Spooky stories from Next Chapter [March 2023]
Scary stories, also known as horror stories, have been a popular genre of fiction for centuries. These stories are designed to evoke fear, terror, and suspense in their readers, and often involve supernatural or paranormal elements. From classic tales like Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" to modern hits like Stephen King's "It," horror stories have continued to captivate and terrify readers of all ages.
One of the key elements of a good horror story is the ability to create a sense of atmosphere and tension. Whether it's a creepy old mansion or a desolate forest, the setting plays an important role in building up the suspense and terror of the story. This is often achieved through vivid descriptions of the surroundings, as well as through the use of sensory details like sound and smell.
Another important aspect of a good horror story is the development of complex and memorable characters. Whether they are the protagonists or the villains, these characters need to be well-rounded and believable in order to keep the reader engaged. This includes developing their personalities, motivations, and backstories, as well as exploring their relationships with each other. By creating characters that readers can relate to and empathize with, horror writers are able to draw their readers into the story and make them care about what happens next.
Below, we’ve collected six of the scariest horror books from Next Chapter authors, now available from all major online bookstores. Whether it’s modern, historical, supernatural or psychological horror you’re looking for, we believe any of the books on this page will deliver!
We hope you enjoy the stories by our authors - and if you do, please don’t forget to leave the author a review! Don’t agree with our choices? Please leave a comment and let us know which spooky story is your favorite :)
Books featured on this page
Whistlers Of The Dark (Tales From The Dark Past Book 4) by Helen Susan Swift
Led By Beasts (Led By Beasts Book 1) by Clark Roberts
Whistlers Of The Dark (Tales From The Dark Past Book 4) by Helen Susan Swift
Book excerpt
That face haunted my dreams. I was aware of Agnes tumbling into bed at my side and knew she wanted to talk about the initiation, and about Jim, but my mind was elsewhere.
I could see that carved face with the slightly almond-shaped eyes and the pointed ears whenever I closed my eyes. Yet the face was not made of wood. It was alive and looking down at me. I knew it was talking or trying to communicate, although I did not understand the words. It was hideous, emanating an ancient evil, and I wondered if it was connected to the whistling.
I lay in my hard bed, with the compressed straw mattress barely rustling under me and faint moonlight trickling through the bars on the window. The darkness surrounded me, suffocating, pressing down upon me like a solid weight, so dense that I felt I could cut it up if the attendants had not manacled me the bed.
Tears filled my eyes and trickled onto the mattress. There was no pillow; lunatic girls did not have such luxuries, and the single coarse grey blanket was insufficient to fend off the cold.
Even here, I could hear the whistling. It surrounded me, seemingly coming from the air itself, so I could not escape, wherever I went.
“Go away,” I pleaded, twisting on my bed. “Leave me alone.” I could not speak loudly in case I woke Miss Horne, the woman who ran the institution. I was scared of Miss Horne, and with reason.
The whistling continued, relentless, never-ending, penetrating every thought. A shaft of moonshine seeped between the window-bars to light the far wall, showing the bare, white-washed plaster. I stared at that light, holding onto it as a sign of hope. Was that God showing me mercy?
I could hear my breathing, harsh in the room, and then something blocked the light. I gasped and turned my head toward the window.
Monstrosity: Tales Of Transformation by Laura Diaz De Arce
Book excerpt
I do not remember those hours. I cannot tell you what happened, it is a black spot in my memory, but I remember what caused it. I know it was my fault because I made myself this way. I made myself this way because I had no choice.
They say these things come from the parents, but I do not think that is the truth. My parents, they did not have what I had. We were nothing alike, or at least I thought we were nothing alike. Mama and Papa were the cool of freshly frozen ice. Even in the most excitable of situations they were calm. I ran hot. As a toddler I did not learn to walk, I ran. I did not learn to coo and speak, I screamed. I did not play, I waged destruction. My parents' lives, while I was a youth, were clouded by my screams, my fits, my rages. It is I who put them off having other children, a fact they made clear to me in the most temperate of voices.
My childhood is filled with the memories of their attempts to tame my nature. Mama especially tired herself out in the endeavor. They put me in structured activities to find a way for me to channel my energy elsewhere. These activities and lessons did nothing to sedate me: soccer, martial arts, violin, tennis, piano, etc. These activities only gave me more fuel with which to torment them.
They tried to train my body to be less of itself. For instance, during meals I was strapped to a chair to make me stop fidgeting. I remember the coolness of my mother's fingers as she slipped the straps beneath my armpits. She was delicate, but not in a way that was concerned for my well-being. A withering presence was her nature; a nature that, looking back, I finally realized had been constructed to hide something else.
Flesh Eaters by Mark L’Estrange
Book excerpt
“’Ere, you don’t wanna be going down there, me old mate – place is full o’ weirdos.”
Thomas Sheffield rolled his eyes and tried desperately to keep his temper under control. His doctor had warned him about his blood pressure on more than one occasion, and he was not about to let some local yokel land him in hospital with a stroke or a heart attack.
“Yes, thank you, that’s most interesting.” Thomas smiled, weakly. “Now, if you would be kind enough to point me in the right direction, I’ll be on my way.”
The old farmer rubbed his unshaven chin, thoughtfully. “What was it you said you wanted to go there fer again, spoons or somink?”
“Cutlery,” repeated Thomas for the third time, wishing he had never brought up the subject in the first place. If only his company would supply their salespeople with decent satnavs, he would not have had to stop and ask directions in the first place. Just his luck that the only soul around for miles turned out to be an inquisitive farmer type with too much time on his hands.
“Cutlery?” repeated the old man, removing his flat cap to reveal a bald pate covered in liver spots. “You got any spare samples on yer?” he looked behind Thomas at the two cases on his back seat.
Thomas sighed, deeply. “No, I am afraid not, now could you please direct me to the village?”
The old man shrugged. “All right, but don’t say I dinna warn yer.”
Thomas noted the man’s directions, then thanked him, curtly, before driving off at speed. He didn’t want to give the old fool another chance to offer him the benefit of his expertise about the wisdom of venturing into the village.
Seven for the Slab by Doug Lamoreux
Book excerpt
He woke with a start, quietly. The former was inescapable; when you lived in a nightmare, startled was the only way to wake. The latter was something he'd trained himself to do; in all things – be quiet. It took him a moment to recognize his surroundings, his bed such as it was, to ground his brain in the there and then (to him, the here and now, of course). Once that was accomplished, add a moment for him to realize he was alone, and another to accept the fact that she had not returned. That was a disappointment.
Wasn't that just about all that life was anymore? Come to think of it, wasn't that pretty much all it had ever been? He laid back to consider the question and couldn't help but ask himself how much (or indeed how little) things had changed. He asked the question again. Wasn't that really all that life had ever been? A disappointment? A barely remembered childhood as a middle child in a family of many siblings. Lost amid the crowd. Too young to have any fun, but old enough the younger ones were his responsibility. And nobody, not mother, not father (when they saw him), not that chin-pinching auntie, could ever remember his name. Admittedly, there were a lot of kids and, admittedly, Milton wasn't a great name but, really, was it that hard to remember? And, though he never objected aloud, he wouldn't have called a dog Miltie. Oh well, what was one more disappointment? Then came a mediocre climb through high school only to find there was neither the money nor the academic acumen to make continuing on to college a road worth taking. After graduation (no party), came an okay job, certainly not a great or even a good job (absolutely not a career), but a working-life-long job that paid the bills. Yes, a disappointment. A too-quick marriage to a high school sweetheart, too much like her demanding know-it-all father. Endless arguments. A fourth anniversary fought through then slept away in the car in the parking lot (she slept alone in the big double bed in the expensive get-away hotel). A fifth anniversary fought through then slept away in the hallway rocker (she slept alone in the big double bed of that expensive Bed & Breakfast). Two wonderful sons she shoved around like chess pawns, teaching each how worthless men were and turning them against their old man. A long drawn out and oh so expensive divorce that in the name of fairness took everything he had (or would have for decades to come). Had enough? So had he. Then and only then came…
What the heck was it? A worldwide plague? The apocalypse? A Robert Bloch nightmare? A George Romero wet dream? The night, the year, the life of the living dead? What difference did it make what people called it? It had happened, become a reality, a 4D, interactive, bloodletting, blood drinking, flesh eating, kill or be killed, run like hell, 'to die, to be really dead, dat must be glorious' fright fest in which living human beings were a quickly vanishing commodity. But had things really changed much? Or were there just more disappointments?
And she hadn't returned.
The Haunting Of Tana Grant by Robert Baty
Book excerpt
Tana jumped up from her desk. Stared wide-eyed at her laptop as if it were alive. Her legs felt rubbery and for a moment she thought she would collapse.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” she shouted as she looked around the room. “I can’t see you, but I know you’re here. Why can’t you find her yourself? What do you need me for?”
But the only answer she got was a damp breeze that washed across her face as she sat on the sofa and ran her hands through her hair. Her heart was pounding as she gasped for breath. Tana glanced at her MacBook then stood and pulled on the coat she had slung over a chair and stepped to the door.
Where are you going? I don’t know. What if it’s still raining? I don’t care, I have to get out of here.
Tana walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind her, then took the stairs and went outside. It felt good to be out among the living, and it reminded Tana that she too was still alive. The storm had passed, but the air still smelled like rain and Tana could feel the mist on her face. The streets were slick black mirrors, reflecting the lights of passing cars.
She walked for blocks, her thoughts swimming between two worlds, then noticed that St. Mary’s, the old Catholic church on the edge of Chinatown, was open for evening services. She’d walked past the church before, but usually the doors were closed and homeless were slumped on the steps next to their shopping carts. She’d never been inside—never been inside any church, really. Her parents weren’t religious and as a result neither was Tana. In fact, her father had taught her that religion was a con that lured people into believing that there was some reward waiting for them on the other side, a bonus for having been alive, when in reality there was nothing.
Led By Beasts (Led By Beasts Book 1) by Clark Roberts
Book excerpt
Whenever Marie had encountered the words ghost town, she inevitably experienced a chill at her spine, but the phrase clown town was doubly worse. Clown town—it sounded so bizarre, so bastardized, and even unsound.
Marie quickly read the historical landmark sign a second time to make sure she hadn’t misinterpreted the information because she could barely fathom the validity of it.
It claimed clowns had built a settlement along the Lake Michigan coastline around 1850. Economically Buffoonville had struggled right up until the Great Fire of 1871 ravaged Chicago. In exchange for a great financial windfall, the politicians and business owners of Buffoonville—did they all wear wigs and clown makeup?—shortsightedly agreed to timbering off the dense forests surrounding the settlement to help rebuild Chicago. The money rolled in, but without the protection of the massive oaks and tall pines, Buffoonville’s days were numbered. The constant winds of the Great Lake, always carrying sand, began burying the buildings, and most of the clown residents fled, leaving Buffoonville a relative ghost town.
The black and white photos accompanying the written record showed huge mounds of sand revealing only the peaks of a few gabled homes and businesses.
“Greg, I’m not so sure about this,” Marie muttered.
There you go: six spooky stories from Next Chapter in 03/2023. If you enjoy one of the books on this page, please leave a comment below, or a review in Goodreads or your favorite store. We’d love to hear from you!
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