13 Stories for Halloween

In honor of Disney's 13 Days of Halloween, here is my annual run down of the best horror stories.

13.  "The Gentleman's Hotel" by Joe R. Lansdale.  Two summers ago, I bought the anthology, Curse of the Full Moon at the Georgia Tech bookstore in Atlanta.  However, it wasn't until this fall that I finally read this story from the collection.  I have not read anything by Lansdale since his phenomenal The Nightrunners when I was 16.  That novel has stood out as one of the most violent and brilliant horror books of my youth (right up there with the work of Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs) and Clive Barker (The Books of Blood).  This is actually one of the better werewolf stories I've come across.  And the main character, Reverend Jebediah Mercer, who is one of the most interesting protagonists I've come across in some time.  This both made me think twice about going down stairs in the middle of the night and made me laugh out loud.

12.  "Hunting Meth Zombies in the Great Nebraskan Wasteland" - John Farris. Okay, so this one made the list back in 2009.  But I re-read it recently and had to put it back on the list.  I've read a couple of Farris' novels when I was much younger (the classic All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By being the only one I really remember). This was up for a Bram Stoker award for best short story. And so I hunted it down and found it in a collection of other great horror and sci-fi stories. This story alone should make it just for its title - not to mention that the story itself is a term paper written by a high school student for an English class. Plus, how can a list of top horror stories not include at least one zombie story, right?


11.  "Safety Clowns." Glen Hirshberg.  A young man looking for a job finds one.  Working as a drug dealer for a group that dispenses their drugs via a fleet of ice cream vans with large clowns on top.  After one day, though, the young man decides he can't live do such a thing and quits.  Lucky for him.  It seems the vans and the clowns themselves were created for an entirely different purpose . . .


10.  "Young Goodman Brown."  Nathaniel Hawthorne.  How can I not include the greatest American short story ever written?  Brilliant.  Haunting.  Chilling.  And as relevant today as when it was first written back in 1835.  Once you read it, you, like Brown himself, will never be the same.  Besides, it's so much fun.  I found this essay on line and just couldn't help but read it.  Now, you tell me.  How many horror stories on this list will still have essays being written about them 176 years after they have been published?


9.  "Cell" - David Case. From the quite excellent (and likely now out of print) The Mammoth Book of Werewolves. I'm realizing as I comprise this list that each of these stories has a moment or two where we just glimpse the true terror or horror of the characters and their situations. I think that is ten times more powerful than if you just throw open the door and try to show us the true monster lurking there. And just hinting always works better - because that technique is like steroids for our imagination. And what we can imagine is always worse than what someone else can devise. Well, except for my top two choices. In those cases, the authors throw open the door and invite us right into the room where we not only see the monster and try to flee but end losing traction on something slippery on the floor . . . and then we look at what is splattered on the walls around us . . . then the stench hits us . . . then we hear the monster start after us. That's how good those top two choices are.


8.  "The Yellow Wallpaper."  Charlotte Perkins Gillman.  You'll never look at wallpaper the same.  Guaranteed.  In fact, my College Comp I students are currently reading this.  I can't wait to see their reactions.  Truth be told, I had tried several times to read this in the past, but I could never get into it.  Then one day some English colleagues and I were standing around and I raised this question: "What is the greatest short story ever written?"  Loiell Dyrud, of course, countered with Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants."  I chimed in with "Young Goodman Brown."  Larry Barton added "The Yellow Wallpaper."  It was at that moment that I vowed to read it, and I did.  And it scared the hell out of me.  In College Comp I we always listen to it a second time and the story gets creepier for the students.  Then I have a student creep around the room as the narrator is doing at the climax of the story to illustrate the horrific imagery in the story.  It's unforgettable.


7.  "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."  How could we not have some Lovecraft on the list?  I usually include "Herbert West: Re-animator," but I've read that with my sci fi class so many times that it's losing its impact on me.  Then I thought about "The Rats in the Walls," but the climax has always mystified me.  Then there is "The Colour out of Space," and while it's excellent, it is too predictable for me.  That leaves his "Innsmouth" tale.  While it's a clunker at times, when he finally gets rolling in this tale, it's horrific.  The escape scene from the hotel is great fun.  As is the scene where our narrator peaks down an alley and sees the Innsmouth residents coming up from the sea.  And the resolution?  It's pure Lovecraft.


Speaking of old H.P. here is one of the best documentaries on Lovecraft (or any horror writer for that matter), that I've ever seen.  You certainly can see his impact on authors and film makers of today.

6. "N." 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. Plus, there is a serialized adaptation of the story available on iTunes.  Here are the first five episodes merged.





5.  "The Lottery." Shirley Jackson.  If it's not "Young Goodman Brown," then it's got to be "The Lottery" for the greatest American short story.  On first reading, 99% of it is plain and kind of boring.  But that 1% packs such a wallop that once you read it, you'll never forget it nor will you ever be the same.


4.  "Crouch End." Stephen King. This one is written as a tribute to HP Lovecraft (whose eternal - no pun intended - "Herbert West: Re-Animator" is usually included on this list but got bumped off this year). King's prose is so effective whenever I read it, the room I'm in just fades away and I'm right next to Mr. and Mrs. Freeman try to find their way out of Crouch End. Sadly, only one makes it. Well, one makes it out alive . . . though they never really are able to make it back completely. But I've already said too much about this one!


3.  The Great God Pan.  Arthur Machen.  Okay.  I cheated a little here.  This is not a story but more of a novella.  The opening scene, with the quintessential mad scientist, is horrific.  And the story never lets up from there.  The story is so far ahead of its time in term of its postmodern approach.  I think now that it's just getting the recognition it deserves.  And best of all, you can find it on line.


2.  "The Pattern." Ramsey Cambell.  He is the master of the snap ending.  Sometimes I just love to read the final line or paragraph of all the stories in one of his anthologies for their effect.  You never see them coming, and they always hit you upside the head.  This story builds slowly, but the last five pages rush at you and before you know, they've got you.  


1.  "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.