Mischief

Jim Hook confronts an ancient evil power when he arrives at a prestigious prep school built on the grounds of a once-prosperous, old estate in the Hudson Valley of New York. Original.

From the Publisher

Douglas Clegg, Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning writer, has begun a story of haunting -- and something in a dark house that has been awakened...in Mischief, the most horrifying coming-of-age experience is happening in a house of nightmarish spirits. The mansion overlooks the Hudson River, just outside the town of Watch Point, New York. It has been empty for decades, but now, it's a private school for boys. And one of the boys, Jim Hook, should never have come to Harrow Academy... For, within the walls, something horrifying awaits him...a haunting more disturbing than any other... A group of misfits and malcontents want Jim in their dark fraternity... And the house called Harrow is hungry. The new novel of terror from Douglas Clegg, author of You Come When I Call You, The Halloween Man, Bad Karma, and The Nightmare Chronicles.

From the Inside Flap

[Clegg writes] horror at its finest!" -- Publisher's Weekly Some houses were never meant to live. Harrow was once a prosperous estate overlooking the Hudson Valley of New York, sheltered by deep woods, hidden from the world, its secrets sealed. But now it's a prestigious prep school, and something terrible is happening there. "Clegg gets high marks on the terror scale." -- Daily News (New York) Jim Hook doesn't know that just by entering Harrow he may be resurrecting something far older than the house itself. And when he comes up against the members of the Cadaver Society, a mysterious fraternity of misfits and manipulators, he must undergo the nightmarish initiation within the house's secret red chamber. The stones of Harrow are ancient. It is an unclean place of legend and darkness. And the haunting of Harrow is the beginning of all madness. "Douglas Clegg is a weaver of nightmares!" -- Robert R. McCammon, author of Swan Song and Boy's Life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

An Excerpt from Mischief by Douglas Clegg Prologue What do you want more than anything else in the world? You know. I already told you. Say it. You can t bring back the dead. There s a way to do it. It s a game, he said, mostly to himself. It s only a game, right? Like a room in my mind. It is a game. If you say so. Believe what you want. No one ever said you couldn t. It has to be, he said. It s some kind of game. A test. Part of the initiation. The wind brushed through his hair as he stood at the open window, looking down. It was a hell of a long drop. He stood on the ledge at the top of the tower. He imagined dropping a water balloon and counting til ten before it hit the pavement. That s what it would be like. He d drop and then it would all be over. Every game has its rules. I just need to know what the rules of this one are, he said, hoping the other boy would tell him something anything that would give away this game. He kept feeling the tug of the earth not gravity, but the need to be there, the need to leave the tower and return to the ground again. He couldn t keep from looking down. The more he looked at the distance between where he stood and the earth below, the more interesting it became. It didn t seem like a fall, it seemed like he could just step over into it, as if his eyes were playing tricks on him but it was as if it wasn t a long way down at all. The other boy stood behind him and whispered, It s just like a corridor, isn t it? You look down and see the drive and the stones and the fountain, but it changes when you watch it, the edge of your vision wraps around it, and it becomes a long corridor and it makes you feel as if you could just step out into it, and walk that long way to its end, to find out what waits there for you. You can t go back because you know what waits for you there. You can t stay where you are. You must go forward. What s there? he asked. What you want. More than anything. No, he said. Go on. You ll see. You can t stay on the ledge, can you? You can t go back. You know what s there. You can only go on. You want to, I can tell. What s there? he repeated his previous question. But the boy behind him didn t answer. He may have stepped away. It has to be a game, he said. This can t be real. This can t be. He stood alone at the top of the tower. And then, he stepped off the ledge.

About the Author

Douglas Clegg was born in Virginia, but grew up in a lot of places. He currently lives in the East Berlin sector of Manhattan, and is at work on the final book about the haunting at Harrow, The Infinite, which will be out in September 2001. His collection, The Nightmare Chronicles won both the International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Award in the category of short story collections.

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