J.G. Faherty Short Stories/Novellas
Clay Daniels is an outcast among outcasts. Cursed with a terrible birthmark on his face, his life is an endless misery of teasing and physical abuse from his classmates. Things only get worse when his parents die and he's forced to move in with cruel relatives who make the torture of school seem like paradise. Then everything changes when he meets a boy named John in the woods behind his house. John and his friends don't care what Clay looks like, or that he's not strong or particularly smart. That's because they're dead, and the dead don't discriminate. Their acceptance of him helps Clay overcome his initial fear, and soon he's doing all the cool things he always dreamed of-sneaking out of the house, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and hanging out in a hidden cemetery. For the first time in his life he knows the joy of having friends. Friends who treat him as an equal. Friends who have his back when trouble comes along, and even stick up for him against his violent cousin. But John and the others harbor dangerous secrets. The secrets of the Cold Spot.
In the depths of the jungle lie mysteries drenched in blood. Ethan Foster has spent a lifetime as a guide and bodyguard for archeologist Heathcliff Pascal. They’ve survived more adventures than they can count, but now, deep in the jungles of Central America, they discover a secret hidden from the world for centuries: the Cult of the Black Jaguar, presided over by an immortal goddess whose beauty is matched by her cruelty. She needs the blood of a virgin to bring her army back to life, and she’s found one in Heathcliff’s daughter, Jenny. It’s up to Ethan to stop her. It might seem an impossible task, but Ethan has secrets of his own. Dark secrets. Before the night is over, blood will be shed and only one man—or monster—will survive.
Jason and Erika were having a wonderful time at the Halloween carnival...until their swan boat in the Tunnel of Love capsizes amid heavy waves and blaring, maniacal laughter. When they come to, they're no longer in a carnival in Ohio, but standing at the edge of a sea in a raging storm. In the distance, atop a high, barren hill, looms an enormous castle. Instead of answers, Jason and Erika find only more impossibilities within the stone walls. The lavish rooms are lit only by torches and fireplaces, the decorations and furniture are a century out of date, and the mysterious host claims to not own one of those newfangled telephone inventions. Outside, in the storm and the dense mist, lurk strange, threatening figures. Inside, another couple seeking refuge think it must all be a nightmare. Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s something much, much worse.
Perry Spellman didn't want to be a thief, he simply ended up that way to make back all the money he lost on a bad business investment. Only three houses, and then he can stop. Except it seems like someone is running a scam on him, trying to frighten him into turning himself in. Perry believes it is his old business partner, the one who took off with all his money. But soon he comes to find it is something much worse, something that won't leave him alone until he repents. Or dies.
Sometimes, the past can be deadly. When a bear attacks his family during a camping trip. Alec Winter runs and hides. When he returns, his children are dead and his wife badly injured. He carries her out of the woods, and everyone believes he's a hero. But their deaths haunt him in his dreams, hauntings that become real on the anniversary of their deaths. Now their spirits are out for revenge, not only against Alec but against everyone who helped build him up as a hero. In the end, Alec sacrifices himself to end their escalating violence, but for Alec, death isn't the end of his pain.
Some gods demand blood! Sean Black, a teenage science whiz in a small New England town, leads a pretty normal life...until the night of the storm. After that, nothing is the same. He experiences strange nightmares. He hallucinates about alien creatures and begins to notice weird physical changes in his body, things no one else seems to see. The girl he’s had a crush on for years is acting strange as well, delivering cryptic messages to him that things are not what they seem. When he discovers a secret room in the library, Sean finds himself faced with a life-changing decision, one that could either save the world or plunge it into centuries of death and destruction—with Sean ruling over all.
No one in Anders Bach’s family believed his old tales of Winterwood, a place where Krampus and his Wild Hunt rule a frozen land and where bad children don’t get coal for Christmas, they get baked into pies or forced into slavery. But now the Yule Lads have kidnapped Anders’s grandsons, and he has to rescue them before they’re lost forever. Anders and his daughter must cross the divide between worlds and enter Winterwood, where evil holds sway and even the reindeer have a taste for human flesh. By the time the sun rises, they’ll learn the awful truth about Winterwood: there is no escape without sacrifice.
When Art Stanhope’s bitter, vindictive wife commits suicide, he believes all his troubles are over. Instead, they’re just beginning. For Catherine’s fury transcends even the grave, turning Art’s world into a living hell as he struggles to keep his son and new fiancée safe from her lust for vengeance.But there are secrets behind Catherine’s death that Art doesn’t know—secrets that could prove deadly for everyone involved as they learn too late that death is not always a permanent condition, and sometimes the ultimate sacrifice can be too great a price to pay.