Church Horror

The year is 1942. Britain is in the grip of the Second World War, bringing blackout conditions to much of the country. For several years, Briarwych Church has remained locked and unused. Arriving to take up his new position, Father Lionel Loveford's first task is to open the great wooden door and get the church back into use. But something lurks in the shadows. A terrible tragedy once took place in Briarwych, and now the locals live in fear of a vengeful spirit that has sometimes been spotted looking out from the church's windows.

From the UK best-selling author of Abbot's Keep comes a new dimension in terror. Spanning four decades, the dark history of Church Farm House is explored within four interlinking horror stories. Welcome to the nightmare... Benedict Ashforth is the author of the UK best-selling Kindle ghost story, Abbot's Keep.

Sent to live with new foster parents in Briarwych, Kerry and Mark soon set about exploring the village. When they're warned to stay away from the church, they naturally decide to go and take a closer look. And when the long-sealed door mysteriously swings open, they're drawn inside to meet a terrible fate. After 70 years, a policy of containment is no longer enough. A priest is sent to Briarwych, with the sole task of defeating the evil once and for all.

On a hot summer night in Montauk, the bodies of two local bar patrons are discovered in the dunes, torn to shreds, their identities unrecognizable.... In another part of town, a woman's backyard is invaded by four terrifying creatures that defy any kind of description. What's clear is that they're hostile - and they're ravenous....

Quinn has just survived yet another bloody run-in with the murderous clown Frendo, but somehow still she knows this won’t be the last. Tired of being hunted and seeing innocent people hurt, Quinn believes the only way to beat the horror is to take justice into her own hands—and stop the Frendo followers herself. Little does she know that this path will take her across cornfields and state lines, to where she will have to face the most dangerous and bloody menace yet: True believers.

When autumn arrives in Frederickport, it brings surprises-some welcomed. Meanwhile, the residents of Beach Drive learn there are some things more frightening than ghosts.

When Elisabeth Quemener dies she leaves a small parcel with the instructions that it must only be opened by Astrid Oake. The trouble is, no one knows who Astrid Oake is… Elisabeth’s family turn to Touissants detective agency for help but, when Mila Shepherd and Carter Jackson try to track Astrid down, their frustration soon mounts. Their only clue is a photo of two young women holding the hands of a tiny child. The women are smiling but Mila is haunted by the sadness in their eyes. Is this Astrid and Elisabeth and if so, who is the child?

In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snow storm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne'er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death. But the facts don't add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there's evidence he was hiding from someone. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds...and remembers.

In the picturesque English village of Briarwych, Father David Perkins tends to his work at the local church. The shadow of war has fallen across England, and the local airbase provides a constant reminder of the horrors that have been unleashed. For Father Perkins, the struggle to provide guidance for his parishioners is an everyday battle. And then Judith Prendergast starts hearing voices in the church. A faithful and devoted woman, struggling to raise her daughter, Elizabeth, Judith takes a dim view of the happenings in Briarwych.

With one unexpected email from her estranged best friend, Lucy, Mina Murray’s carefully curated life is turned upside down. Leaving behind her psychiatric practice in London, along with her routine and the calm it brings, she returns to the windswept shores of Wales. Faced with everything she’s left behind, she soon discovers that Lucy’s symptoms mirror those of her mysterious patient with amnesia hundreds of miles away.

November 1816: Restless but naive Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to escape her stifling life in foggy Halifax. Her guardian is lining up repugnant suitors, but Emeline has her eyes set on a lieutenant in the British Navy. She just needs to persuade him to propose, or her one chance at happiness will be gone forever. But when Emeline’s hopes end in scandal, she finds herself with only one suitor left: the wealthy and enigmatic Captain Graves. Having already lost two wives to tragic circumstances, the widower is seeking a new companion in his cloistered seaside manor, Faraday House.

Ghost stories became hugely popular during the 19th century, and the Victorians became the masters of the genre. This deliciously chilling collection of Classic Hallowe'en Stories includes authors such as Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allen Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M. R. James and Vernon Lee.

Shipwrecks are part of life in the remote village of Porthmorvoren, Cornwall. And as the sea washes the bodies of the drowned onto the beach, it also brings treasures: barrels of liquor, exotic fruit, the chance to lift a fine pair of boots from a corpse, maybe even a jewel or two. When, after a fierce storm, Mary Blight rescues a man half dead from the sea, she ignores the whispers of her neighbours and carries him home to nurse better. Gideon Stone is a Methodist minister from Newlyn, a married man.

She is young, incredibly desirable - the virgin bride. He is young, incredibly brilliant - the devil's groom. They are genetically perfect, programmed to plant a seed of flesh, destined to breed a mutant life of overwhelming beauty and overwhelming evil. Evil which will emerge as the anti-human, evil which will use cold, sinister technology to wipe out the world - our world. Now, it is a matter of life and death. For them. For us. For humankind.

Jenna's life has always been a fight. From the traumatic and mysterious loss of her mother on a dark woodland road when she was 15, to the abusive and controlling boyfriend she's recently escaped, she has learned that trust hurts you in the end. Now Jenna's found what she hopes is happiness with her new girlfriend, Holly. But the world is full of darkness - some of it ancient, some of it closer to home. . . Evil, and those who serve it, will not let Jenna go.

Angela was just a baby when she was abandoned, and a children's home is no place to grow up. When manager Ray takes girls off to his 'den' in the garden, they always come back crying.... So, when wealthy couple James and Rosemary come to choose a child to adopt, Angela is desperate to escape. Years later, Angela starts to search for her birth mother, Evelyn, hoping to heal the scars of her childhood. But strange and sinister events start to unfold. And Evelyn fears she may not survive her daughter's return.

London, 1765. Lady Isabella Gerard, a respectable member of Georgian society, orders her maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it, its shimmering beauty tainted by the actions of her brutal husband the night before. Three months later, Lord Gerard stands at the shoreline of the lake, looking down at a woman wearing the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it’s clear this was not his intended victim…

An animatronic clown is more than what it seems, a terrible bedbug infestation, a film project between brothers gone wrong and beloved pet turtle taken. These are a few of the spooky creepypasta stories you'll find here. Inside this debut collection you'll find over 20 concise and creepy horror stories straight from the famous Nosleep forum on Reddit. Some you may have read before...some you haven't. Turn the lights down, immerse yourself, and enjoy!

For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.