Bits & Pieces: A chilling horror story of sinister families and cursed legacies

by Ben Cheetham

Sometimes to survive, you have to give up part of yourself.

At fourteen, Abigail has no answer to the question of who she really is. Her life has been consumed by caring for her damaged mother. When tragedy strikes, she is uprooted from her bleak city flat and sent to live at her estranged uncle’s country estate.

Silenus House is a maze of shadowed corridors and echoing rooms, filled with artifacts that hint at sinister histories. For the first time, Abigail has the chance to experience the childhood she has been denied. But the estate’s wealth comes with a darkness she cannot ignore.

Her uncle is welcoming, but his three children watch Abigail with an unsettling intensity, as if weighing her for something she does not yet understand. At night, strange noises seep through the walls. And as she is drawn deeper into the family’s disturbing traditions, Abigail realises her arrival may not be an act of kindness at all, but the continuation of a legacy that demands sacrifice.

327 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 28, 2025

About the author

Ben Cheetham is an award-winning writer and Pushcart Prize nominee. His writing spans the genres, from horror and sci-fi to literary fiction, but he has a passion for dark, gritty crime fiction. His short stories have been published in Swill Magazine, The Fiction Desk, Deadcore (Comet Press), The London Magazine, The Willisden Herald New Short Stories 3, The Grist Anthology of New Writing, Dream Catcher, Staple, Fast Forward: A Collection of Flash Fiction, Voice From The Planet (Harvard Square Editions), The Momaya Annual Review, Transmission, The Chaffey Review, and numerous other magazines.

Ben lives in Sheffield, UK, where - when he's not chasing around after his two-year old son - he spends most of his time locked away in his study racking his brain for the next paragraph, the next sentence, the next word.