Horror is a specialized taste but a popular one, particularly among teens. Maybe with so many uncertainties and fears in their lives, it helps to be able to encounter them in a safe form. The horror genre is surprisingly varied, as these 15 samples show. When Red Deer put out the call, Carver says, more good submissions came back than would fit in one volume – hence, the plan for sequels revealed in the book’s title. Many of the contributors are acclaimed YA writers, such as Karleen Bradford, W.D. Valgardson, and Brian Doyle. Others are up-and-comers, as the brief bios after each story show.

The Horrors runs the gamut from Stephen King-like gore (when your arms have been lopped off by a chainsaw, it takes resourcefulness to dial a cellphone with your nose) to gentle ghost tales. Most stories are grounded in the familiar world of school lockers, text messaging, nagging parents, and school counsellors. But the protagonists, kids with edge and attitude, stumble into unknown territory. A classmate turns into a sultry Goth murderess or a slavering werewolf. A hitchhiker gets picked up by a guy who turns out to be Johnny Cash en route to the Promised Land. One character wakes up dead.

Several powerful stories, such as Alice Walsh’s “The Night the Rabbit Died” and Anne Wessel’s “Blood Is Blood,” are almost entirely realistic, yet they have all of the genre’s defining elements: death, displacement, fear, surreal imagery. Wessel’s moving account of a grandfather’s death contains a particularly telling line. Some of her friends, the narrator says, claim they worship death: “No one in their right mind would worship this,” she retorts.

After reading this book, though, they’d certainly show it some respect.