This book is a compilation of short stories. Some have been passed down through generations in my family. Others are the work of my diseased imagination. My favorite story in the book is "The Clock Strikes Tragedy." It is one that I was skeptical about when I first heard it when I was eight or nine years old. But then, one night when I was seventeen, sitting at my desk in my bedroom working on one of my dark tales, the clock chimed. It hadn't worked since the early 1930s, and the next day my father received a phone call that my fourth cousin had died the night before at about 10:30, which was about the time I heard the clock chime.I hope that you will read this collection and pick your own favorite. It is always my goal to scare, and I hope that this book will cause you to wonder if something could really happen. I think it could.