The Ghost of Ben Hargrove Read Online Free PDF

what it wanted from me. I wanted to explore its hidden home. I wanted answers about why a room cloaked in darkness was so frightening, when that same room in the daylight seemed harmless. Why? I asked myself over and over again. Why?
    The answer has come to me over the years, in bits and pieces that look strikingly like shattered bits of a mirror when I close my eyes. And it seems so simple. What does the Thing under the Bed want from me? From us?
    To be feared.
    It feeds on fear. It lives because we are frightened of it. Because, on some level, we are worried that when we turn the lights off, we might not be alone after all, the way we know we are when we’re basking in the light of day. You can deny it. But a part of you—even the most sensible, reasonable of you—has wondered about the Thing at some point. And if you find yourself drawn to horror, I can tell you with certainty that I understand why. Because you, my friend, like me, like all of us, simply want to understand why .
    I grew up with the blessed freedom to read and watch what I wanted. It’s shaped me (maybe warped me, but only in the best possible sense) and led me to become the author that I am today. Maybe I’m still trying to understand my fears. Maybe I’m trying to solve them with every word I scribble on the page. I don’t know.
    But I still run through dark rooms if I cannot get to a light switch quickly. I still make certain my closet door is shut before I go to bed. And I never dangle my appendages over the edge of the bed . . . just in case.

Excerpt from The Cemetery Boys
    Keep reading for a sneak peek at Heather Brewer’s first stand-alone novel, The Cemetery Boys .

    When Stephen is forced to move to the small Michigan town where his father grew up, he is sure he’s going to have the most boring summer of his life. That is, until he meets twins Devon and Cara. But as the summer presses on, and harmless nights hanging out in the cemetery take a darker turn, Stephen starts to suspect that Devon is less a friend in his new group than a leader. And he might be leading them all to a very sinister end. . . .

Prologue
    My fingers were going numb, my bound wrists worn raw by the ropes, but I twisted again, hard this time. I pulled until my skin must have split, because I felt my palms grow wet, then sticky, with what I was pretty sure was my blood. The knots were tight, but I had to get loose. Those things were coming for me, I just knew it.
    I looked up at Devon, who was perched on top of the tallest tombstone in the graveyard. His dark eyes focused intensely on the night sky; his bleach-blond hair almost glowed in the moonlight. He had once—no, not once, many times, pounding it into our heads like we were privates in the same army—spoken of loyalty. But sitting there with my wrists tied to the cold headstone behind me, it hit me that he hadn’t been speaking of our loyalty to one another or any of that band-of-brothers bullshit. He’d been speaking of our loyalty, my loyalty, to him. And now he was standing there on the gravestone, waiting for those creatures, those monsters, to come and devour me whole, not even man enough to look me in the eye.
    The horrible pinpricks of numbness crawled up my fingers to my palms, then my wrists. Only my adrenaline kept them from going any farther. The air suddenly chilled. My breath came out in quick, gray puffs. And then I heard it.
    Vwumph-vwumph-vwumph.
    I tugged my wrists harder, struggling, hoping that the blood seeping from my broken skin might make the ropes slick enough to slip through. The rest of the gang moved past me, and none of them, not a single one of my so-called friends, dared even to glance at me as they headed for safety. Devon hopped down from his place on the stone, and after a long, hungry glance upward, he dropped his dark eyes to me. “You’re in luck, Stephen. They’re famished, so this should go pretty fast for