Showing results by author "Donna Burgess" in All Categories

Former homecoming queen Beulah Funkhouser’s life has spiraled into the makings of a reality show. She’s My 600 Pound Life meets Hoarders, meets My Crazy Obsession meets My Ghost Story all rolled into one freaky, desperate primetime special. Just when she thinks her life is crappy enough, she finds herself stuck inside her super-messy apartment with a glaring of hungry kitty-cats and no way to get help. Worse, the ghost of fat Elvis keeps showing up just long enough to drop a few insults and sneer at her over the top of his peanut butter and ‘nanner sammich. Starving, pissed and unable...

When Tom Andrews was a small child, his older brother, Stevie, snapped and murdered their entire family, before turning the gun on himself—leaving little Tom alive and alone in a house full of corpses and a lifetime full of questions. Somehow Tom has managed to become a successful and well-adjusted husband, father and businessman—until he starts seeing Stevie again. The long dead Stevie isn’t exactly welcome in Tom’s life, but he has a reason for showing up after all these years. Can Tom find out what Stevie’s message is before it’s too late? Formerly titled "Awake Ghost Song."

Investigative reporter Jack Callahan hasn't known true silence since the Ash Mill mine collapse. He carries the trauma like a physical weight, masked only by the high-pitched, permanent ringing in his ears. When a routine assignment sends him to the sweltering coast of South Carolina in the spring of 1973, Jack expects to write a standard exposé on a dying town being bled dry by a charismatic traveling faith healer. Reverend Cyrus Gable has pitched his canvas tent on the edge of the salt marsh, and the "miracles" are drawing desperate crowds by the thousands. The blind are seeing. The ...

Los Angeles, 1958. The lights are bright, the promises brighter.Eli Harrow steps off a Greyhound bus believing in luck and photogenic symmetry. He lands at the Desert Palm Hotel, a faded jewel for aspiring actors and quiet sinners. When he’s drawn into The Circle—a cult that blends studio contracts with blood rituals—Eli learns that in Hollywood, the real magic is consent. As he climbs the ladder from bit part to box office darling, the boundaries blur: reflections move before he does, strangers know his name, and every Tuesday, someone new disappears. The Circle promises immortality ...

A disgraced scholar. A silent village. And a bell that listens to the dark. Winter, 1888. Exiled by a professional scandal to the frozen coast of Wales, Alastair Finch has accepted a lonely commission: cataloging the library of the late, eccentric Baronet of Portmeirion. Trapped in the drafty Gatehouse Library by a relentless blizzard, Alastair finds his only company is the whistling wind and the rhythmic scratching of his own pen. Until he discovers the Vigil-Bell Log. Hidden among the archives, the leather-bound journal belonged to a missing bell-ringer who vanished on Christmas Eve five ...

Coldwater, West Virginia. Winter, 1973. Three children have vanished near the abandoned Ash Textile Mill. The sheriff blames the harsh Appalachian winter. The grieving families are silent. But investigative journalist Jack Callahan knows the pattern: institutional denial, isolated towns, and the things that hide in the margins. Armed only with a notepad, a camera, and a cassette recorder, Jack enters the ruins of the Ash Mill to find the truth. But the mill isn't empty. Beneath the rotting floorboards lies a secret that predates the town—a sound that rises from the dark, mimicking the ...

Brace yourself for a chilling journey into the heart of darkness in Donna Burgess's spine-tingling novella, The Ghosts of Chernobyl. Set against the eerie backdrop of the 1986 nuclear disaster, this haunting tale follows twin siblings Anton and Elena as they confront the terrifying specters of their past. When a mysterious vial promising eternal life resurfaces after 25 years, Anton must embark on a perilous odyssey back to the ghostly ruins of Pripyat. But as he navigates the twisted labyrinths of the abandoned city, he discovers that the true horror lies not in the ghosts that haunt ...

Snow. Steam. Rebellion. Welcome to a city wrapped in snow, ruled by gears, and ready to rise. Set against the backdrop of a frost-covered Victorian metropolis, Gears of Winter is a spellbinding steampunk novella that reimagines the timeless tale of The Nutcracker with a thrilling twist. Clara, a bold and spirited young woman, finds herself swept into a rebellion against the tyrannical Drosselmeyer—a puppetmaster whose army of mechanical enforcers tightens its grip on the city with each ticking clock. But when she meets Nikolai, a mysterious half-mechanical soldier with secrets buried deep...

Beloved Monster: A Reimagining of Mary Shelley's Gothic Classic He dreamed of conquering death. I dreamed only of loving him. Beloved Monster is a dark, lyrical retelling of Mary Shelley's classic, told through the haunted voice of Henry Clerval — Victor's dearest friend, confidant, and perhaps something more. When Victor Frankenstein defies the laws of nature to steal fire from the heavens, he unleashes a tragedy no man could foresee. In candlelit laboratories and storm-swept landscapes, Victor and Henry walk a path from wonder to ruin, from tenderness to terror. Between them stands the ...

"When the cards are placed just right, I can peer into the portal of night I can see things far in time Clear to the far side of the moon and beyond that, too." Wes Smith is a mundane guy who has just recently landed a coveted, yet mundane, job in a mundane office that just happens to overlook one of the most notorious suicide bridges in the country. Suddenly, his drab life has taken a cue from the “Twilight Zone.” His lover has lost interest, his corporate grief councilor doesn’t seem to hear him, and he’s dreaming of skies that rain bodies. The bridge haunts him through his office...

When a young military officer named Perry (the man who would eventually become known to the literary world as Edgar Allan Poe) meets renegade lady-pirate, Charlotte Law, they are immediately drawn together by their lust for riches. Armed with a map, a secret, and a strange little golden scarab, they embark on a quest for the treasures of the legendary Captain Kidd. Enlisting the help of a naïve Irishman named Finnegan, they journey from the dank opium dens to the lush barrier islands of old Charleston. And along the way, one of them will live an adventure that will eventually turn into one...

In the serene, upper-class suburb of Oakwood Hills, the 1950s picture-perfect life is shattered by a mysterious explosion at a nearby military base. Official reports claim it was a controlled test gone awry, but the residents of Oakwood Hills soon realize the true horror that has been unleashed. As a shadowy figure begins to haunt their homes, fear and paranoia seep into the community, bringing hallucinations, inexplicable illnesses, and a breakdown of social order. Margaret Lane, a determined housewife, finds herself at the heart of the mystery. Her once-idyllic life is turned upside down ...

Shadows of Eldridge: A Yuletide Horror Anthology – Kindle Edition by Donna Burgess 📖❄️ 🎄✨ In the quaint, snow-laden town of Eldridge, where Christmas lights twinkle like fallen stars and festive cheer fills the air, a veil of darkness looms. Shadows of Eldridge invites you into a chilling world of holiday horror, where each turn of the page unravels a new tale of terror—all interconnected by the town’s eerie past and its cursed families. 🎁👁️ This collection of holiday vignettes, in the vein of Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, weaves a tapestry of Christmas-time ...

High school is supposed to be the best years of a girl's life, but when a pandemic breaks out, turning victims into flesh-hungry cannibals, Cindy Scott realizes she's witnessing what may be the end of the world. As the N-Virus spreads, it becomes evident that no family is safe from its wrath. Despite efforts to carry on as normal, society starts to unravel.

In the quaint town of Mossy Hollow, South Carolina, time seems to have paused in reverence for the Old South. But behind the charming facade of this rural town lurks a chilling tale that would remain whispered for generations. Donna Burgess, a critically acclaimed author known for her gripping narratives, presents an eerie Gothic masterpiece. Dive deep into the gloomy corners of a Gothic farmhouse where illusions and reality blur. Experience firsthand the twisted games of a deranged mother who, in her malevolent creativity, conjures horrifying monsters to terrorize her unsuspecting children...

On the eve of winter Solstice, a massive flash envelopes the Earth and then there is nothing. The sun no longer shines and civilization is plunged into unending darkness. Those exposed to the mysterious flash have changed. They have become bloodthirsty, cunning, and determined to devour anyone who is not infected. They are Ragers.

Miles and Harper are on the cusp of middle age. Living a good life in the big city, they’re resigned to being childless. But when Harper suddenly learns that she is pregnant with twins, their somewhat boring marriage gets a much-needed kick in the pants. As they welcome a pair of beautiful little boys into their career-centered world, what should be the happiest moment of their lives quickly spirals into a pattern of heartbreak and paranoia.

Bill Andrews always ran the north end of the beach on Wednesdays, but this morning starfish littered the sand. Not a few, but thousands. He stood, quietly perplexed, as the winter sun glinted off the Atlantic and the waves lapped gently at the fields of dead and dying creatures. Here and there, pointed limbs flexed slowly toward the endless blue sky as if grasping for some kind of mercy that was not coming. The news made little of the dying and the article buried deep on page five. However, there was a much larger dying in the wings… Something dire is coming and the government is keeping ...

In the dead of night, when the world is hushed and the moon casts its silvery glow, Eva finds her sanctuary. A transformed woman, she's shed her past insecurities to embrace a life of freedom and night runs. But even as she revels in her newfound strength, shadows gather—shadows of doubt, betrayal, and a lurking danger that turns her sanctuary into a stage for a deadly game. The Night Runner is a pulse-pounding journey into the depths of human emotion and the darkness that often resides there. Donna Burgess crafts a tale that is as thrilling as a midnight sprint through a moonlit forest, ...

Twenty years ago, Susan Archer witnessed the brutal murder of her beloved twin brother. Now, the murderer, Devin McCree, has returned. Although Devin is a "Deathwalker," Susan soon discovers that he is not the monster she has feared for so long. Leaving her old life behind, she joins Devin on his run from a crazed vampire hunter. Unwilling to let his love disappear, Michael soon follows. Can Michael save Susan? Does she even need or want to be saved?