Terror In The Mirror And Other Stories

Three scary stories featuring evil residents in a mirror, a teenage werewolf, and a ghost from the past

Three scary stories featuring evil residents in a mirror, a teenage werewolf, and a ghost from the past.

Five spine-chilling tales about ghosts await you in this scary book. And the scariest part is that the kid in each story could be you.

Here are ten stories that impart unexpected insights from a unique and gifted writer. The surfing pilgrims who lose their paradise in the title story, The Johari Mirror; the rock-and-roll travelers in Dead Fish Eye; the clay-stained miners of The Jackass Hill Insane Asylum; all exhibit their mortal flaws, innocence, and conceits; in worlds where lives shift unpredictably, outcomes are mysterious. In Los Angeles, in the swinging sixties, a college student meets up with the Manson Family and confronts their evil. In Ohio, the Great Serpent Mound becomes metaphor for death and rebirth in the nuclear age. In 1950's Tennessee, a young boy is treetop witness to violence and Ethnic Evolution. A park ranger in Tears to the National Anthem recounts a momentous and strange mass-weeping on the White House lawn. These stories reveal the late 20th Century in exhilarating and profound transition; a life lived in the shadow of chaos. A successful Russian immigrant murders his family and commits suicide, echoing Crime and Punishment in the derangement of A Real Russian Tragedy. The Not So New Age pilgrims sing in dolphin and get a good dose of unmasking. Elvis Presley and Frederick Chopin return to remind us of the arousing possibilities of music, and of its tragic disappointment. The Johari Mirror presents the range and versatility, the artistry of language and ideas -- from tightly controlled to dazzlingly free, from mock-adolescent to piercing critic -- of a bold and illuminating writer. The voices and tales, fiction, memoir and commentary, all make the page sing in genuinely prophetic tones. Visit the author's web site at www.worldcat.com

It is said that a mirror can trap a person's soul... Martin Williams is a broke, two-bit screenwriter living in Hollywood, but when he finds the very mirror that once hung in the house of a murdered 1930s child star, he happily spends all he has on it. He has long obsessed over the tragic story of Boofuls, a beautiful and successful actor who was slaughtered and dismembered by his grandmother. However, he soon discovers that this dream buy is in fact a living nightmare; the mirror was not only in Boofuls house, but witness to the death of this blond-haired and angelic child, which in turn has created a horrific and devastating portal to a hellish parallel universe. So when Martin's landlord loses his grandson it is soon apparent that the mirror is responsible. But if a little boy has gone into the mirror, what on earth is going to come out?

The Sand-Man and other stories is a collection of short horror stories by E. T. A. Hoffman. Hoffman was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror. Excerpt: "The king was in a terrible fury that anybody should ever think of making a nutcracker his son-in-law: he laid all the blame on the watchmaker and astronomer, and banished them both from his court and kingdom. This had not been seen by the astronomer in casting his horoscope; however, he found, on reading the stars a second time, that young Drosselmeier would so well behave himself in his new station that, in spite of his ugliness, he would become prince and king. In the meantime, but with the fervent hope of soon seeing the end of these things, Drosselmeier remains as ugly as ever; so much so, that the nutcrackers in Nuremberg have always been made after the exact model of his countenance and figure."

It was a job any kid would kill for: to play a role in the Historical Society's Haunted House Halloween fundraising event. Ellen Streater was thrilled to play Joan of Arc, burning at the stake. It was for a good cause—to benefit the eerie old Clayton House, soon to reopen as a museum. They said the house was haunted. Ellen didn't believe it—until she felt a strange, icy feeling when she touched the beautiful Fairylustre bowl. Then she saw the ghost in the mirror—a beautiful phantom who beckoned her into a nightmare beyond her wildest dreams. "Entertaining and appealing, with lively and believable young people and a personable ghost." —School Library Journal

Through direct testimony, historical narrative, and photographs, relates the 1980's kidnap, imprisonment, and torture of social activists Nora Miselem of Hondurus and Maria Suarez Toro of Costa Rica. Details the support they gave each other during incarceration, what they did to achieve release, and their attempts to reconstruct their lives afterwards. [back cover].