It was supposed to be a fun weekend at our family cabin. I was going to surprise my husband, Mike, with a small get-together for his 40th birthday. Something is wrong, though. Mike isn’t himself lately. He goes out often and by himself, leaving me and our young son. Our happy marriage is fading away, and I don’t know why. This weekend is just what's needed to cheer him up. It’s what we need for us. When I get to the cabin and set up, I hear sounds coming from the basement. That’s when I see her. A young woman tied up and scared.

When Sam was forced to retire from a long storied career with the NYPD, he hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst. The worst came one dark day when an EMP decimated the nation's power grid, plunging the entire country into darkness and stranding his wife and teenage son in the middle of Manhattan.

She didn’t notice the corn stalks shiver a few feet to her right. By the time she looked up, the man towered above her. In a single movement he wrapped one thick hand around her waist, the other he clamped over her mouth, muffling her screams. Detective Clara Jefferies has spent years running from her childhood in Alber, Utah. But when she hears that her baby sister Delilah has disappeared, she knows that the peaceful community will be shattered, her family vulnerable, and that that she must face up to her past and go home.

The summer in question started out with hot, fun-filled days and new friendships. We had just turned thirteen and had our whole lives ahead of us. But that was before her. Before we became known as the Hixton Five and our lives become defined by one night. It’s hard to believe twenty years have passed since she was locked away. But now she’s free and strange things have started to happen. When I close my eyes, the creeping anxiety and fear is overwhelming and all too real. Because the monster is back, and I know she has a score to settle with us.

On a sunny August morning in 1935, 13-year-old Sophia Gray finds her friend Rosemary wandering in the woods. Rosemary’s yellow dress is tattered and her eyes are vacant and glassy. She beckons to Sophia, desperate to show her something. In an abandoned cabin, beneath a tattered blanket, Sophia discovers Rosemary’s body. It was not Rosemary who led her there, but Rosemary’s ghost. Twenty years later, Sophia finds herself trapped in the sprawling Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, in the hands of a malevolent doctor who preys on patients who exhibit paranormal abilities.

Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost 15 years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect.

Every family has secrets, and on the hottest day of the year, the truth is about to come out. As a tragedy unfolds behind closed doors, the dawn chorus is split by the wail of sirens. And one by one the families who tried so hard to welcome the Wests begin to realise: Hogarth Street will never be the same again.

Listen to our stories about men and women living their life, experiencing joy, drama, sadness, and happiness. They are everyday stories, windows to different lives, that can lull us into the arms of night, shifting from a dream to another.

Gemma Robinson comes into Elliot’s life like a whirlwind, and they marry and settle into his home. When she asks him if her parents can come to stay for a couple of weeks, he is keen to oblige - he just doesn’t quite know what he’s signing up for. The Robinsons arrive with Gemma’s sister, Chloe, a mysterious young woman who refuses to speak or leave her room.

The doorbell rings, just days after my beloved husband’s sudden death. I don’t recognise the woman on our doorstep, with her blonde highlights, a diamond bracelet identical to my own and a bouncing baby boy in her arms. As I show her inside, I notice her eyes grow wide as she takes in our spacious hallway, and the big squashy sofas that we all used to pile on. She glances at the silver-framed family photos and my little daughter hiding behind my skirts. She looks at me, her blue eyes serious. ‘I’m sorry’ she says. ‘I am your husband’s girlfriend. And this is his son.'

It’s six in the morning during the hottest summer on record when Elizabeth O’Loughlin, out walking her dog, comes across Clare, a victim of a horrific knife attack, clinging onto life at the side of the road. Clare dies minutes later, but not before whispering her haunting last words to Elizabeth. When it becomes clear that Clare’s killer has more than one murder on his mind, Elizabeth has to take drastic action or face losing everything.

Ten years ago he killed my son. Today I married him. Ten years ago my darling son Jesse was murdered and our perfect family was destroyed. My strong, handsome boy, so full of life, became a memory, a photo I carried with me everywhere. But today I’m finally close to finding happiness again. My ash-blonde hair has been curled into ringlets. Carefully placed white flowers frame my delicate features. The small, drab chapel has been prettied up with white satin, and there are tiny red hearts scattered on the small table where I will soon sign the register with my new husband.

Lizzie Burdett was 18 when she vanished, and Noah Carruso has never forgotten her. She was his first crush, his unrequited love. She was also his brother's girlfriend. Tom Carruso hasn't been home in over a decade. He left soon after Lizzie disappeared under a darkening cloud of suspicion, and now he's back for the inquest into Lizzie's disappearance - intent on telling his side of the story. As the inquest looms, Noah meets Alice Pryce on holiday. They fall for each other fast and hard, but Noah can't bear to tell Alice his deepest fears.

Eighteen suspenseful short stories with a twist for lovers of Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. Journey into strange worlds and meet their unusual and sometimes terrifying residents in these stories spanning suspense, horror, paranormal, science fiction, and supernatural from the dark mind of short story award-winning author Susan May.

It’s 1985, and the disappearance of 10-year-old Lisa Cook shocks the nation. Her best friend, Kirsty, traumatized and fearful, gives evidence that helps to put the Cook family’s lodger behind bars. But what if Kirsty made a mistake? Now, decades later, Kirsty leaves a life she loves to move back to the hometown she hates - tortured by her memories, she’s determined to finally uncover the truth about what happened to Lisa that day. But someone is waiting for her there, someone close to her family. Someone who is hoping to finish off a job that was started years ago....