Always Darker Inside – Fedowar Press
Cursed objects horror anthology
Nine diabolical tales with different takes on cursed object terror.
From space horror that pits a crew against … a piece of furniture, to cosmic horror, demons, a cursed human heart, a camera, music and headphones, and a haunted typewriter.
“Then here was Steely telling them a chair was floating outside the spacecraft like a balloon in the sky.”
Threshold – Andy Lockwood
Cursed mirror
After the death of her grandmother, Cate inherits an antique mirror. The frame is detailed and ageless, the glass unmarred and impeccable, the reflection… Cate can’t quite put her finger on it, but there’s something wrong with the way her reflection looks back at her.
She assumes it must have a storied history, but it doesn’t seem to have any history at all. Previous owners have all died or disappeared, leaving Cate to piece together the origin of this mysterious heirloom. At first, this didn’t seem like a problem, but Cate’s ordinary life is twisting in unusual ways since taking ownership of the artifact.
Plagued by nightmares and haunted by her own reflection, she can hardly close her eyes, afraid of what new glimmer she might find looking back at her.
Perhaps it is exhaustion.
Perhaps it is something else entirely.
“It surprised her that after all this time, it still had the power to try drawing her in.”
TerrorTome – Garth Marenghi
Cursed typewriter horror – Book 1 of TerrorTome
Dare you crack open the TerrorTome? (Mind the spine)
When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination – now leaking out of his own brain – Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick’s dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.
Can he and Roz, his frequently incorrect female editor, hunt down these incarnate denizens of Nick’s rampaging imaginata before they destroy Stalkford, outer Stalkford and possibly slightly further?
“Maybe a small second-hand shop specialising in offbeat mysterious oddities didn’t attract major footfall. That or the eels were an issue.”
Sinister Melody – Boris Bacic
Cursed music box
If you hear the melody, you’re as good as dead.
When Steve’s grandmother dies, one of the only things she leaves him with is her ornate music box.
Mere days after bringing the box home and playing its music, Steve’s life turns upside down.
Nightmares plague him, footsteps echo in his apartment at night, voices sing from his living room only to go mute the moment he enters, and the music box mysteriously disappears and appears in different places.
No matter what Steve tries, he cannot get rid of the music box. The melody is constantly in his head, driving him to the brink of insanity with each passing day.
Playing the music box was a trap – the same one his grandmother had fallen into years ago.
“The music in his head wouldn’t stop. It was far worse than a catchy tune.”
Forsaken – Andrew Van Wey
Cursed painting
Some art takes on a life of its own.
A beautiful house. A loving family. Two kids, a dog, and a tenure-track professorship teaching art at the local university. Dan Rineheart is living the dream. But all dreams must end.
When an anonymous painting arrives at the university, Dan is tasked with uncovering the artist. No title. No name. No signature or frame. It’s a disturbing work of grotesque perfection. A work of art… that changes with each viewing.
So begins the nightmare. Where painted clocks tick-tock in the dark hours before dawn. Where shadow-wrapped children stalk the halls of a once happy home. Where all paths lead to a forsaken artist and their impossible creation.
This is the nightmare Dan Rineheart must enter before it shatters his sanity and devours his family.
“Dan took a few steps back, taking in the entire scope of the painting. It was a bizarre creation, both modern and macabre.”
Estate Sale – Mia Dalia
Cursed objects
It has been said that every small town has a house on a hill, the one the witch lives in.
But what if there is more to the story? The devil, after all, is in the details.
The old lady of the Koshmaroff estate is finally gone. In life, she was a mystery; in death, she leaves behind a house full of strange, yet seemingly ordinary objects. Objects, which the curiosity-driven locals rush in to buy, only to see their lives take nightmarish turns as a result.
No one knew the old lady’s husband dabbled in dark magic. No one knew the two of them traversed decades and continents, hobnobbing with the most famous occultists of the 20th century and building their collection. They have acquired such terrible treasures along the way.
Come, see for yourself.
Step inside for the bargain of a lifetime.
“Dreaming loud nightmares. Screaming silent screams. In this chair. Rocking away. You’d notice if you ever sat down.”
The Witch’s Diary – Charity Williams Smith
Cursed diary
After the death of her parents, Maya and her sister Andrea, a famous horror author, move from Boston to Salem, Massachusetts.
In their new home, weird things begin to happen. Doors open by themselves. There is a feeling that someone is always watching, and Maya keeps drawing and dreaming about a dark-haired Puritan girl.
But the biggest change is Andrea. She isn’t like herself anymore, and she constantly reads from an old diary that she found in the attic. And sometimes her brown eyes go blue.
Maya wants to think that the weird stuff that she has been seeing is just a manifestation of her grief, but she soon realizes that something evil has awakened in her home and that something wants revenge.
The only way to stop this evil from permanently residing in Andrea is for Maya to investigate the home’s history. Teaming up with the school’s outcast, Maya discovers the truth behind the haunting and learns of the terrible secrets that lie within the diary’s pages.
“Just think about the history. Can you imagine what could have happened here?”
The Amulet – Michael McDowell
Cursed jewellery
When a rifle range accident leaves Dean Howell disfigured and in a vegetative state, his wife Sarah finds her dreary life in Pine Cone, Alabama, made even worse.
After long and tedious days on the assembly line, she returns home to care for her corpselike husband while enduring her loathsome and hateful mother-in-law, Jo.
Jo blames the entire town for her son’s mishap, and when she gives a strange piece of jewelry to the man she believes most responsible, a series of gruesome deaths is set in motion.
Sarah believes the amulet has something to do with the rising body count, but no one will believe her. As the inexplicable murders continue, Sarah and her friend Becca Blair have no choice but to track down the amulet themselves, before it’s too late
“…there were seasons in which Pine Cone was an exciting place to live – if you were a spectator, and not a victim.”
Incantations of Blood – Savannah R. Fischer
Cursed book
Celia Dickenson finds herself alone in the forest, searching for a missing woman.
Minerva Penderghast performs a seance at the behest of a grieving family, only to reap disastrous consequences.
Maeve Baudelaire is reeling from the unexpected loss of her mother.
For these three women, all roads lead to Shady Grove.
But ancient demonic forces are stirring deep in the forest surrounding the small town, clamoring for sacrificed souls to slake their thirst.
Armed with a cursed book and knowledge of the occult, can an unlikely group of friends save Shady Grove from a threat that’s been festering for centuries?
Welcome to Shady Grove: a town where horrifying family secrets and coming of age just might be the end of you.
“A deep, booming disembodied laugh rumbled through the forest as the lagoon eagerly accepted its latest sacrifices.”
Curbside Curses – House of the Macabre
Cursed object horror anthology
The holidays have come and gone, and bit of spring cleaning is in the air. “Out with the old, in with the new”. Or so they say…
In our neighborhood, the bargain hunters are on the prowl. Whether they’re looking for forgotten collectibles to resell or those vintage dishes that are all the rage on Pinterest, thrifters are looking for one hell of a bargain.
At our yardsale, that may be truer than you care to find out. Here, your bargains are sure to come with a bump in the night. Collected in this horror anthology are 22 tales of second-hand deals, all connected to one single sale, that are so cheap, it’s scary… Literally!
“Is it just me or do some of these things really weird you out?”
Evil in Me – Brom
Cursed ring
Aspiring musician Ruby Tucker has had enough of her small rural town and dysfunctional family. But a falling out with her best friend and bandmate has killed her dreams of escaping and making it big in the Atlanta punk scene.
While helping her eccentric neighbor organize his religious artifacts, an ancient ring clamps down on her finger, possessing her with the spirit of a blood-thirsty demon.
There’s no exorcizing it unless hundreds of people chant a spell to set Ruby free. And what’s worse, the ring is a beacon for evil, drawing an unimaginably wicked mob straight to Ruby, hungry for her flesh.
If Ruby can get her band back together, she has a shot at salvation. It’s time for her to face the music and put her whole soul into a song, one powerful enough to raise some Hell.
“If you want to be free of the ring, free of his curse, you know what you must do.”
Needful Things – Stephen King
Cursed objects
The town of Castle Rock, Maine, has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is as peculiar as the little curio shop that’s just opened for business here.
Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Things, interesting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale.
The heart’s desire for any resident of Castle Rock can easily be found among the curiosities in exchange for a little money and, at the specific request of Leland Gaunt, a whole lot of menace against their fellow neighbors.
Everyone in town seems willing to make a deal at Needful Things, but the devil is in the details. And no one takes heed of the little sign hanging on the wall: Caveat emptor. In other words, let the buyer beware…
“The latch clicked at the door of Needful Things swung open.”
The Heirloom – Graham Masterton
Cursed chair
Antique specialist, Rick Dellatolla, knew a good deal when he saw one.
And the mahogany chair, thickly carved in a cascade of intertwined human bodies, seemed a genuine stroke of luck. Then weird things started happening to Rick and his family.
The foliage died in their garden. They lost track of time once inside their house. Their pet dog died a horrifying and pathetic bloody death.
That was when Rick decided to destroy the chair before it destroyed everything he’d ever cared for.
But by then then it was too late to stop the Evil that seemed to remain with Rick as a gift for the rest of his entire, hell-filled life.
“There was something about it. A stateliness. A sense of proportion. And whoever had carved the back and the arms must have been some kind of furniture-making genius.”
