Stay Out!. The Midnight Library Collection, #0

In Pine Bluff, some secrets are better left alone. Some doors are better left locked. On the outskirts of the sleepy town of Pine Bluff stands a crumbling, abandoned house. It has been empty for decades-a rotting monument to a past the townspeople have fought to erase. Something unspeakable happened within those walls; an atrocity so horrific that an entire generation agreed to bury the truth and let the house slip into legend.
The house is abandoned, but it is far from empty. Wandering the decaying hallways is an echo of that long-ago violence. It is a memory fueled by malice. It is waiting, it is angry, and it is ready to rain down a terrible vengeance on anyone naive enough to step across the threshold. When five teenage friends arrive looking for adventure, they think they're just testing their courage and renewing old bonds.
For one, it's the perfect setting for a cruel prank. But the house doesn't care about their intentions. It only cares about the blood they've brought with them. In the house that Pine Bluff forgot, not everyone will make it out alive. John T. Haas is an award-winning Canadian author and a winner of the prestigious Writers of the Future contest (Volume 35). Born and raised in Montreal and having spent over a decade in the shadow of the Rockies in Calgary, he now calls Ottawa Ontario home.
With over thirty published short stories and several novels-including the acclaimed Book of Ancient Evil series-Haas has become a master of blending atmospheric horror with high-stakes suspense.