A blizzard is slamming into Vermont, but it doesn't matter to Meg Clark. She knows she'll be trapped in her music store in the shopping mall overnight with a small crew of her employees doing one final inventory.But after they're locked in for the night, they realize this isn't a normal winter storm. Ghastly faces appear in the store windows and disappear in a swirl of wind-blown snow. Dark, mysterious figures loom in and out of sight in the darkened corridors of the mall. Ghostly voices shriek inside the howling blasts of winter wind. Soon Meg and the others are besieged by something too terrifying to imagine.Before the night is over, a terrible secret from Meg's past will come back to haunt her and the group's only chance to survive will be to go out into the raging storm that's trying to kill them...

In the halls... of the Mountain King...There are many legends and ancient tales concerning Mount Agiochook, the second tallest mountain in Maine. Some of these tales speak of a demon that resides on the rocky slopes near the mountain's snow-crested summit. Legend has it that a force of supernatural evil periodically emerges from the mists that shroud the mountain and comes down to the valley, looking to claim a life.Sometimes the life it claims is an animal — perhaps a stray dog or a farmer's cow or a horse. At other times, it claims a human life, a straying hiker or a lost camper.Mark Newman has hiked the numerous trails to the summit of Mount Agiochook many times. He has heard the stories and Indian legend, but he doesn't believe them.Not until one September afternoon, when an early snow storm sweeps through the mountains, and he witnesses something he knows can't possibly be real.But it is all too real!Convinced that there is something lurking near the summit of the mountain... something terrible... something that won't be satisfied with claiming just one human life, Mark vows to hunt it down and destroy it.What he doesn't know is that he, too, is being hunted. Under suspicion for the murders of his best friend and his wife's lover, Mark is being pursued by the local police, an angry mob, and something else... something he can't begin to comprehend until he confronts it, face to face.From international best-selling author Rick Hautala — with dust jacket artwork and interior illustrations by acclaimed artist Stephen R. Bissette, creator of Tyrant — comes this terrifying adventure story of horror and suspense that will thrill you and haunt you long after you've finished reading it. This deluxe edition is protected inside a handmade cloth slipcase and is signed by the author!From Publishers WeeklyEven a monster of such legendary stature as Bigfoot isn't big enough to carry Hautala's routine pursuit-and-capture scenario very far. The tale begins promisingly, with a riveting scene atop Mount Agiochook in Maine: Mark Newman watches helplessly as his friend Phil Sawyer is plucked from a ravine by a Sasquatch. Mark can't get any friends back in town to believe what he says he saw; moreover, he becomes the prime suspect in Mark's disappearance and, later, in the bestial murder of his wife's lover. In this marked departure from his usual tales of ghostly terror, Hautala (Beyond the Shroud) shows a deft hand for orchestrating action and suspense, making Mark the object of two manhunts--by the townspeople and by the monster--when he returns to the mountain to search for Phil. After a few close scrapes, though, the potential for Mark to do anything but play hide-and-seek with his pursuers is exhausted, and Hautala resorts to obvious plot stretchers: characters fainting dead away at the end of chapters, sudden nocturnal forays into town by creatures that have kept their distance from humans for centuries and the gruesome demises of victims who exist solely to prolong the story with their death throes. Although designed to deliver the sort of thrills that would make anyone squeamish about being alone in the woods, this novel ultimately settles for the guilty pleasures of its villains' tabloid infamy. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalDuring a hiking trip high atop Mount Agiochook, Mark Newman watches in horror as a Bigfoot-like creature carries off his injured friend, Phil. While searching the mountain, Mark becomes a suspect in Phil's disappearance and the murder of his wife's lover. Hautala is known mostly for writing paperbacks and adapting role-playing games as novels. Regrettably, his second hardcover novel is simplistic, unimaginative, and poorly written. It reads like the script for a made-for-TV movie, with a completely plot-driven story and little attention to character development. Hautala aspires to terrify through action alone?and fails. Not recommended.?John Noel, Tennessee Technological Univ. Lib., LebanonCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This collection, from an acclaimed Master of Dark Fiction, consists of twenty-one tales with some being straight genre entries, others psychological terror and finally a few shorts that include science fiction elements. The first eighteen are short stories written solely by Rick and the final three are collaborations with Jesse and Matti Hautala, Matthew J. Costello, and Jim Connolly. The stories included are: The Nephews, Nightmare Transcript, Non-returnable, Dead Legends, I've Been Thinking About You, The Man Who Looked Like Murphy, Toxic Shock, The Call, Getting the Job Done, Every Mother's Son, Knocking, Hotel Hell, The Compost Heap, Iron Frog, Setup, The Gates of Dawn, Off the Cuff, The Screaming Head, Abduction (written with Jesse and Matti Hautala), And the Sea Shall Claim Them (written by Matthew J. Costello and A. J. Matthews), Scared Crows (written with Jim Connolly).

From NYT bestselling author, Rick Hautala, comes a taut suspese thriller set in the darkwoods of Oregon. Jeff Cameron is going back to Camp Tapiola on Lake Onwego to meet several old friends and to discover if Jimmy Foster's death was a murder or accident? The mystery has haunted Jeff for thirty five years. And another question remains... who is The Wildman?

An average American family: father John, mother Julia, and thirteen year-old daughter Bri journey back to Glooscap Island, Maine, the place of John's birth and early childhood, to care for his father Frank, who's suffered a stroke. John is less than thrilled with this move. They soon find they are being stalked by a kind of wraith that seems to be related to a dark secret from someone's past.

Only the dead are truly safe.A young girl killed on a desolate highway. A mother agonized by unceasing guilt.In the vivid light of day, in the nightmare depths of sleep, her daughter calls to her from the grave.And soon she'll know if the voices she hears intend a warning only a loved one can sound. Or seek a revenge beyond the limits of death itself.Dead Voices - Don't believe your ears.

In a place Abby calls the Dead Lands, she aids individuals trapped by unfinished Earthly business and helps them move on. Abby meets Megan McGowan there, a sixteen-year-old girl who fell to her death on the rocky shores of Mockingbird Bay. Megan can't remember if it was an accident...or something worse. With the help of Jim Burke, a young man who becomes a close friend, Abbey works to discover how Megan became trapped in this empty place. But Abby has other troubles — her uncle, the Reverend George Wheeler, evil and vengeful, pursues her with his Hell Hounds through the twilight realms of the Dead Lands, waiting for her at every turn. Fortunately a mysterious protector helps her evade her uncle's terrible revenge. Who is this spirit protector? And will Abby ever gain release from this unchained prison?