In 2008 Horowitz's publishers decided to republish his old 1999 Horror anthologies Horowitz Horror: Stories You'll Wish You Never Read and Horowitz Horror 2 (also published under the title More Horowitz Horror). But instead of just reproducing those two volumes in their entirety they chose to divide them up into separately sold smaller books containing usually two (but as is the case with book, sometimes three short stories). To annoy those who maybe have one of the anthologies already they decided that these new smaller books would be made up of one story from Horowitz Horror 1 and the other from Horowitz Horror 2. So if you plan on reading all these books it's obviously much better value for money to buy the two anthologies than all these books separately. Out of these smaller books this is one of the better story collections.
The three stories in this book are obviously the title story Scared, as well as A Career In Computer Games, and Howard's End. All three stories revolve around a nasty, rude, bully, thief boy type character who gets his comeuppance. The first involves a boy named Gary who is visiting his grandmother's farm which he only agreed to visit by intimidating his mother into buying him a heap of CDs. He goes for a walk thinking of ways his can punish his mother and grandmother for his boredom and gets lost. As he tries to find his way back to the house nature starts to give him his comeuppance.
A Career in Computer Games has loser Kevin who hardly ever goes to school and when he does bullies other kids, steals from them and vandalises their property for his entertainment. He spends his days in video arcades funding his past time through break and enters and other theft. He thinks he is a master game player. One day he sees an advertisement for A Career in Computer Games no experience necessary so even though he never had any intention of getting an honest job decides he'll check it out and if he doesn't like it, steal stuff during the interview. However this is not an ordinary company and as Kevin gets his comeuppance he will find out there are better game players than himself.
Howard's End starts off with another bully, obviously named Howard who gets killed by a bus while running away from security guards after shoplifting some CDs. Howard is surprised to find out he is on a cloud and in a queue for the pearly gates. He had always assumed Heaven and Hell were fictional stories. Howard decides to use his bullying and ability to con and lie to get through the gates.
If you've only read the Groosham Grange series this series of books is a little bit heavier in subject matter. Groosham Grange and its sequel The Unholy Grail are a bit more cartoony monster horror style than these more realistic thriller scare stories.
