards of the town takes its toll. One night, when Owen won't stop screaming, Leah wishes him away, and the Lord listens. The screaming stops, and all that's left in the crib is a small bundle of sticks tied with a ribbon. Filled with shame and the weight of the town's judgment, Leah crosses the river into the Lord of the Wood's domain to bring Owen back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn't what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back--for a price. It's a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she's been taught to fear"--Provided by publisher.

Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she's just inherited--to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement--Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead. Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family's property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can't really live, either. Not while he's bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There's only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line. He needs to kill Wyatt. With Wyatt's parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter--the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who's sworn an oath to destroy her?.

"When the carnival arrives in town Coco, Brian, and Phil must work together to save Ollie from the smiling man"--Provided by publisher.

Plagued by a sinister voice urging him to commit violent acts, seventeen-year-old Warren tries to overcome these urges by investigating a string of disappearances, but when he faces unsettling encounters at an inn run by the Benders, he must confront his darkest impulses in order to survive.

"Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual--but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason. When Isa's abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it--before it takes anyone else. When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can't recall drawing, she's forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater's valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa's back... and it won't let her escape again"--Provided by publisher.

Five years after the disappearance of their friend Mallory and their memories of that fateful night, high school seniors Fern and Jaq encounter a vengeful spirit resembling Mallory, forcing them to confront their true identities and the dark secrets hidden in their past.

"Red Solo cups? Check. Snacks? Check. Abandoned mansion full of countless horrors that won't let you leave? Check. The Deinhart Manor has been a looming shadow over town for as long as anyone can remember, and it's been abandoned for even longer. When the final Deinhart descendent passes, the huge gothic manor is up for sale for the first time ever. Which means Arden can steal the keys from her mom's real estate office . . . It's time for a graduation party that no one will ever forget. Arden and her friends each have different reasons for wanting to throw the party to end all parties. But when the manor doors bar everyone inside and the walls begin to bleed, all anyone wants to do is make it out alive"--Indisde jacket flap.

Sixteen-year-old Yuiza, a proud queer Boricua who loves to make horror movies, finds themself living in one when they are sent to an elite boarding school that holds sinister secrets.

Hazel, a twelve-year-old aspiring detective, must decode a series of ominous clues tied to a century-old tragedy to find a missing teenager before it is too late.

"There are only two things seventeen-year-old Jericka knows about her estranged grandmother: her name, and that she abandoned Jericka's mom and uncle when they were kids. But now that her grandmother is dying, Jericka is dragged to middle-of-nowhere Coldwater, Maryland, to say goodbye. While Jericka attempts to form a connection with a woman she's never known and adjust to life in a town where everything closes before dinner, she meets 'ghost girl' Kat, who is eager to leave Coldwater and intriguing despite some troubling town gossip. As summer unwinds, Jericka uses her senior photography portfolio to capture the town as it is--and as it was--only to discover that Coldwater has a few unsettling secrets of its own. The more you try to leave, the stronger the town's hold. As she feels the chilling pull of her family's past, Jericka begins to question everything she thought she knew about her mother, her childhood, and the lines between the living and the dead"--Provided by publisher.