Nightmare Hall

Nightmare Hall is a series of horror novels for teenagers written exclusively by Diane Hoh. They are a spin-off of the Point Horror books.

1 – The Silent Scream

There’s a reason why they call it Nightmare Hall… Jessica Vogt gets a rude awakening when she moves into Nightingale Hall and learns that the previous spring, a student named Giselle hanged herself from a light fixture in Jess’s new room. Campus officials pronounced it a suicide. But did Giselle really kill herself? Or was it a setup? Strange things are happening to Jess. One night, she is awakened by a terrifying scream. A photo taken of Jess and a classmate reveals a third person in the shot—a girl with long, pale hair and a sad face. Is Giselle trying to communicate with Jess? As Jess moves closer to what really happened that fateful night, someone starts targeting her. Is she being haunted by a ghost, or is there a killer on the loose?

2 – The Roommate

Four very different roommates share a suite in the quad–beautiful Danni, shy Maureen, mysterious Margot, and wild Lacey–and soon one of them may be dead.

3 – Deadly Attraction

High atop a hillside sits Nightmare Hall. For Hailey Kingman, the nightmare is just beginning. A sophomore at Salem U, Robert Q. Parker is the BMOC (Big Man on Campus). But when he humiliates his girlfriend, Darlene Riggs, by cruelly dumping her, things turn ugly. First, Robert Q’s new girlfriend, Gerrie, is attacked. Then, his jacket is slashed to shreds and his sports car is set on fire. Is Darlene getting her revenge? Or is it someone with a different ax to grind? The mystery deepens when Hailey’s room at Nightingale Hall is trashed. But when a student is killed and Hailey herself becomes a target, she realizes that the truth is far from what everyone thinks. The students of Salem U are about to find out what happens when obsession turns deadly.

4 – The Wish

“Wishes granted, fortunes told,”promises the sign on the booth at the back of the campus pizza place. Inside the booth sits a mechanical fortune-teller called the Wizard. His cold glass eyes give Alexandria Edgar the creeps. Her friends at Salem U think she’s crazy—they’re busy making wishes for the Wizard to grant. But soon, their wishes turn into their worst nightmares: Alex’s roommate, who wished to look less ordinary, is disfigured in an accident. Another girl who wished to shed a few pounds can’t stop losing weight. As her friends face the consequences of their wishes, Alex suspects that her fears about the Wizard are becoming a reality. And she has good reason to be afraid: The truth is even more diabolical than she could have imagined, threatening the group’s very lives.

5 – The Scream Team

The coach of the new cheerleading team at Salem University isn’t just working the new cheerleaders to death–she really wants to kill them . . . just like the last team.

6 – Guilty

Katie Sullivan has everything: a nice roommate, cool friends, and a great guy. Until the day she and her boyfriend are out on the river and their canoe overturns. She survives–he doesn’t. Katie can’t stop thinking about the accident, wondering if it was her fault. But someone else has already decided . . . and the verdict is guilty.

7 – Pretty Please

Along with her four best friends, Johanna Donahue is one of “the Beautiful People” at Salem University. It’s Friday evening—party night on campus—and Johanna’s got a hot new outfit to wear. Everything is perfect . . . except for the voice in her head warning her not to go. Against her better judgment, Johanna goes to the party, where she meets a great guy named Evan Colt. She finally starts to chill out . . . until a freak accident sends her crashing into a glass door. When she returns from the hospital, her face covered in bandages, Johanna finds the mirror in her dorm room shrouded in black. Is this someone’s idea of a cruel joke? Before long, Johanna realizes that this is much more than a college prank—and her problems are bigger than a scarred face. She’s the object of someone’s obsession— someone infatuated with beauty, someone who has killed before and is about to kill again.

8 – The Experiment

Caryl Amberly is thrilled when she is selected to participate in Professor Maximillian Delure’s new seminar. She thinks her mysterious professor is killer handsome but she soon finds out he may simply be a killer.

9 – The Night Walker

The Spring Fling formal is the most important event on Salem University’s social calendar: a night when the entire school comes together to show off dresses, dance moves, and dates. But this year, just as the party is getting started, the stench of rotten eggs washes over the crowd. In the rush to escape the awful smell, a riot nearly breaks out. Somebody tossed a stink bomb to ruin the dance—but who would pull such a prank? Quinn Hadley doesn’t know anything about it; she couldn’t get a date, and she slept through the dance. But when she awakes, she finds one of her jackets reeking of sulfur. Quinn knows she has a problem with sleepwalking, and she worries that she tossed the stink bomb while unconscious. As the tricks escalate, Quinn comes unhinged. For the girl who fears sleep, madness is not far off.

10 – Sorority Sister

Joining Omega Phi Delta is the best thing that’s ever happened to Maxie. Since she pledged with Salem University’s coolest sorority, she’s never had trouble finding a party to go to or a boy to date. Her new life is perfect—until death strikes Omega House. The terror starts when Maxie’s sorority sister Erica’s jewelry box goes missing, with all of her valuables, including her grandmother’s priceless ring, inside. Erica is tearing her room apart when she gets a package: the box, with all the jewelry safe inside. Erica wants to forget the strange incident, but the strange pranks escalate and Maxie sees them as a warning. Some unknown lunatic wants her sisters’ blood, and only Maxie can save them. A year ago, she would have done anything to become an Omega girl. Now she may die for it.

11 – Last Date

As part of a psych project, Demi goes out with a couple of guys who’ve responded to her personal ad in Salem’s school paper. When each of them ends up in a mysterious accident not long afterward, Demi is frightened. But when she becomes the target, her fright turns to terror.

12 – The Whisperer

Everyone on campus hates Doctor Stark, the severe woman who seems to take sadistic pleasure from doling out D’s and F’s on her infamous chemistry exams. Never before has Shea had so much trouble in school, and never before has she considered something so awful as cheating, but this time she has no choice. Her scholarship is riding on the class, and losing the scholarship would ruin her. Shea sneaks into Stark’s classroom and, terrified, makes a copy of tomorrow’s exam. She thinks she’s gotten away with it until the phone rings. The voice on the other end knows her secret, and promises to keep quiet if Shea follows certain instructions. As her lies overwhelm her, Shea learns that there is a much worse fate than getting a D.

13 – Monster

Abby McDonald works harder than anyone to keep her straight A’s, along with her scholarship, even at the cost of not having much of a social life. Her understanding boyfriend, David, wants her to relax a little, but Abby is driven to succeed. She can’t let her emotions get in the way. Plunging into a demanding schedule, she blows off the rumors of a vicious monster on campus—it must be a fraternity prank or drama club performance. The only time left to tackle her annoying chemistry project is late at night, which happens to be when her strange classmate Stan likes to work too. It’s better to be with someone than to be alone . . . right? When the monster attacks someone close to her, Abby can no longer deny the rumors and discovers the shocking truth.

14 – The Initiation

The first months of college take a toll on Molly Keene. In high school she knew everyone, but at Salem University she’s just another face in the crowd. No one notices her besides Norman, a peculiar intellectual who invites her to join his new club: the Others. The first meeting is just small talk, but at the second, things get weird. A ceremony takes place in the woods, around a campfire. Norman declares that the Others have secret powers which give them the right to impose their will on the school. It should be funny, but Molly isn’t laughing. As she makes more friends, Molly tries to get away from Norman and his creepy club. But she has already been initiated, and the Others aren’t going to let her go without a fight.

15 – Truth or Die

When first-year student Parrie Moore meets the other girls at a party, joining them in their harmless game of Truth or Dare sounds like fun. And at first it is. The dares are silly pranks that make them all laugh. But gradually the dares become stranger, more dangerous. The game is taking on a life of its own. Parrie is frightened. But it’s only a game…or is it?

16 – Book of Horrors

Reed Monroe chose Salem University for one reason: the opportunity to study with Victoria McCoy, writer-in-residence and bestselling author of horror fiction. When she learns that a lingering illness is preventing McCoy from teaching any classes, Reed starts a fan club for other McCoy obsessives. Although it only attracts a few members, the club is her passion until she hears about the opportunity of a lifetime: Victoria McCoy is hiring a new assistant. It’s a job that any horror fan would kill for. After she’s hired, Reed learns that the position was open because the last assistant disappeared, and that every one of McCoy’s employees has vanished mysteriously. To survive freshman year, Reed must confront the possibility that her idol might be a murderer.

17 – Last Breath

Am I losing my mind? That’s the question that haunts Salem University student Cassidy Kirk when weird things start happening to her. A paper she slaved over for Psych 101 disappears. Cash vanishes from her bag. She shows up for a party that’s not happening until next week. Then she’s almost run down by a black car with tinted windows that no one else sees. Is she going crazy? Or is someone trying to kill her? As things go from bad to much, much worse, Cassidy starts to suspect that she has an enemy out there. With time running out, she must figure out who’s out to get her and why—or the next breath she takes may be her last.

18 – Win, Lose or Die

A scholarship to college is what every high school student dreams about. But for military brat Nicki Bledsoe, who’s changed schools eight times over twelve years, a tennis scholarship to Salem University means having to prove herself all over again. It doesn’t help that Nicki gets a far-from-warm welcome from Libby DeVoe, the school’s reigning tennis star. The fiercely competitive Libby seems intent on making Nicki’s life miserable. Someone writes “go away, loser” in hair mousse on Nicki’s locker. A tire on her car is slashed. Her lucky tennis racket is destroyed. It has to be Libby . . . right? Nicki is determined to prove that she doesn’t scare so easily . . . but it’s already too late. Her enemy has put a plan in motion to beat Nicki in a terrifying game—and losing means certain death.

19 – The Coffin

Salem University violinist Tanner Leo can’t wait for her strict psychiatrist father to leave for Hawaii so she can have the house all to herself. But after he leaves, Tanner finds that she is not, in fact, alone: She has a madman for company. It starts when Tanner comes home from school to discover the housekeeper gone, her pocketbook suspiciously left behind. Someone else is in the house . . . someone who viciously attacks Tanner. She wakes up in her father’s soundproof music room, a stranger in a terrifying Halloween mask sitting across from her. A prisoner in a silent torture chamber, Tanner frantically tries to figure out who her assailant is and why he’s locked her in. But the worst is yet to come. As her friends search for her, Tanner must find an escape hatch—before a monster with a familiar face buries her alive in a coffin made just for her.

20 – Deadly Visions

Rachel Seaver is having visions. In a tranquil seascape painting, she sees a terrified woman drowning in the ocean waves. That night, she has a dream in which a student she barely knows is murdered. The next day, she finds out he’s dead—the victim of a drowning. In a still-life painting of a vase of flowers, Rachel sees someone tumbling down a steep flight of metal stairs. The same night, a poet falls down the fire escape at Nightingale Hall. Rachel’s visions keep getting worse as her mind’s eye paints terrifying pictures of murder. And then she starts receiving death threats that claim she won’t live to see another Monday. Someone is watching Rachel… watching and waiting… A stone-cold killer with the perfect canvas on which to immortalize her forever.

21 – Student Body

Victory Alexander and her buddies are celebrating Salem University’s big team win with a barbecue in the woods. But when gusty March winds ignite a fire that rages out of control, Tory barely escapes the blaze in time. Basketball star Hoop Sinclair isn’t so lucky. When Tory and her friends realize he’s missing, it’s too late to go back—or to tell anyone. After all, they were partying on forbidden state park property. If the secret gets out, they could be expelled. The next day, an injured person turns up—unconscious, burned beyond recognition. Is the bandage-swathed body in the hospital bed Hoop? To make matters worse, Tory and her friends are being stalked by a terrifying mummified creature. The student must find out who it is—before they wind up paying for their choices with their lives.

22 – The Vampire’s Kiss

23 – Dark Moon

Eve Forsythe has been chosen to cochair Salem U’s annual Founders’ Day celebration, and she is determined to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. The honor student can’t let anyone see that beneath her perfectionist exterior is a teenager terrified she’ll make a mistake. Eve’s worst fears are realized when, on the first day of the festival, a runaway horse goes crazy, killing a student. But the nightmare is just beginning: A boy is impaled by a dart with a pointed metal tip. A Ferris wheel filled with students speeds out control. And Eve is trapped and terrorized in the Mirror Maze. Someone has big plans for the festival—and for Eve. Someone whose true evil will soon be revealed . . .

24 – The Biker

The motorcycle appears out of nowhere, thundering down the quiet residential street. By the time it roars back up the block and disappears from view, a little boy is injured and an elderly woman is dead. Salem University outsider Echo Glenn is paying her own way through college by working part time at the school infirmary. She thinks she knows the identity of the Mad Biker in black leather who’s been terrorizing the town—she just needs confirmation. And while she’s at it, maybe she’ll sneak a ride on his Harley. But the joyride turns into a journey of terror when the bike plows into a group of students outside a college hangout. Now Echo is an accomplice to murder—and the target of an avenging killer who’s going to make sure she doesn’t live to tell the tale.

25 – Captives

Molloy, Lynne, Daisy, and Toni are headed for summer school at Salem University, where they’ll officially be freshmen in the fall. But their journey takes an unexpected detour when they’re stranded by a violent storm. They take refuge at the deserted Nightingale Hall, an off-campus dorm haunted by a tragic past. What the four girls don’t know is that someone else has taken shelter there: a psychopath who’s on the run after murdering a prominent psychiatrist. The electricity is off. The phones are dead. Someone has locked the doors from the inside and nailed all the windows shut. There’s no escape for Molloy and her friends, who are at the mercy of a madman with no intention of letting any of them leave—at least not alive.

26 – Revenge

When the students at Salem University are terrorized by a vengeful stalker, Addie Adair, a co-ed who is working on an English paper at the computer lab, fears that she will be the next victim when she discovers a strange disk.

27 – Kidnapped

For Nora Mulgrew, the days between the end of Salem University’s summer session and the start of fall semester are the “dead time.” The campus is deserted, and Nora is the only resident in eerie old Nightingale Hall, a ramshackle dorm whose dark past has earned it the nickname “Nightmare Hall.” Nora hasn’t heard any of those rumors, but her own nightmare is about to begin. An education major, Nora has spent the summer working at a day care where her favorite pupil is a darling child named Mindy. When Mindy goes missing, campus security suspects Nora. As she battles migraines and the suspicions of the police, Nora hunts the campus for the child. Someone has framed her for a terrible crime, and Nora must find out who it is before it’s too late.

28 – The Dummy

A fun skit for the school Halloween bash turns deadly when a student decides to use a live dummy for her ventriloquist act.

29 – The Voice in the Mirror

Salem U. is buzzing with holiday activities. Annie loves the holidays, until two of her friends have horrible accidents—and she may be next. What Annie doesn’t know is that one of her friends has a dark past. He has murdered a girl and now his mind is split in two. One part that of a student, the other that of a guilty killer. He listens to “the voice in the mirror” that tells him that each new girl he meets is actually a reincarnation of the girl he killed, returning to expose him. The voice tells him he has no chance, unless he can eliminate the problem…permanently.