Showing results by author "R. L. McCallum" in All Categories

After several strange balls of light invade the night sky over the small mountain town of Fulton, Montana, a series of missing person reports follow. As Kenneth Marshall, a lieutenant with the Montana State patrol, begins investigation into the matter, the US Army and several government agencies arrive and demand that he ceases all inquiries.

A schizophrenic writer, who has just been released from a mental institution, returns to his childhood home, which he had inherited from his father. Though the outside of the house appears to have been well maintained, he discovers that the house's interior has fallen to ruin.

Fanatically attracted to antique lamps, Gerard Archer stops at a yard sale when he sees a vintage lamp with a very unique base, which has been crafted from silver and gold. Asking the seller how much he wants for the artifact, the man shockingly replies that a five-pound note will send it up the road.

While taking a holiday from the unwholesome atmosphere of Victorian London, Alexander Greystone, a professor of medieval studies and a bachelor who is frequently visited by the dead, finds that the quaint little cottage that he has rented in Hampshire has a very dark secret. Upon his arrival at Hawthorne Cottage, Alexander discovers, after finding a painting in the attic, that the subjects of the painting, the seven Hawthorne sisters, did not immigrate to America as regional rumours had suggested.

Danial Sawyer, a young blacksmith, was considered by the townsfolk of Emerson, Pennsylvania, to be a malingerer and a teller of tall tales who was frequently daydreaming. Daniel's hard and mundane life changed when he met the girl of his dreams, Miss Anna Mae Prophet, a comely young woman who he stumbled upon as she was bathing in a small pond.

England 1888: After forfeiting his wife to the company of other men, Sir James Addison, a notable English poet and gentleman, begins descending into a demented melancholy that prompts him to move from his elaborate estate in Oxfordshire to the London's seedy borough of Soho. Soon after his arrival in Soho, Sir James begins yielding to the intoxicating effects of laudanum and to the whims of his madness, just as his memory begins lapsing and Jack the Ripper begins his campaign of terror.

A travel writer in need of a Halloween story decides to visit the north country of Yorkshire, where he wants to visit villages with haunted houses and to interview people who have ghost stories. Riding his bicycle northward from York, he collects photographs and stories from villagers as he cycles along. Coming to the end of his work day, the threat of a rain storm prompts him to take a back road to an obscure village, where he hopes to find lodging for the night.

A writer is visited by a strange man with an even stranger story. The man claims to have ridden an old excursion train on November first, Samhain, when the dead walk abroad, resulting in a terrifying experience. Listening to and recording the incredible tale, the writer discovers that the most horrifying part of the story comes after the man finishes and then leaves.

After being listed as KIA, the remains of an American soldier returns home from Vietnam to seek revenge upon those in his home town who were responsible for his pregnant girlfriend’s tragic death and for the torments he suffered due to his spiritual beliefs.

Philip Whitney, a luckless young man who strangely becomes attracted to his family's genealogy, discovers that his American roots began in Salem, Massachusetts during the time of the Puritans. As his search takes him to a witch's house in modern day Salem, a witch that was known to be hanged in 1692, a procession of odd events take him back to the witch trials, where he is to free the woman's daughter, who was hanged for witchery, and bring her to the future.

The time is the American Civil War. The place is Louisville, Kentucky, where a notable physician and professor at a medical school becomes in need of cadavers for student studies. Offering high wages for acceptable corpses, Doctor Theodore Finch hires an old ignorant and destitute man, Johnathan Brooks, and his young Christian wife, Theda, to remove the enemy dead from local battle fields. Upon the 31st of October, and during a full moon, the body snatchers, the doctor, and his students learn that the dead are not always at peace.

One of the most glorious paths through a child's wonderland is down the aisle of a candy store, a dream world of confectionery delights that entice youthful exuberance with a myriad of colorful wrappings and sugary possibilities. And such was the delightful atmosphere at the Sweet Things Candy Emporium, where, on the sunny morning of April first, Becka Marshall opened the doors to not only her childhood dream but to the dark prospects of an unforeseeable nightmare.

Prompted by urgent letters from his brother, who resides in Shalsham Forest, near the village of Mollbury, James Kingsley is encouraged to approach Professor Greystone with a request for help. After renewing their acquaintance, Alexander and James begin another journey into the supernatural, where misfortune paints the landscape with death and destruction.

After frequently feeding a feral rat that had risen from the sewer and began living in a hole in the wall of his closet, Winston Willows discovered that his friendship with the rodent was not the best of ideas. Living in poverty in a rundown hotel, Winston eventually runs out of food resources to feed his pet, which he had named Bartholomew, so, to Winston's horror, the rat compensates by directing his appetite solely toward the consumption of human flesh.

After 50 years of declining invitations to attend his high school reunions, Bill Wilder, a retired garage mechanic who lives in Huntington, West Virginia, reluctantly decides to attend an upcoming event, which is taking place in his hometown of Walker, West Virginia - a secluded coal mining town located in the Appalachian Mountains.

The cemetery is not a place where children should play, but that is where Penelope Piatt found Amelia and Billy, a sister and brother who poverty had carelessly displaced. Alone and dejected, Penelope, an unprepossessing spinster, prays constantly for two children to love, but after meeting the strangely oriented children she discovers that God has sent her wandering into a nightmare. Penelope routinely spends each Sunday afternoon at the Spirit Haven Cemetery where she ceremoniously manicures the graves of her recently deceased parents.

After his surreptitious return from India with his young wife, Antonia, who had contracted leprosy, Doctor Rupert Whitaker (a colonel in the British Army) locks her away in a bedroom at his estate in Devon. Driven by guilt, Doctor Whitaker takes the care of his wife to task while keeping her father and brother at bay and the knowledge of her illness from everyone. As the ghosts from his past return to torment him, and his household retainers discover the truth, Antonia decays in the darkness of her room and the house descends into disorder.