Readers often ask me where I get my ideas. To be honest, I don’t always know! Sometimes the ideas arrive on the doorstep of my imagination all dressed up and say, “You were expecting us, right?” Other times they come in dreams, quietly and politely. Still others come when I brainstorm with friends, write down sentences in a notebook, or take a long walk. Here’s where the stories in this book came from.

ONE HUNDRED WORDS

My friend Donnie gave me a challenge. “What if you only had one hundred words to tell a story?” he asked. “What if something terrible was happening to you, and you only had one hundred words to ask for help?” This short short story was my answer to that challenge.

DON’T LET THE BEDBUG BITE

You can’t write scary stories without one of them being about a babysitter. I heard so many creepy tales growing up that involved babysitting — the house is unfamiliar, the grown-ups are gone, it’s dark outside. These ingredients set the heart racing. My friend Beth has an amazing kid named Sam who once was afraid of bedbugs. Sam was sure he saw a bug in his bed. If I were Sam, I’d be afraid of bedbugs, too. I wondered, what if the bug wasn’t in the bed, but was the bed?

PICKLED

Tornadoes are common in the Midwest. When I was in fifth grade, four of them jumped over my house. My family was lucky. Those same tornadoes ripped apart our town, carved craters in our streets, and damaged many lives. Which is why I still fear storms. I’ve sat in many basements waiting for storms to pass. But how long should a person wait to come out? I’ve read about soldiers who hid during World War II and didn’t know the war was over until years later. In the dark, it’s easy to lose track of time.

DEAD END

I was driving home from work and saw a Dead End sign. Whoosh! The whole story jumped into my brain. It probably has something to do with my fear of getting lost. See? I told you that lots of things scare me.

MEET THE PARENTS

When we were kids, my sisters and I often imagined that we were adopted. Our real parents, we believed, were rulers of some European kingdom, waiting to reclaim us. Waiting for us to return to a castle, riches, and an endless supply of books and ice cream. Well, what if our true parents were not wonderful, but horrible? Or even monstrous? What would that be like?

THE DOLL THAT WAVED GOODBYE

One of the most frightening TV shows I ever watched was about a girl whose doll changed places with her. They each took turns being the doll and being the owner. Another spooky story on the show The Twilight Zone had a doll that could talk and sneak around the house at night. Both dolls were very protective of their owners. Very. The location of my story was inspired by the many summers I spent as a kid at a camp in northern Minnesota.