Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Horror

In these wonderful short stories, Washington Irving created two of the earliest, most endearing and enduring characters in all of American literature. Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane (not to mention the Headless Horseman) will keep you smiling as they wrestle with the strange and fantastic forces, characters and events that baffle and terrify.

Mark Twain takes his humor to the graveyard in this memorable short story. Twain carries on a conversation with a skeleton that has been neglected in the cemetery. While we aren't told what a smiling skeleton looks like, Twain is clear it's not a pleasant view. None of us want to be forgotten and this story helps the hearer understand that even in death we do not want to be neglected.

We all long to find a time when we can escape the daily grind and find a hideaway where we won’t be disturbed. We may have projects to complete or rest to enjoy, but the choice of that location is critical. Algernon Blackwood provides a short story of just such a man who is alone in a cottage on a Canadian island. He should have picked a better location, but then this memorable story wouldn’t exist.

A woman tells her story of an encounter with a ghost in a deserted old lodging house in the middle of London years ago. She was told that a woman had been murdered there before she agreed as a "psychical researcher" to spend a night in the old building. Her expectations are challenged in this psychological ghost story. Algernon Blackwood wrote over 200 ghost stories as well as being a novelist, playwright, and a writer of nonfiction and children’s stories. His ghost stories fall into what is usually called weird fiction.

This tale is as much a story of the psychology of people as it is of ghosts. How much do grief, ego, spite, and revenge play into our ideas of ghosts and being 'haunted'? This was an early Henry James story before he wrote "Turn of the Screw."

Everyone knows the story of the Headless Horseman but perhaps you, like me, did not remember what a marvelous story teller Washington Irving was. He observed human nature closely and, like any good humorist, lets us laugh at our own silly and superstitious sides through the joy of having strangers be the ones to display them. If you, like me, have only vague and muddy memories of this story, you owe it to yourself to listen and laugh along with the rest of the world.

Christmas hadn't been celebrated in this old New England Puritan Church for years. Not until Nathan Stoddard arrived at work one morning, Christmas morning, to see an old man knock upon the door and have the door of the empty church flung open. Nathan rushes to a window at the rear of the church only to peer in to see the interior of the church filled with people dressed from a bygone era decorating the church. A lovely ghost story by Anna Wales Abbot.

"The Thing in the Hall", by E.F. Benson, is a rather macabre and strange story - retold by Mike Vendetti - of two friends living in London, one of whom tempts fate by inviting a spirit to visit without limiting what type of spirit he is inviting. As we know, there are "evil" spirits just awaiting a home or a victim.

Walter Gilman did not know when he moved into the Witch House that had been inhabited by old Keziah Mason, convicted of witchcraft in 1692 that his dreams would be haunted by Keziah and her evil friends. Somehow Keziah Mason escaped and disappeared from Salem Goal where she was being held. The goaler, or jailer went absolutely mad. Residents of the legend-haunted city of Arkham, claimd to see old Keziah Mason and the small white- fanged furry thing that accompanied Keziah, along with an eerie glow when they appeared.

Young Giovanni arrives in Padua to discover a lush and mysterious garden on the estate of the mysterious Doctor Rappaccini. Amidst the verdant and exotic foliage, Giovanni finds love in the form of Beatrice - the Doctor's daughter. What deadly secret does the young girl and her father keep hidden?

Barred from life and death alike, she waited - waited for the key that could unlock the sinister talisman that held her prisoner of eternity. Taken from The King in Yellow, often referred to in "True Detective" this is one creepy short story.

Asked to write a story to be included in an actual dollhouse’s library, M. R. James crafted a macabre tale where a collector buys a doll house that turns out to be more than he bargained for. Rebecca Thomas narrates this tale of a dolls’ house haunted by the last days of the residents of the actual house.

While not being not particularly scary by the standards of today many of the ghost stories of the Victorian Era are very entertaining, and represent escapist literature of the highest quality. In To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt, which first appeared in the 1865 Christmas Edition of All the Year Round, the master novelist presents a lively portrait of the spectre of a murder victim with a desire for vengeance.

The severed hand, whether real or a ghostly thing, always tries to avenge the one who created it or find its way back to the rest of the corpse. Narrated by David Stifel.

Every night without fail, a ghost makes its presence known. However, in this family, the ghost seems welcome - almost invited. A classic poem for parents who've ever had a visit from their own nightly ghost. Narrated by Glenn Hascall.

Once there was a young school teacher named Ichabod Crane who was entranced by a young maiden by the name of Katrina, daughter of Dutch farmer Baltus Van Tassel. Hoping to win her heart from the hero (and infamous rowdy) of Terrytown, Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, young Ichabod attends a lavish party at the Van Tassel home. As the school teacher leaves after the party, he is pursued by the deadliest, most famed of all specters, the ghost of a Hessian Trooper, more famously known as….The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

Another excellent short story from the mind and pen of Ambrose Bierce. This story will draw you in like a fish on the line, then play you out and back in again. Bierce is a master of surprise and suspense.

One of the worst storms - thunder, lightning, and rain - ever to strike London, arrived the same day the visionaries have predicted the end of the world. Could this be a harbinger of the arrival of an unseen comet that will destroy Earth? Has the apocalyptic day arrived? A beautiful maiden visiting the home of a doctor and his family believe so to the extent she is rendered catatonic. While in this state, her mind sees things unseen by mortal man.

Why do you suppose some combat veterans give up the sport of hunting? Is it because they gain empathy with the hunted, or hunting a prey less cunning than they has lost its allure. Richard Connell, in this short story “The Most Dangerous Game” takes us where the hunter becomes the hunted. This hunter is not being hunted by a beast less cunning or calculating than he is, like a lion or a tiger. No, this hunter is a master at his craft, crueler and only slightly better armed than he is.

From Tales of Soldiers and Civilians - In the Midst of Life, this, the second tale of the "Civilians" section, takes us into the paranormal as the protagonist becomes a witness to a possible murder. But is it murder when an individual has such power over another individual as to cause their own death?