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Audiobooks by Michael Van Der Voort
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"Until the day she walked, or rather dragged herself into the centre of town, most people thought that Amy Schiller was a myth.
Certainly, she had been a story, circulated amongst the kids of the town since long before I joined the police service, so far back in fact, that I had heard it when I was a child myself. In the story I heard, Amy was supposed to be a ghost. In other versions, she was something more like a monster or witch, but we’ll get to that. In the end though, in reality, Amy was neither a myth nor a ghost, and her case turned out to be far worse than any of those tales that children whisper in the dark.
I suppose it was inevitable that.."
"When it comes to horror stories there are certain settings that people would probably say were typical. The kinds of setting folks have come to expect. A silent old graveyard full of ornate statues, moss covered slabs and a high pale moon. Or perhaps an abandoned lunatic asylum where the screams of past inmates still seem to ring through the corridors. A creepy old fairground ride, with peeling paint and a wild-eyed clown smiling down at the viewer. Or that hoary old chestnut that’s in all the old horror movies, ‘a massive but suspiciously cheap house that just happens to have been built on an Indigenous burial ground.’ Those are typical.
What’s not typical, is a place that you..."
"Voices From The Dark Attic
4 Short Horror Stories
Story 1: The Charleston Witch
Story 2: Too Long Awake
Story 3: Cinder Sam
Story 4: A Change Of Prey
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"It took me less than ten minutes to see that something was wrong. Honestly, I think if it hadn't been for all the tears and the emotion of the occasion I probably would have figured it out quicker. It had always been like that with me and Donny. We used to joke about it sometimes. I‘d ask if he was okay and he’d say he was ‘fine,’ to which I’d always respond, “Well you should probably tell your frown.” Donny could never keep a secret. Even from his own face.
As it was, the shock and the joy of Donny coming home, of him actually, really, physically being home turned my spider sense for his feelings off for a while. Still, even then, it didn't take me long.
We had been sitting, my mom, my dad, and me at Angie’s, a diner in town that had always been my mom’s favorite and had literally been open since she was a kid. We had tried to convince her to go to a fancy restaurant for her birthday, to maybe take a vacation and spend a few days in some little getaway far from town, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She liked to keep things simple. She liked Angie’s and she liked home. All she really wanted for her birthday was ‘a quiet meal with her family around her.’"
"Sometimes, when you hear that a place has been “abandoned,” it is important to ask, “abandoned by whom?” Of course, “abandoned” is already a very loaded word to use. It suggests a place that isn't just empty, desolate or lonely, but a place that for some reason has deliberately been made that way. A place intentionally cut off, knowingly and purposely shunned in an attempt to erase that place from memory.
It is important then, to ask not only ‘who’ abandoned such a place, but also ‘why?’
Particularly because the word ‘abandoned’ often means more than its few syllables convey. Often it is used as a shield. A way to not tell a story. Either because it is an embarrassing topic or because it is a memory that a person or people have chosen to put behind them..."
"There are horror stories and there are histories. Horrors are invented histories, the truth. Most of the time.
Sometimes however, the line between these two genres blurs, what should be history becomes a horror story and what should be fictional horror, steps menacingly into our history.
In the Northern English seaside town of Blackpool there is an amusement park called the Pleasure Beach. For almost a century, children have enjoyed the rides and entertainment in this fun filled place and yet, for almost as long, they have run at full speed past the curious figure of the Laughing Man. A dummy, seated in a glass display case that allows awful cackle to ring across the park. He is a well known part of the area's history and also one of its horrors.
Unlike with other horror stories, this one comes with evidence. Photos, videos, eye witness accounts. This is no longer fiction."
"Occult detective Erasmus Crane was not always a believer. In this tale we hear of the events that changed this hard headed skeptic into a believer in dark forces and things that lurk beyond the shadows.
In Armoura's Crown we meet a psychic claiming she can contact the spirits of the dead and a strange piece of medieval jewellery,, fashioned like a crown of thorns, but constructed from the finger bones of the ruler's fallen enemies.
A Victorian tale of the supernatural and the occult, Armoura's Crown gives us an insight into the mind of Erasmus Crane and the terrifying events that led him to be who he became."
"Midnight Horror is a collection of 4 short horror stories written by Michael van der Voort and narrated by Robin Reads. Get your copy today!!
Story 1: The Woods By Little Brooke
Story 2: Wisey’s Game
Story 3: The Laughing Man At Blackpool
Story 4: Armoura’s Crown"
"“It is important that when you call, you are first completely sure to whom it is you are calling.”
I think I can honestly say that, up until the point that it closed temporarily during the global pandemic, I’d had visited The Anchor pub for at least a single pint, virtually every night for the past 45 years.
There were, of course, exceptions. In 1992, I had a smash in my car and had to spend a night in the hospital, and midway through 1986 I got married and spent my wedding day and night away from the place. I didn’t visit The Anchor on either of those days, though in the case of my wedding night, half the people who would otherwise have been in the pub joined me at my reception venue, so it was pretty much the same thing anyway."
"¨As a linguist and historian, I’ve always been fascinated by words and phrases. I am particularly interested in how certain idioms and expressions come to be picked up, where they originated and what, if any, history lies behind their origins. It was this interest that led me in 2018 to consider writing a paper on the dialect, idioms, and aphorisms used by people in my hometown. It was also what led the kid known as Skit to spend a night ‘Alone with The Devil’.
In the small rural town where I grew up, in the hills of Northern England, the phrase “Alone with the Devil” is a very common one. It's a quaint, if mildly sinister, little idiom that if you stick around town long enough, you’re almost certain to hear.¨"
"¨He was a Cambridge man and, having no other living relatives and few friends outside of those whom he could also count as colleagues, he spent much of the ink from his pen not expended upon notes and essays, corresponding with his ever loving and miraculously ever patient sibling.
A sibling, who, for her part, had become somewhat accustomed to her brother’s habit of sharing his thoughts and musings in these interminable scrawlings. She, to her credit, maintained the habit of reading and responding to them in a timely fashion. Albeit whilst also maintaining the necessary habit of skim reading some of the more self-indulgent philosophical musings, of the type that this particular missive threatened to become.¨"
"Terror At Midnight: 4 Short Horror Stories
Story 1: Alone With The Devil
Story 2: Prestons Attic
Story 3: The Taking Of Teeth
Story 4: Blood In The Milk
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