About Taste Test: Scared Stiff

by JL Merrow, Sunny Morraine, Mercy Loomis
39 pages / 15000 words
ISBN-13: 978-1-60370-838-8
ISBN-10: 1-60370-838-3
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, epub, Sony-optimized pdf

A good scary story can make a heart race, just like a sexy encounter can. That's the idea behind Scared Stiff. In Through a Western Door by JL Merrow, Sam thinks he's gotten a bad deal going to a party and an abandoned house. Then he meets James, and finds out that even legendary hauntings have an upside.

Summer in Canaan, by Sunny Moraine, finds Jacob trying to rekindle the muse in a cabin in the woods. Will Aaron be able to help him, or is it too late for both of them. Finally, in The House that Pip Built, but Mercy Loomis, Caleb wants desperately to be in the same fraternity as his longtime crush, Evan. Will he be able to spend enough time in a haunted house to get his wish?

Sample

Through a Western Door
By JL Merrow

“This,” Sam said bitterly, “is the last time I’m letting you decide where we go.”

There was no answer, but then seeing as Sam was talking to his actual prick, rather than the merely figurative one he’d just stormed away from, he hadn’t really expected one.

Heaving a sigh, Sam finished his leak and zipped up.

 “Do you talk to all your body parts, or is that one, ah, particularly favored?” a teasing voice asked.

“Shit!” Sam took an involuntary step back. “Fuck!”

The stranger stepped forward and offered Sam a hand, his lips quirking upward in amusement. “You know, your language really is most extraordinarily foul,” he commented, his floppy fringe almost totally obscuring his eyes as he leaned forward.

Sam took the hand and let himself be pulled up with a surprisingly strong grip. “Thanks,” he said wryly. “You always sneak up on blokes having a wazz, or am I just particularly favored?”

The smile he received in response fair took Sam’s breath away. They’d taken gas lamps and candles with them to the old house, the mains having been disconnected decades ago, but the light that spilled out from the tall bay windows didn’t reach this far down the garden. It was the colder light of the full moon that showed Sam bright blond hair and a mischievous, boyish face he was instinctively drawn to.

The clothes were a bit odd, though. Old-fashioned: baggy trousers, a billowy shirt, and honest-to-God braces holding his trousers up.

 “Well, I try not to make a habit of it,” the young man told him. “James Forrester, by the way.”

Sam realized he was still grasping that cool, slender hand and let go a little self-consciously. “Right. I’m Sam. Sam Wisdom, and before you ask, no, I don’t manage to live up to the name.” He grimaced. “Tonight certainly proved that.”

“Oh?” James hesitated. “You know, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to be, ah...”

“Lurking in the undergrowth in the pitch bloody dark so none of those tossers in there can find me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes.”