Showing results by narrator "B. J. Harrison" in All Categories

“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” mumbles a cadaverous hearse driver with a soft, squishy head. He’s been skulking about Scott’s painting studio, where he and Tessie have been developing a tangled relationship between artist and model. But as this ever-present watchman resembling a coffin worm begins to distract Scott, his portrait of Tessie takes on a deathlike pallor. How can they forever rid themselves of this hearse stalker? And what precisely does he mean by a “Yellow Sign”?

A poor young couple demonstrates the meaning of love and self-sacrifice in the Christmas Classic, "The Gift of the Magi". Also included is "The Last Leaf". This tale follows a young woman artist who is stricken with pneumonia. She watches the leafy vine opposite her window with hollow eyes, and she determines to stay alive until the last leaf falls. O. Henry, always a master with the surprise ending, delivers two fine tales of his beloved New York City.

The TV is on, and I’m on the couch, leaning as far back as I can. My heavy, indecisive brown eyes - their lenses blurred ever since my tumultuous, too-soon entrance into the world - flutter between open and shut. I am half-watching half-listening to a football game on a Sunday afternoon. Was that the doorbell? “Who is it?” I call out, expecting to hear my daughter, Megan’s, voice. These days, she is the one person who visits me. The only person who knows I’m making my home in this little oasis fashioned from wood felled by my own hand. “Terry, it’s Mom.

Holden Grigori is lost on an alien world, and his memories are just as lost. All he knows is a beautiful woman says she's his wife, she loves him, and he'd do anything for her. Security specialist Victoria Greene's mission is to find the heroic pilot of a downed spaceship and keep him safe while he recovers in a human hospital in the Halloween-themed town of Nocturne Falls, Georgia. Part of her ongoing mission is, as always, to keep the humans from realizing that aliens walk among them, hiding in plain sight.

Epic in scope and magically textured, Howard’s The People of the Black Circle is one of the most accomplished tales of Conan the Cimmerian. Conan drives us to magnificent mountain heights and subtle secret passes in order to foil a nefarious plot of the Black Seers of Yimsha.

A couple looks for a new home in southern England—but it has to be haunted. They stay in the legendary house of Lyng, where it is said that the inhabitants don’t know that they’ve encountered the ghost until long afterward. Artfully crafted in five different parts, Wharton spins an ironic story of greed, guilt, and revenge.

The architect of The Wizard of Oz delves into the mythological beginnings of the jolly old elf himself. Baum created a mythological world in which the magical forest of Burzee, created at the beginning of time, is the main source of all otherworldly magical power. Ak, the Master Woodsman ruled the forests; Kern, the Master Husbandman of the World, ruled the food crops; Bo, the Master Mariner of the World, ruled the seas. All other immortals are subject to these three.

Wuthering Heights follows the tumultuous lives of Catherine and Heathcliff, two young playmates who become soul mates. While Catherine's wild childish capriciousness develops, Heathcliff "exemplifies the effects which a life of continued injustice and hard usage may produce on a naturally perverse, vindictive, and inexorable disposition".

Even when the sailing is smooth, the stories never stop in Jerome K. Jerome's comic novel. Plaster fishes, dead water rats, near-death escapes, and many, many jocose anecdotes create a colorful narrative of holiday life on the river. For once three hypochondriacs self-diagnose themselves as "clearly overworked", the rest practically writes itself!

The earth's surface is no longer habitable. All humanity is sequestered beneath the ground, couched in isolation and contentment. The Machine provides the needs of humanity. Mankind becomes subservient drones to the life-supporting Machine. But what happens when the Machine stops?

"The Three Apples" is a story contained in the One Thousand and One Nights collection (also known as the Arabian Nights). Scheherazade tells the history of a murder - making this the first mystery story put to paper.

Pride, justice, and vengeance. Aristocracy and democracy vie for ultimate power over Rome, and each faction violently erupts when Coriolanus takes the political stage. After receiving glorious accolades for taking an enemy city when the plebian soldiers cowered without the gates, the common people find his arrogance and pride offensive. Now, banished from the very city for which he was prepared to lay down his life, he strikes up an unholy alliance with his country's enemies.

Sam McGee is one of the many gold miners of the Klondike Gold Rush. The freezing-cold and harsh winter of Yukon is about to take his next victim in the face of McGee. The poor man freezes to death on the trail. The night before he passed away, McGee had asked his friend, the narrator of the story, to cremate his remains, saying that he did not want to be buried in the frozen ground. However, after the man is cremated some strange things begin to happen.

A zealous aviator penetrates the highest strata of our atmosphere and discovers a groundbreaking new form of life. And yet he knows that this strange alien life form has claimed the lives of two aviators before him, and it may claim his own.

Inside a quiet boarding house on the waterfront, a man stares up to the ceiling with sightless eyes. The tight lipped landlady proclaims that it is murder. Can an upscale detective agency penetrate to the bottom of the mystery?

The quiet community of Quiquendone can't be found on any map. There is no crime, no raised voices, no conflict of any kind. And when the enigmatic Dr. Ox ventures into the town and proposes to light the town with a mysterious gas at his own expense, the town elders applaud the proposal. But soon it becomes evident that the secret gas feeds on a different sort of combustion.

Retired supermodel Ember Guerra moved to the mountains outside Nocturne Falls in order to escape the paparazzi who hounded her. The amazon beauty adores the privacy of her remote home - until she discovers a hidden camera on her property. Bigfoot researcher Dean Hawkins is in real danger of losing his grant money if he doesn’t find evidence of his subject soon, so he’s furious after someone vandalizes his video equipment. When a dark-haired siren admits she’s the culprit, he expects an apology. Instead, she unloads both barrels on him.

A Jury of Her Peers is based on a murder case Glaspell covered as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. Largely ignored upon its initial publication, it was revived by feminists in the 1970s. A Jury of Her Peers is an innovative exploration of the inequalities of women’s lives in the public and private spheres. Dealing with themes of the male subjugation of women, sexism at home and the workplace, and the ways the law fails to protect women from violence, Glaspell’s tale remains hauntingly relevant after 100 years.

Brianna Putnam needs a juicy scandal and fast. Up for a promotion at a high-profile tabloid, she has one month to convince a hard-nosed editor that she has the chops for the job. What could be better than a story exposing Nocturne Falls, a town full of magical supernaturals? She has the ideal cover. Her grandmother is Echo Stargazer, and her cousin is Jessica Callahan, long-time residents, and self-proclaimed psychics. No time like the present to meet the family.

Aunt Agatha breaks her icy silence and asks Bertie to look after a fellow Englishman, Cyril, who is visiting in New York. She only has one stipulation: keep Cyril off the American stage. But by the time Bertie gets the imperiling word, Cyril lands a part in a musical comedy. And with Jeeves turning a bit of a cold shoulder after a bust up over some purple socks, what's a Wooster to do?