Showing results by author "Rick Hautala" in All Categories

November, 1694. Rachel Parsons, an accused witch, is hanged at the Gallows Tree in Summerfield, Maine. Before she dies, she curses all who live on her land. Autumn, 1963. A handicapped boy is chased into the old, abandoned mill. But it is one of his tormentors who ends up at the bottom of a shaft. Summer, 1994. Brian Fraser has heard stories about the old mill. They say it's haunted, filled with the whisperings of long ago, including something that his own father won't talk about. But Brian is drawn to the mill. Drawn to an evil so hideous, so apocalyptic it threatens one's sanity.

Ivan Delgato, a former leader of a rebel group called the Runners, is released from jail on the condition that he carry out a secret mission for the World Council. His assignment is simple: stay under cover, but do absolutely anything necessary to reach the planet Omega IX and offer the renegade Runners clemency if they surrender - which may be complicated since Ivan's brutally violent brother has taken lead of the Runners in Ivan's absence.

From the subway tunnels of Boston to the rain-swept streets of Quebec City to the deepest snow-filled forests of Hilton, Maine, no one in these chilling stories by horror master Rick Hautala is safe from the darkness or the dangerous things that lurk in the shadows. Waiting for us. Reaching for us....

You think you've built your dream house. But you're wrong. Dead wrong. You think you've built the perfect place for you and your husband to raise your kids. But listen to the warnings. The whispers in the night. The threats scrawled on the walls. Someone wants your family dead. Can't you see? In the window. In the bathroom mirror. Even in the chrome of the teakettle. It's the reflection of a weeping woman. Who is it? Can it be your poor mother, who just died? What happened to her? What scarred her face? What is she trying to tell you?

A summer vacation in Milton, Maine, would be the best thing for Tim Harris, his wife, Polly, and their young son, Brian. Restoring Tim's childhood home to its original splendor would help Polly restore her own life after a breakdown that left her fragile and afraid. But for Polly, it's the beginning of new nightmare.

It has been five years since Kip Howard saw his mother killed horribly by a blur of "little brown things."Five years of nightmares and a terror of dark places. Five years of struggling to overcome what must have been just his imagination... But the "untcigahunk," the Indian word for "little brothers," are no one's imagination. Hideous forest creatures who feed every five years on human flesh, the little brothers are about to emerge from underground once again.

This collection, from an acclaimed master of dark fiction, consists of 21 tales. Some are straight genre entries, others are stories of psychological terror, and a few are shorts that include science-fiction elements. The first 18 are short stories written solely by Rick Hautala; the final three are collaborations with Jesse and Matti Hautala, Matthew J. Costello, and Jim Connolly.

It doesn’t end with death. David Robinson’s life has taken several turns for the worse: first his daughter dies, then his marriage crumbles, and his career as a mystery writer falls apart. But after he is killed in a hit-and-run accident, David quickly learns that he will face his most harrowing challenges—as a Wraith in the Shadowlands. Unable to contact or influence the world of the living, David’s agony is made worse when he learns that his ex-wife’s relationship with a dangerous man named Tony Ranieri has put her life at risk.