How scared can you get in only 30 seconds? Dare to find out with Half-Minute Horrors, a collection of deliciously terrifying short short tales and creepy illustrations by an exceptional selection of writers and illustrators, including bestselling talents Lemony Snicket, James Patterson, Neil Gaiman, R.L.Stine, Faye Kellerman, Holly Black, Melissa Marr, Margaret Atwood, Jon Scieszka, Brett Helquist, and many more. With royalties benefiting First Book, a not-for-profit organization that brings books to children in need, this is an anthology worth devouring. So grab a flashlight, set the timer, and get ready for instant chills!
<span class="h1">Excerpts from Half-Minute Horrors</span><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td width="50%"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td align="left">"Something You Ought to Know" by Lemony Snicket
“The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing” is a phrase that refers to times when people ought to know, but don’t know, about something that is happening very close to them. For instance, you ought to know about the man who watches you when you sleep.
He is a quiet man, which is why you don’t know about him.
You don’t know how he gets into your home, or how he finds his way to the room in which you sleep. You don’t know how he can stare at you so long without blinking, and you don’t know how he manages to be gone by morning, without a trace, and you don’t know where he purchased the long, sharp knife, curved like a crescent moon, that he holds in his left hand, sometimes just millimeters from your eyes, which are closed and flickering in dreams.
Continue reading "Something You Ought to Know"<td width="10%"> <td width="50%"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td align="left">"The Creeping Hand" by Margaret Atwood
The hand crept up the cellar stairs. It was shriveled and dirty, and its fingernails were long.
It scuttled along the dark hallway. At the closed door it sniffed with its fingertips, then jumped up like a giant spider, grabbed the doorknob, and turned.
Inside the room it found a sock. Then a shoe. And then--another hand, hanging down from the bed. A young hand, a hand that it could kidnap and take away down to the cellar.
But this hand was attached to an arm.
Something could be done about that.
<td width="10%"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td width="50%"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td align="left"> "The Legend of Alexandra & Rose" by Jon Klassen
<img src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/harpercollins-ems/alexandra-rose-klassen.jpg" border="0"">
See the full image <td width="50%"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top"> <td align="left">"Worms" by Lane Smith
See the full image <td width="10%">