Stories From the Grave – Book One
A Novel by B.E. Russell
“Thirty chilling tales that will haunt your imagination long after you’ve turned the final page.”
From the mind of B.E. Russell comes Stories from the Grave – BOOK ONE, an unsettling collection of thirty horror and mystery stories that will send chills down your spine and keep you on the edge of your seat.
Each tale delves into eerie settings and dark mysteries, drawing readers into worlds where terror lurks just beyond the shadows.
Inside you’ll discover original short stories including: The Pub Down the Block, Home is Where the Heart Is, Octamo Lake, Daylight, The Bag Lady, The Face Melters, Pumpkin Hill, The Garbage Man, The Midnight Feast, The Skeleton People, The House on Maple Street, The Skin Walkers, The Stray’s, Night Lights, The Head Hunters, Darkness, The Wreck, The Sea Whisperer, Footsteps, The Trophy Hunter, The Witching Hour, The Doll, Jack of All Trades, Stone Cold, Village of the Damned, The Grave Robbers, Surveillance, The Sewer People, The Artist and Slap Shot.
Prepare yourself for a nightmarish journey through these haunting pages – if you dare!
Read the stories here on our website completely free or order a high quality Hardcover or Paperback for your home library. We even have Author Signed First Edition copies available on our website in Limited Supply!
About the Book
From the mind of B.E. Russell comes Stories from the Grave – BOOK ONE, an unsettling collection of thirty horror and mystery stories that will send chills down your spine and keep you on the edge of your seat.
Each tale delves into eerie settings and dark mysteries, drawing readers into worlds where terror lurks just beyond the shadows. This haunting anthology spans 722 pages of fear, suspense, and the macabre — available now in Hardcover and Paperback editions.
- Publisher: Xcel Publishing
- Publication Date:October 30, 2024
- Language: English
- Print length: 722 pages
- ISBN-10: 1966245149
- ISBN-13: 978-1966245148
- Item Weight: 2.45 pound (Hardcover)
- Dimensions: 6 x 1.75 x 9 inches (Hardcover)
Stories from the Grave – BOOK ONE – Contents
The Pub Down the Block
In the forgotten town of Alderwood stands The Pub, a dimly lit bar with a cursed history and a single rule—once you step inside, you can never leave. Travelers and drifters are drawn in by its flickering neon sign, only to find themselves trapped, their souls slowly claimed by each drink they take. Behind the bar, Rob and Josie—bound caretakers of the curse—serve the doomed in quiet resignation, pouring drinks for the lost and watching as The Pub’s hunger is eternally fed, one soul at a time.
Home is Where the Heart Is
On Thanksgiving Day in the quiet suburb of Millwood Pines, the Owens family reunites for their annual holiday gathering—warm, cheerful, and unaware that danger lurks across the street. Their reclusive neighbor, Mr. Calhoun, long regarded as a harmless old man, hides a gruesome secret in his basement: a collection of preserved human hearts taken from past victims. When the Owens invite him to join their celebration, they unknowingly open their home to a monster. What begins as an innocent act of kindness soon turns into a nightmare of trust betrayed, as Mr. Calhoun adds new hearts to his macabre collection—proving that, for him, home truly is where the heart is.
Octamo Lake
In the quiet New England town of Oakville lies Octamo Lake—a dark, forgotten pond once sacred to the vanished Octamo tribe, who believed it was a gateway between worlds. Centuries ago, settlers desecrated the tribe’s burial grounds, awakening a vengeful spirit known as Ahsaki, the Shadow Keeper, bound forever to guard the lake and punish those who disturb it.
When four friends—Mark, Emily, Connor, and Rachel—spend a night by the lake telling ghost stories, they accidentally awaken Ahsaki. Haunted by terrifying visions and whispers, the group learns of the lake’s cursed history and the spirit’s wrath. In a desperate attempt to set things right, they return to restore the sacred ground—but Ahsaki rises from the depths once more, his ancient vengeance unstoppable.
“Octamo Lake” is a chilling tale of forgotten sins, restless spirits, and the price of disturbing what should have been left buried.
Daylight
In the small town of Waverly, an ordinary morning turns to horror when sunlight begins burning human flesh within seconds of exposure. Eli Mercer and his wife Lydia quickly realize the sun itself has become lethal, forcing them to barricade their home and hide from daylight as chaos consumes the world.
At night, they venture into the darkness in search of supplies and discover other survivors—some horribly transformed by the light. Teaming up with a man named Connor, they uncover a chilling truth: a secret solar experiment called Heliox has awakened the sun’s consciousness, turning it into a sentient force that now hunts all life.
As dawn approaches once more, Eli and the others set out to find a way to shut down the Heliox project before the rising sun—now a living predator—wipes out humanity forever.
The Bag Lady
The abandoned house on Maplewood Lane has long been feared by locals, haunted by tales of the mysterious “Bag Lady”—a ghostly figure said to freeze anyone who meets her gaze. When skeptical teenager Sam enters the house on a dare, he vanishes without a trace. His friend Jake, desperate for answers, follows and meets the same fate. Soon after, townspeople who enter the house are found paralyzed in terror, their faces locked in silent screams. As whispers of the Bag Lady’s curse spread, fear grips Maplewood. Those who look upon her never return—and her dark, watchful eyes remain fixed on the town.
The Face Melters
In the peaceful suburb of Cedar Grove, Margaret Whitmore hosts a dinner party for twelve friends—an evening of laughter, fine food, and wine. But the joy turns to terror when guests’ faces begin to melt away, their flesh liquefying as they die in agony. Horrified, Margaret discovers the source: a strange new “cooking device” she ordered called The Face Melter. Hidden in her basement, the machine emits a deadly resonance that breaks down human flesh—and it’s alive, hungry, and demanding to be fed.
After Margaret smashes the device and flees, detectives investigating the grisly scene uncover clues linking the machine to a shadowy tech company experimenting with dangerous microwave and resonance technology. As they dig deeper, they realize the massacre in Cedar Grove was no accident—the Face Melter was just the beginning of something far more sinister.
Pumpkin Hill
Every October, hundreds of glowing pumpkins mysteriously appear on Pumpkin Hill, a misty rise on the edge of Ridgemont with a dark reputation. Ignoring the town’s warnings, four friends—Owen, Emma, Sam, and Charlie—venture up the hill one night to uncover its secrets. What begins as harmless curiosity turns to terror when they discover the pumpkins are growing from human graves and whisper with the voices of the dead.
Their investigation leads them to the legend of Edgar Belden, a 19th-century farmer who sacrificed his family in a dark pact for a bountiful harvest. Realizing the curse still feeds on the living, the kids return to the hill to burn it down, only to awaken Belden’s vengeful spirit. Guided by the town archivist, they perform a final ritual to end the curse once and for all—but the whispers of Pumpkin Hill never truly fade.
The Garbage Man
In the dark alleys of New York City, a homeless man named Derek encounters a horrifying urban legend come to life — the Garbage Man, a decaying creature made of bones and filth that hunts the forgotten and discarded. After a terrifying first encounter, Derek learns from others on the streets that people have been disappearing, leaving only scraps of clothing and bones behind. Determined to stop the creature, he joins another survivor, Paul, who leads him deep into the city’s abandoned subway tunnels known as The Hollow — the one place the Garbage Man supposedly won’t enter. But when they descend into the darkness, Derek discovers the truth: The Hollow is filled with the souls of the Garbage Man’s victims, and the creature has followed them there. As the shadows close in, Derek realizes escape may be impossible — because the Garbage Man always finds what he wants.
The Midnight Feast
In the desolate, rumor-haunted city of West Haven, homeless man Dean learns that the tales of missing people are horrifyingly true when he is pursued by a swarm of the undead—decaying, flesh-hungry corpses that emerge after midnight. He is saved by a survivor named Jonas, who shelters him and explains that the creatures are the reanimated dead of other missing homeless people, showing increasingly cunning behavior, even mimicking the voices of their victims to lure them out.
Driven by a need to understand and stop the threat, Dean joins Jonas to investigate the cemetery, where they confirm the undead are the restless former inhabitants of the streets. Their attempt to end the curse by smashing a discovered amulet goes terribly wrong: it doesn’t free the souls but instead unleashes a massive, enraged horde. Dean, Jonas, and the few remaining survivors manage to escape the cemetery and barricade themselves in an abandoned church, realizing that they have only intensified the nightly horror and must now prepare to fight for their lives against an overwhelming army of the hungry dead.
The Skeleton People
In the quiet town of Raven’s Hollow, peace shatters when residents begin vanishing amid eerie scratching sounds and whispers in the dark. Teenager Ethan Hawke witnesses something unimaginable—a gaunt, skeletal figure watching him from the shadows. As more townsfolk disappear, Ethan and his friend Jake uncover a horrifying truth: the town is being hunted by supernatural beings known as The Skeleton People, pale, hollow-eyed creatures that walk between worlds.
When the townspeople finally band together to fight back, they turn to an ancient ritual to banish the creatures once and for all. In a desperate showdown at the abandoned church, light and salt drive the Skeleton People back into the darkness. But as dawn breaks over Raven’s Hollow, Ethan realizes the evil may not be gone—only waiting, hidden in the shadows, for the right time to return.
The House on Maple Street
In the quiet town of Briar Glen stands the long-abandoned Ashburn House, a decaying Victorian mansion steeped in over a century of dark legend. Locals whisper of its cursed history—of Eleanor Ashburn, the fragile young wife who vanished in 1909, and her cruel husband Alexander, later found dead with a look of horror frozen on his face. Since then, strange voices, shadowy figures, and eerie music have plagued anyone who dared enter.
When seventeen-year-old Jason Carter accepts a dare to spend the night inside, he discovers the truth behind the tales. The house is alive—haunted by Eleanor’s tormented spirit and the darkness that consumed Alexander, a presence that feeds on those who enter. Marked by the entity and plagued by whispers and nightmares, Jason learns that the only way to end the curse is to destroy the house itself. But as he returns to confront the evil within, he realizes the Ashburn House is more than haunted—it’s hungry, and it may not let him leave alive.
The Skin Walkers
The village of Black Hollow, nestled near dense, cursed woods, is plunged into terror following the disappearance of hunters and the emergence of the Skin Walkers: tall, grotesque humanoid creatures with no skin, their exposed muscles and veins raw and glistening. The horror escalates when a villager, Old Man Wilkes, has a close encounter, and later, a woman named Elsie is found brutally skinned and left surrounded by cryptic symbols. The community is gripped by fear and confusion, as Sheriff Bradford confirms the attack is unnatural and the whispers spread, fueling the dread of more skinless figures lurking in the mist.
The ancient threat stems from a curse placed on the land by a disturbed settler named Elijah Crane, who centuries ago performed rituals to commune with primal, skin-craving spirits in the forest, ultimately sacrificing his own skin and body to unleash them. These entities now roam as Skin Walkers, possessing fragments of human memory and the ability to mimic the voices of lost loved ones to lure their prey. The village’s only respite came from a desperate, sacrificial ritual performed years later by a “marked” villager named Samuel, which temporarily bound the creatures. However, the peace is shattered when a group of teenagers ventures into the cursed forest, drawn by the Skin Walkers’ haunting whispers of familiar voices, once again unleashing the skinless horrors upon Black Hollow.
The Stray’s
In the decaying city of Belmont, stray cats had always been part of the scenery—until they began to change. Once timid and elusive, they started moving in coordinated packs, their yellow eyes gleaming with a cold, predatory intelligence. When residents began disappearing, Detective Erin Hayes uncovered a horrifying truth: the cats weren’t just acting on instinct—they were hunting.
As the attacks grew more violent, Hayes learned from a terrified woman that the strays were bound by an ancient curse. Decades ago, a shunned man named Isaac Gale had fused his soul with the city’s cats, vowing revenge on the townspeople who cast him out. Now his spirit lived on through them, commanding their every move. To stop the slaughter, Hayes ventured into the city’s oldest alleys and shattered the cursed stone that bound Gale’s spirit—but as the cats vanished into the shadows, a whisper echoed through the darkness, promising the terror wasn’t over.
Night Lights
Night Lights is a chilling story about Hannah and David Blake, a couple living on the edge of a quiet forest who awaken one night to seven eerie blue lights hovering above the treetops. What begins as curiosity soon turns to terror when their children reveal that the lights called to them in their dreams. As nights pass, the lights grow closer, accompanied by whispers and faceless figures that seem to watch the family. When government agents insist the phenomena are “routine tests,” the Blakes realize something far older and darker is at work.
Seeking answers, Hannah learns from a local historian that the lights belong to the Alunta—ancient forest spirits known as the Forgotten Ones, who lure the living to join them in eternal wandering. As the lights close in, the Blakes flee, escaping the forest’s grip but knowing the Alunta still wait in the shadows. The story ends with the haunting truth that the lights—and the spirits behind them—are bound to the land, forever watching, forever waiting for the next soul to answer their call.
Reader Reviews
“A masterful blend of mystery and horror — each story left me wanting more. Absolutely chilling!” – HorrorReads.com
“From the first page to the last, it’s impossible to look away. Russell’s imagination knows no bounds.” – Dark Ink Review
“A stunning collection. The stories are terrifyingly real, as if pulled from nightmares themselves.” – Midnight Tales Journal
Buy the Book
Stories from the Grave – Book One is available now in Hardcover and Paperback formats. Click below to order your copy and begin your descent into darkness.