An old song popped into Frank's contented mind, just a quiet thought at first, then slowly crescendoing until music rattled the windows of his house like the roar from a resurrected jukebox.

The song gave Frank a sick feeling, the feeling a man gets when he's caught in a lie.

His head filled with memories from a night long past, a night…

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“Best Halloween ever,” Lori chuckled inside, while maintaining an appropriately horrified expression at the sight of “poor Spencer” marinating in a pool of his own blood. The perfect crime, really, what with the murderer being dead already.

Lori had had her doubts about that voodoo incantation, but it brought Ned back from the grave to carry out her plan without a hitch. Now she tenderly comforted her grieving sister, Kate, over her latest misfortune. Poor, dear sister Kate – her life…

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This just wasn’t Spencer’s day. First the store ran out of Spider Man costumes and he had to settle for a lame zombie costume, then Ned showed up looking so much more authentic, and ranting about how Spencer had offed him last Halloween – and after all Spence’s efforts to frame that psycho drifter.

Of course, everyone took old Ned’s side – he was family, after all, and Spence was just some outsider engaged to Ned’s widow, Kate. It was just like Ned to show up and make a big scene like…

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Maddy never put much stock in ghost stories--ghouls and such--but here was cousin Ned, large as life, warming his gangrenous hands at her fireplace, chatting on cheerfully about the family’s big Halloween bash, like the gaping hole at the back of his skull, oozing brain matter all over her favorite chair, wasn’t of the slightest concern.



“Ned,” Maddy finally interjected, “hate to interrupt your train of thought, and it’s always nice to see you – God knows we have lots to catch up…

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Vernon glanced around the dimly lit theater, looking for heads above the rounded pickets, but he saw none.

 

All the better, he thought.

 

He’d broken his rule NOT to see any more worthless horror…

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I sent the dogs in first as it was no time for sentiment they were just trained animals to me and not pets as some of my colleagues treated them. They both flew of the leash in frenzy straight into the door well opposite and disappeared from view I heard a brief screech which cut to silence almost instantly this did not bode well for the poor canines. I moved closer to the entrance of the building keeping the barrel of the assault rifle trained ahead of me with my free hand unhooking a tear…

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Sam filled the back of the car with as much he could carry, assault rifles, handguns and enough ammunition to start a small scale war. Already thinking of driving downtown on this sunny afternoon to try out his newly acquired arsenal he knew the perfect spot where he had been chased by a large gathering earlier that week. At the main intersection of the old shopping district he had clear views on all sides of the street so nothing could sneak up him; he also left the engine running just in…

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You know you have made it when your signature is on the side of a building he thought as he looked up to the sparkling glass tower that now stood in the middle of what was once the desert. On the surface yet another luxury hotel and resort to cater for the endless hedonistic junkies the flocked to this part of the world all possible willing or unwilling disciples. Off course he saw it differently to him it was a church, a house for the carnal minded and purveyors of the dark arts based in…

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Several hours passed as the three of them continued along the track, Johnson took the lead as he had both the only remaining gas light and one of the two shotguns, finally they came out of the tunnel into old Station named Green Park.

This section of the underground was pre…

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The kid was laughing as he approached the old folk’s home and the sight of that huge wall that he’d earmarked as his next canvas of destruction a whole month before. He took out the red paint he’d stolen from the hardware store and sprayed expletives across the bottom half of the brick before taking out the black paint which he’d hiked purposely to paint a figure of death on the wall; enough to scare the oldies into an early pine bath with matching lid.…

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I am very hard and she is still soft with childhood and so she is a better world to me.

She's great at keeping secrets and I trust her.

" This is a manifestation of love, our love, " I say to her as she perches on my thigh, her shoes swinging over the floor.

" I promise I won't tell--cross my heart and hope to die."

Our secrets could dismantle lives with their shame and violence.

" Yes and I know you won't, baby girl -- No would understand.…

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Going through a Victorian newspaper gleaning items for a town history, I found a paragraph about a farmer named Trefoil, charged with a killing that was, well, visceral and I mentioned it to a middle-aged bachelor of that name whose father was a pig jobber, famous for his pork cuts. He said, “I heard once there was something involving my great grandfather but you would have to give me names, dates, ‘cause I don’t remember such things…

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She stared at the dried toad lily petals that had fallen onto the formica desk. The thick, mahogany door was shut, but that didn't stop it. Blood, dark and syrupy, pooling in under the crack. She began to weep. Instead of wet droplets, tiny ants crawled from her tear ducts. She wondered, am I already dead?

The day we've all been waiting for is finally here! Northern Haunts: 100 Terrifying New England Tales is now available for sale in paperback on ShroudMagazine.com and Amazon.com. For a limited time you can get Northern Haunts… Continue

It was the eyes that tortured him as much as her tongue; the squinting peering look she gave whenever she disapproved and that was more often than not.

He recalled that first day he had wet the bed when he was five years old; the stale smell of urine on his pyjamas and the sheets and the yelling as she rubbed his face in the rancid cloth.

“You dirty, smelly little boy... wait till the kids at school hear about you, you disgusting filthy animal.”

The sheets were put back on the… Continue