Bloody and beaten from the journey you’ve had, you finally arrive. A haunting, immense palace of the long fallen kingdom comes into view. Crumbling staircases and ornate statues in every direction you look, each statue represents something, this kingdom… was built on fear. Fear of dying out. As you climb the stairs, you look at each engraving in the cracked stone walls. Horrific experiments displayed, various ways they have tried to impregnate their females, mutilation, torture, mutated fetuses, birth, death, and so much more. You step inside the palace. There is an eerie silence. Deafening in a way as if the people of this kingdom are watching you.The only hint that people even lived here, however, is the bodies. Hanging…

You just got off a long flight. After spending four hours in a cramped plane with 165 other people, baggage is delayed. After an hour’s wait the carousel starts up and your bag is one of the first to come around. You grab it and get out of the airport as fast as you can. Once you get home, you dump your bag out on the bed, and immediately realize it’s not yours. It must have gotten switched. You rifle through the contents looking for some form of contact information or ID. All you find are non nondescript items of men’s clothing, toiletries and an expensive digital camera. Curious, you flip the camera on and hit the review button, feeling…

Way back in the deep woods there lived a scrawny old woman who had a reputation for being the best conjuring woman in the Ozarks. With her bedraggled black-and-gray hair, funny eyes – one yellow and one green – and her crooked nose, Old Betty was not a pretty picture, but she was the best there was at fixing what ailed a man, and that was all that counted. Old Betty’s house was full of herbs and roots and bottles filled with conjuring medicine. The walls were lined with strange books brimming with magical spells. Old Betty was the only one living in the Hollow who knew how to read; her granny, who was also a conjurer, had taught her…

“Come play with me.” That line… it’s a cliché for the horror genre, is it not? You all know what I mean, the unsettling apparition of a child, or maybe just the voice, beckoning to you. What is it about children that gives them the ability to be so damn creepy? Maybe… maybe it’s the fact that, generally speaking, children are helpless and anyone with a nurturing side to their personality wants to help them and care for them. I mean, if any one of us saw a child in trouble, I’m sure we’d rush to help in whatever way we could… and in normal circumstances, if a child said “come play with me” someone might just pass a ball…