Real Nightmares (Book 4): Things That Prowl and Growl in the Night

By Brad Steiger

BEWARE of the werewolves, vampires, zombies, and nasty ghosts that roam at night!

Paranormal researcher extraordinaire Brad Steiger, an author of thousands of books and articles on the mysterious and unknown, gathers some of his scariest stories of the monsters and creatures that roam the night in this compilation.

Stay inside when you read these tales of the dark, possessed, and terrorized found in Real Nightmares: Things that Prowl and Growl in the Night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Visible Ink Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781578594092

Brad Steiger

An Adams Media author.

Book preview

A Vampiric Demon

Conjured by the Occult

Stole His Wife

Ryan Harris is a sober, intelligent man. He works quietly and diligently and rears his two children as best he can. He never stops hoping that someday the horrible vampiric demon that seized his wife Elena will release her, and she will be able to come home to him and the children. In 1998, he told the remarkable story of how a monster that seemed to come from another dimension of time and space had stolen his wife.

Ryan Harris met Elena Sanchez in 1981 while both were in college. In addition to her physical attractiveness, something about her immediately attracted him to her. Perhaps it was the elusiveness that lured him towards her, urging him to try and capture those qualities within her. Perhaps it was the hint of the exotic she displayed in her tastes and interests.

Elena was deeply involved in the occult and practiced many of its related disciplines. She was accomplished in Hatha Yoga, meditated often, and had studied a few texts on ceremonial magic. She frequently took solitary walks through the woods in back of the college, and when Ryan persuaded her to take him along, he was amazed at the empathy she seemed to share with the forest creatures. Her influence extended to the plant kingdom, for no one could persuade plants to grow as strongly and beautifully as she.

There were times that Ryan would come upon Elena while she was engaged in other practices, and though he never knew much about these rituals, they gave him a vaguely uneasy feeling. He could not be sure, but he felt at times that Elena’s assiduous reading of the Bible did not necessarily restrict her to the beneficent side of occultism. Indeed, sometimes it seemed as though she flirted with the darker, malevolent forces. Aside from Elena’s occult leanings, the girl was very musically minded, an extremely talented artist, and she had a jovial air about her that at once charmed and delighted her young suitor.

The two had been dating for some time; and, just before graduation, Ryan gathered his courage to ask Elena to marry him. Elena regarded Ryan gravely. I will marry you, she told the anxiously waiting Ryan, "but not because I love you. Don’t get me wrong, though, because I am very fond of you. I’ll marry you because I know I must: It is my karma and