10. "The Playground." Ray Bradbury. I struggled to include a Bradbury piece. Certainly, "A Sound of Thunder" is classic sci fi. "The Crowd" is a great horror story, but it didn't thump me over the head with horror - as the other stories here do. A horror list just needs to include a Bradbury piece. But most of his work is mild . . . even among the mildest of horror writers. Then I remembered this little gem in the original hardcover copy of Farhenheit 451 that I read in high school. Now this is not mild. It's horror and it's Bradbury at his best. It involves a father who so loves his son - who is bullied at school, especially on the playground - that he is willing to switch spots with him. Even if it means going back to that most awful of places - if you've ever been picked on - the playground. That last scene in the final paragraph has stuck with me at least 25 years since I've read this.
9. "The Companion." Ramsey Campbell. Just made my College Comp class read this when I was home with Kenzie. I got about a dozen texts from the kids who were thoroughly confused. Part of that comes from Campbell's hallucinatory prose and part of it comes from the ending. This might just be my favorite ghost story. If it is even a ghost story. King - in his Danse Macabre - calls it one of the best horror stories of that past 30 (well, 50 years now) years. And he is pretty spot on. You cannot read that last page and not get creeped out.
8. "The Lame Priest." S. Carlton. This is one of the best werewolf stories that I've come across in some time. It can be found in the horror anthology, Curse of the Full Moon. I've read it several times, and the part where the hermit waits in his hut with the creature outside, trying to lure him out is as creepy as it gets.
7. "A Little Something for us Tempanuats." Philip K. Dick. We read a lot of his work in my Science Fiction class, but I can hardly imagine a more horrifying fate than the one met by the time-travelling Tempanuats in this story.
6. "The Man in the Black Suit." Stephen King. This one is from his collection Everything's Eventual. It was the O. Henry award for top short story in 1997. It's similar to a modern version of the greatest short story ever written, "Young Goodman Brown." But it's scary as hell. We've all been in the woods. Luckily, we haven't met the man in the black suit. And hopefully we won't ever meet him.
5. "God Screamed and Screamed, and Then I Ate Him." How can it not be a horror story with a title like that. Of course, they aren't talking about that God. Just one of the lesser ones. This - to me anyway - is a Lovecraftian work. But so much better. I've read so much of Lovecraft that he tires and bores me with his prose ("Herbert West - Re-animator" used to be a fixture on my top ten list, but I've read it so often now that I am starting to hate it). This has it all - imagery and that great twist where reality is left behind and you aren't sure where you are.
4. "N" by Stephen King. This story in King's After Sunset collection, is great. It's a retelling of Machen's "The Great God Pan" (you'll see that one later on in the list) with a healthy dose (okay, that's a poor play on words) of OCD thrown in. But it's scary as hell. And it might just trump last year's pick "Crouch End."
3. "The Great God Pan." I have both a hard copy and an audio book version, Tales of the Occult (Unabridged) - Arthur Machen, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Robert Chambers, and it's awesome. This tale is not for everyone. The beginning is truly horrific. But then the real monster never really appears. We just hear rumors or catch glimpses of it. Plus, the story is told in letters or interviews in a very fragmented fashion. But it's terrifying. King calls it one of the best horror stories ever written. And he's right.
2. "Pig Blood Blues." Clive Barker. It's like a fable from hell. Barker's strength - at least in his infamous Books of Blood - is to take us on a journey that begins firmly in reality but ends in total terror . . . and we don't even realize that we've left reality far, far behind. He's very much like Ray Bradbury when it comes to that. And that makes this story all the more horrifying because you don't know that something really terrible is happening . . . until it's happened and, by then, it's far too late. Read this one on Halloween. I dare you.
1. "The Pattern." Ramsey Campbell. It just doesn't get any better (horrifying) than this. The ending is unimaginable. He pulls out all the stops . . . and gets away with it. Usually, when this happens, the readers laugh or just don't buy the shock. Not here. Read it. You'll never forget it. Especially that ending. And what an original idea for a horror story! To even say anything about the story would ruin it for you.
4 comments:
Hi,
Perhaps you could do me a favor. I found "The Companion" online -- in a preview version -- after reading about it on a blog. However, the last available page is 15, and page 16 is not available, which would seem to indicate that the final page is missing. Adding to my confusion is the fact that the final sentence on 15 could conceivably be the end of the story.
Can you tell me -- does the story end with "...Stone did not immediately notice that the figure had taken his hand"? Thanks.
Yes. That is the proper conclusion.
Thanks! Everyone went on so much about the "shocking conclusion" that I thought I might have missed something. It's more of a subtle creep-out kind of thing, and it worked better when I reread it knowing this. That's the problem with expectations.
Mr. Booth,
I agree. Subtle creep out. But if you want the opposite of that, check out Campbell's "The Pattern." It's worth it.
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