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Beyond Midnight: Seven Peculiar Tales of Mystery and Suspense.
A collection of seven strange and supernatural short stories and novellas from the storyteller who gave voice to The Midnight Society of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and authored the #1 NYT bestselling Pendragon - Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space book series. These yarns, intended for more mature readers, invite you into the lives of several individuals who find themselves trapped in unusual dilemmas that range from eerie to impossible, from frightening to deadly. Join author D.J. MacHale on a twisted journey that will take you to the limits of sanity and challenge you to find a way back.
The
Influence Island - A desperate author goes to extreme lengths to break through writer's block.
The Blood Code - A doctor's search for immortality pushes him to deadly extremes.
Freshly Squeezed - A middle-aged man's strange odyssey through a haunted town.
Time Trials, Unlimited - A young man gets a second chance at life, and death.
The Scout (Redux) - Lost in the desert, a boy is pursued by a relentless killer.
The Weeper - A chilling legend may prove to be all too real.
The Paper Trail (Vera) - The arrival of a stranger in a small town triggers a series of terrifying events.
The
Influence Island - A desperate author goes to extreme lengths to break through writer's block.
The Blood Code - A doctor's search for immortality pushes him to deadly extremes.
Freshly Squeezed - A middle-aged man's strange odyssey through a haunted town.
Time Trials, Unlimited - A young man gets a second chance at life, and death.
The Scout (Redux) - Lost in the desert, a boy is pursued by a relentless killer.
The Weeper - A chilling legend may prove to be all too real.
The Paper Trail (Vera) - The arrival of a stranger in a small town triggers a series of terrifying events.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 7, 2023
6 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
D.J. MacHale
107 books2,344 followersD.J. MacHale is a writer, director, executive producer and creator of several popular television series and movies.
He was raised in Greenwich, CT and graduated from Greenwich High School. While in school, he had several jobs including collecting eggs at a poultry farm, engraving sports trophies and washing dishes in a steakhouse...in between playing football and running track. D.J. then attended New York University where he received a BFA in film production.
His filmmaking career began in New York where he worked as a freelance writer/director, making corporate videos and television commercials. He also taught photography and film production.
D.J. broke into the entertainment business by writing several ABC Afterschool Specials. After moving to Los Angeles, he made the fulltime switch from informational films, to entertainment. As co-creator of the popular Nickelodeon series: Are You Afraid of the Dark?, he produced all 91 episodes over 8 years. He wrote and directed many of the episodes including the CableAce nominated The Tale of Cutter's Treasure starring Charles S. Dutton. He was nominated for a Gemini award for directing The Tale of the Dangerous Soup starring Neve Campbell.
D.J. also wrote and directed the movie Tower of Terror for ABC's Wonderful World of Disney which starred Kirsten Dunst and Steve Guttenberg. The Showtime series Chris Cross was co-created, written and produced by D.J. It received the CableAce award for Best Youth Series.
D.J. co-created and produced the Discovery Kids series Flight 29 Down for which he writes all the episodes and directs several. His work on Flight 29 Down has earned him both Writers Guild of America and Directors Guild of America award nominations.
Other notable writing credits include the classic ABC Afterschool Special titled Seasonal Differences; the pilot for the long-running PBS/CBS series Ghostwriter; and the HBO series Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective for which he received a CableAce nomination for writing.
In print, D.J. has co-written the book The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors, based on his own teleplay and penned the poetic adaptation of the classic Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
The book series: Pendragon - Journal of an Adventure through Time and Space marks D.J.'s first turn as a novelist. He plans for this series of Young Adult adventures to span a total of 10 books.
D.J. lives in Southern California with his wife Evangeline and daughter Keaton. They are avid backpackers, scuba divers and skiers. Rounding out the household are a Golden Retriever, Maggie; and a Kitten, Kaboodle.
He was raised in Greenwich, CT and graduated from Greenwich High School. While in school, he had several jobs including collecting eggs at a poultry farm, engraving sports trophies and washing dishes in a steakhouse...in between playing football and running track. D.J. then attended New York University where he received a BFA in film production.
His filmmaking career began in New York where he worked as a freelance writer/director, making corporate videos and television commercials. He also taught photography and film production.
D.J. broke into the entertainment business by writing several ABC Afterschool Specials. After moving to Los Angeles, he made the fulltime switch from informational films, to entertainment. As co-creator of the popular Nickelodeon series: Are You Afraid of the Dark?, he produced all 91 episodes over 8 years. He wrote and directed many of the episodes including the CableAce nominated The Tale of Cutter's Treasure starring Charles S. Dutton. He was nominated for a Gemini award for directing The Tale of the Dangerous Soup starring Neve Campbell.
D.J. also wrote and directed the movie Tower of Terror for ABC's Wonderful World of Disney which starred Kirsten Dunst and Steve Guttenberg. The Showtime series Chris Cross was co-created, written and produced by D.J. It received the CableAce award for Best Youth Series.
D.J. co-created and produced the Discovery Kids series Flight 29 Down for which he writes all the episodes and directs several. His work on Flight 29 Down has earned him both Writers Guild of America and Directors Guild of America award nominations.
Other notable writing credits include the classic ABC Afterschool Special titled Seasonal Differences; the pilot for the long-running PBS/CBS series Ghostwriter; and the HBO series Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective for which he received a CableAce nomination for writing.
In print, D.J. has co-written the book The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors, based on his own teleplay and penned the poetic adaptation of the classic Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
The book series: Pendragon - Journal of an Adventure through Time and Space marks D.J.'s first turn as a novelist. He plans for this series of Young Adult adventures to span a total of 10 books.
D.J. lives in Southern California with his wife Evangeline and daughter Keaton. They are avid backpackers, scuba divers and skiers. Rounding out the household are a Golden Retriever, Maggie; and a Kitten, Kaboodle.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 14, 2023
This excellent book of short horror stories and a novella that sets up a larger story is a blast from beginning to end.
D. J. MacHale is a name people of my generation will know for creating Are You Afraid of the Dark? and for writing and directing a number of episodes of it. To a younger generation, he’s the author of the fantasy series Pendragon. He’s done lots of other work for screen and print, but his stories are always well-told, fun, and full of good character development and interesting little twists.
The stories in this collection continues that tradition and is a fun book for adults who grew up watching his spooky series about the Midnight Society.
D. J. MacHale is a name people of my generation will know for creating Are You Afraid of the Dark? and for writing and directing a number of episodes of it. To a younger generation, he’s the author of the fantasy series Pendragon. He’s done lots of other work for screen and print, but his stories are always well-told, fun, and full of good character development and interesting little twists.
The stories in this collection continues that tradition and is a fun book for adults who grew up watching his spooky series about the Midnight Society.
February 18, 2023
I have really enjoyed this collection of short stories DJ machale published. My favorite was the Scott (redux) but all of them were fabulous!
I love that this book has a bit more maturity in it than his other works and I love the spooky suspense.
100% recommend reading this book if you have read his other masterpieces
I love that this book has a bit more maturity in it than his other works and I love the spooky suspense.
100% recommend reading this book if you have read his other masterpieces
August 24, 2023
Alright, next Unlimited book and it’s one I’ve been interested in for a while. This is a book of 7 stories by DJ MacHale. He’s got thing like the Pendragon series but for our purposes he’;s the (co) creator of Are You Afraid of the Dark. In the intro, he talks about how these were created to be vampire type stories that could be told by an older Midnight Society.
“Hence, they have gone Beyond Midnight. (Clever, no?)”
So yeah, that connection is why I've been wanting to get to this so here we are. These are meant to be more mature and I thought that meant YA but it's closer to A. Not to a huge extent but we get the F word, which we all automatically means adult. Anyway, let’s get into this:
Influence Island: A struggling author steals an idea which comes to life through his dreams. We’re off to a pretty strong start here. It’s long but decently written and flows well. The dream element adds some good deaths and an interesting idea. There’s layers to it with the kind of books he does, being trashy with just enough value.
There ends up being commentary on commentary with how a whole thing of what his book could possibly be about on a deeper level. The book is basically The Most Dangerous Game with influencers and there’s mockery of that stuff and a good emulation of these sorts of trashy fun books. The ending provides a good twist and ending note but I do have questions about what is fully going on. A couple things could have been patched up but it’s still pretty solid as a start.
The Blood Code: A girl discovers her dad has been doing a dark experiment. This certainly has more of a Dark kinda feel than the last one. It isn’t action filled but it has solid build up. There’s plenty of tragedy here regarding the situation she and dad are in. We see he is doing something pretty bad but for understandable reasons that have taken him down a dark path. It can be a bit blunt in what they are feeling but you can feel for both parties here and there is a good bittersweet ending. The ending note adds a good twist as well. It’s not a thrill ride but it does enough with the sad-ness inherent in the story to make it engaging. Also it indeed has a vampire so that’s a plus.
Freshly Squeezed: A man notices his wife is acting oddly. This one is alright. It’s a fair setup and it builds to a solid twist with a few different layers to it. It’s not especially exciting and I don’t quite get why she was acting a certain way early on, even after knowing the twist. It’s some decent stuff that just isn’t too complicated. It’s fine, just nothing too notable, points for being shorter though.
Time Trials, Unlimited: A man who does not care about time signs up for an odd app after a tragic accident. This is another that fits the campfire story theme well to an extent. Jamie is built to be kind of the worst with how he goes on about our obsession with being on time being bad, basically to excuse him not being on time often. He still got a girlfriend who is the opposite but in a complimentary way.
Through the story he sees how his thinking goes wrong and it is engaging when we see what this app is all about. It gets intense as he basically gets sent back to correct a mistake. There’s good tension there. But aside from maybe a few filler moments, the ending is odd. It is trying to be profound but i don’t know what it’s trying to say exactly. Given how it ends it is a bit odd. So it needed a bit of work but it was still fairly good.
The Scout (Redux): A scout gets lost after walking away from his group and bumps into a robot scout from another planet. This story is dialogue-less and very action driven. It can drag on for too long but is fairly fun. It at least isn’t boring and keeps going as he tries to get away from this thing. There’s more to it as we get a few big twists that reveal what is going on here. It’s crazy and involves some commentary. The 2nd main twist was a bit odd to me and frankly seemed a bit too optimistic and unrealistic to a certain degree, if you’ve read it you may know what I mean. The ending is effective and actually optimistic in a good way. It feels too long for what it is but as it stands, it was fairly enjoyable with some neat twists and turns. (This is one of two republished stories he’s done before, hence the Redux part)
The Weeper: Two kids discover the truth behind an odd urban legend involving shadow children. This is the other republished one, first appearing in Don’t turn out the lights. It’s pretty good. It has that urban legend vibe, and it flows well with some solid creepy moments. The kids have good chemistry with the other main one being kind of bad but he gets better at the end in a nice moment. The opening could have been just a quick story of its own but the other stuff worked too. DJ did change some stuff from the original which I did look through. It’s nothing crazy, some extra sentences and mild swearing but not too amped up. But also they swap out a mention of Bob’s Burgers with The Simpsons. Okay. So yeah, the middle grade one that has underage drinking, yes, is pretty solid. (It’s set in “Stonybrook, Connecticut” so it’s the Babysitter’s Club Universe I guess?)
The Paper Trail (Vera) : Strange things start happening in a small town that could be tied to a woman’s old job. DJ says this is part of a larger story that is planned for his next book. You can tell as it ends with NOT THE END. It does feel like a slice of a story, possibly being about why odd things start happening in this town. We get a one off slice about this one case with Vera. I like it. The small town setting is neat as we get some history and enjoyable character. Vera is interesting with her being sort of mixed, then more fully bad as we see her past and way of thinking. It leads to a solid ending. The main stuff with her could just be a stand alone thing but we get teases for more. Who knows if I’ll read the full book but this worked well as our closing story.
Overall, this was pretty good. These were longer than I;m used to so I did read this over 2 days. I think that helped these be more fleshed out than usual, Weeper being the only short one although Freshly Squeezed is quicker as well. These generally did have the campfire type feel, with a couple I even imagine what the prelude would have been if it was an AYAOTD episode. Some don’t quite feel that way but it’s not a big deal. Even the last one has elements I could see being in a dark remake of Tale of the Hunted lol.
The writing is solid and makes it read, as it flows well. It’s able to have some compelling and smart stuff. Not exactly scary, although there are a few good dark moments in here. It has that mature feel but doesn’t go too crazy. Although having one that was from a collection for kids now in a book that has fuck a few times does feel odd. My favorites were The Blood Code, Influence Island, and The Weeper. Time Trial comes close to getting there but needs a bit more work. The weakest was Freshly Squeezed but that’s the only one I didn’t quite feel. The rest were pretty engaging and enjoyable.
Honestly it needed a few more to be a bit stronger to possibly get to a high rating but being in the 3.5 zone is still pretty good. There’s some solid stuff in here. As far as these story collections go, this one I can recommend. DJ fares pretty well here. So yeah, that’s basically it for this one.
Next is at least one Kindle Unlimited book I ran into very recently so stay tuned for that. See ya then.
“Hence, they have gone Beyond Midnight. (Clever, no?)”
So yeah, that connection is why I've been wanting to get to this so here we are. These are meant to be more mature and I thought that meant YA but it's closer to A. Not to a huge extent but we get the F word, which we all automatically means adult. Anyway, let’s get into this:
Influence Island: A struggling author steals an idea which comes to life through his dreams. We’re off to a pretty strong start here. It’s long but decently written and flows well. The dream element adds some good deaths and an interesting idea. There’s layers to it with the kind of books he does, being trashy with just enough value.
There ends up being commentary on commentary with how a whole thing of what his book could possibly be about on a deeper level. The book is basically The Most Dangerous Game with influencers and there’s mockery of that stuff and a good emulation of these sorts of trashy fun books. The ending provides a good twist and ending note but I do have questions about what is fully going on. A couple things could have been patched up but it’s still pretty solid as a start.
The Blood Code: A girl discovers her dad has been doing a dark experiment. This certainly has more of a Dark kinda feel than the last one. It isn’t action filled but it has solid build up. There’s plenty of tragedy here regarding the situation she and dad are in. We see he is doing something pretty bad but for understandable reasons that have taken him down a dark path. It can be a bit blunt in what they are feeling but you can feel for both parties here and there is a good bittersweet ending. The ending note adds a good twist as well. It’s not a thrill ride but it does enough with the sad-ness inherent in the story to make it engaging. Also it indeed has a vampire so that’s a plus.
Freshly Squeezed: A man notices his wife is acting oddly. This one is alright. It’s a fair setup and it builds to a solid twist with a few different layers to it. It’s not especially exciting and I don’t quite get why she was acting a certain way early on, even after knowing the twist. It’s some decent stuff that just isn’t too complicated. It’s fine, just nothing too notable, points for being shorter though.
Time Trials, Unlimited: A man who does not care about time signs up for an odd app after a tragic accident. This is another that fits the campfire story theme well to an extent. Jamie is built to be kind of the worst with how he goes on about our obsession with being on time being bad, basically to excuse him not being on time often. He still got a girlfriend who is the opposite but in a complimentary way.
Through the story he sees how his thinking goes wrong and it is engaging when we see what this app is all about. It gets intense as he basically gets sent back to correct a mistake. There’s good tension there. But aside from maybe a few filler moments, the ending is odd. It is trying to be profound but i don’t know what it’s trying to say exactly. Given how it ends it is a bit odd. So it needed a bit of work but it was still fairly good.
The Scout (Redux): A scout gets lost after walking away from his group and bumps into a robot scout from another planet. This story is dialogue-less and very action driven. It can drag on for too long but is fairly fun. It at least isn’t boring and keeps going as he tries to get away from this thing. There’s more to it as we get a few big twists that reveal what is going on here. It’s crazy and involves some commentary. The 2nd main twist was a bit odd to me and frankly seemed a bit too optimistic and unrealistic to a certain degree, if you’ve read it you may know what I mean. The ending is effective and actually optimistic in a good way. It feels too long for what it is but as it stands, it was fairly enjoyable with some neat twists and turns. (This is one of two republished stories he’s done before, hence the Redux part)
The Weeper: Two kids discover the truth behind an odd urban legend involving shadow children. This is the other republished one, first appearing in Don’t turn out the lights. It’s pretty good. It has that urban legend vibe, and it flows well with some solid creepy moments. The kids have good chemistry with the other main one being kind of bad but he gets better at the end in a nice moment. The opening could have been just a quick story of its own but the other stuff worked too. DJ did change some stuff from the original which I did look through. It’s nothing crazy, some extra sentences and mild swearing but not too amped up. But also they swap out a mention of Bob’s Burgers with The Simpsons. Okay. So yeah, the middle grade one that has underage drinking, yes, is pretty solid. (It’s set in “Stonybrook, Connecticut” so it’s the Babysitter’s Club Universe I guess?)
The Paper Trail (Vera) : Strange things start happening in a small town that could be tied to a woman’s old job. DJ says this is part of a larger story that is planned for his next book. You can tell as it ends with NOT THE END. It does feel like a slice of a story, possibly being about why odd things start happening in this town. We get a one off slice about this one case with Vera. I like it. The small town setting is neat as we get some history and enjoyable character. Vera is interesting with her being sort of mixed, then more fully bad as we see her past and way of thinking. It leads to a solid ending. The main stuff with her could just be a stand alone thing but we get teases for more. Who knows if I’ll read the full book but this worked well as our closing story.
Overall, this was pretty good. These were longer than I;m used to so I did read this over 2 days. I think that helped these be more fleshed out than usual, Weeper being the only short one although Freshly Squeezed is quicker as well. These generally did have the campfire type feel, with a couple I even imagine what the prelude would have been if it was an AYAOTD episode. Some don’t quite feel that way but it’s not a big deal. Even the last one has elements I could see being in a dark remake of Tale of the Hunted lol.
The writing is solid and makes it read, as it flows well. It’s able to have some compelling and smart stuff. Not exactly scary, although there are a few good dark moments in here. It has that mature feel but doesn’t go too crazy. Although having one that was from a collection for kids now in a book that has fuck a few times does feel odd. My favorites were The Blood Code, Influence Island, and The Weeper. Time Trial comes close to getting there but needs a bit more work. The weakest was Freshly Squeezed but that’s the only one I didn’t quite feel. The rest were pretty engaging and enjoyable.
Honestly it needed a few more to be a bit stronger to possibly get to a high rating but being in the 3.5 zone is still pretty good. There’s some solid stuff in here. As far as these story collections go, this one I can recommend. DJ fares pretty well here. So yeah, that’s basically it for this one.
Next is at least one Kindle Unlimited book I ran into very recently so stay tuned for that. See ya then.
December 20, 2023
I'm so happy I got my wish and finally read DJM writing for adults and it was as fun as I thought it would be. Having said that, most of the stories were just all right but not mindblowing except for the shining exception being "Time Trials, Unlimited". Holy fųcking shit, was that short story DJM excellence! Nearly perfect! Definitely my favorite from the collection. That's the book DJ should write next and not The Paper Trail, if you ask me, but I'll still be seated and waiting for that book and reading it whole. I have my hopes with Holly and her redhead ghost. Honorable mention: "Influence Island", that short story was crazy and though I saw Derrick's fate coming bc he was unhinged and kinda stupid and the writing didn't hint any redeemable ending for him, I was still like this 😲 with the twist lol My least favorite story is "The Scout". I read the original to see how the "redux" would go (I didn't like it, btw) and I was disappointed to see it was just a changing from third person to first person pov plus a coda that just irritated me (the last sentences kinda slayed tho) and made me dislike this story even more. The story is too dramatic and heavy-handed with some weird anti-immigrant and ecofascist vibes. A very unneeded story that probably took space for something better.
February 11, 2024
Wow! This book was so well written (though not surprised D.J. MacHale is my favorite author) Each story in this book (with the exception of 1) kept me on my toes guessing what would happen next and I was never right. The Scout and The Paper Trail in particular really stuck out to me as shocking, I audibly gasped multiple times during both.
The only story I didn't really enjoy was The Weeper, while well written, it just felt more like a run of the mill campfire ghost story nothing surprising or shocking on my opinion. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys shows like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Great retrospect on society in multiple of the stories.
The only story I didn't really enjoy was The Weeper, while well written, it just felt more like a run of the mill campfire ghost story nothing surprising or shocking on my opinion. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys shows like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Great retrospect on society in multiple of the stories.
March 3, 2023
Although this collection of stories fell short of the fantastic story of Pendragon, I really liked it.
It felt like the Midnight Society grew up but continued to get together to tell scary stories around the fire. The stories held the same kind of vibe as those younger ones we all loved from "Are You Afraid of the Dark" but with a much more adult bend.
I still hold out hope for more Pendragon content, but this wasn't a disappointment.
It felt like the Midnight Society grew up but continued to get together to tell scary stories around the fire. The stories held the same kind of vibe as those younger ones we all loved from "Are You Afraid of the Dark" but with a much more adult bend.
I still hold out hope for more Pendragon content, but this wasn't a disappointment.
December 10, 2023
My favorite short stories were Influence Island and Time Trials, Unlimited while Freshly Squeezed and The Blood Code were my second faves. It was great to read DJs writing beyond the middle grade category. I wish we had some deeper and close POV moments as there appeared to be some omniscient POV and headhopping but at times I couldn't tell if it was the ebook formatting messing with scene breaks? Overall a solid read and I'm looking forward to more stories!
December 8, 2025
Fantastic read that keeps you on edge of your seat, incredibly well-written with great characters and ideas. My favorite story was The Paper Trail. I liked it so much I had to get the book, as he turned it into a full story. Love his writing style.
February 20, 2023
Another great book from my favorite author! Intriguing and interesting stories that keep the reader wanting more!
July 30, 2023
I really enjoyed these stories, especially the final few. I think they got better as the book progressed. This is inspiring me to go re-read the Pendragon series since I loved it so much as a kid.
November 8, 2023
I enjoyed these short stories. The last one (which teases a new project) has me super excited
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews