I’m striving to read another 31 spooky short stories in October. I thought it’d be neat to share the stories I’ve collected from previous years since I often find myself wishing for lists like this as I research new stories and authors.
I’m not a devout genre reader so it’s a mix of stories that may not fall into traditional horror categories, but are still intense reads or appropriate to the moods of the season.
I’ve made sure to include more than just white men from the United States and Western Europe.
There’s a line from each story as well to get a sense of what’s in there.
Some stories contain disturbing, violent, and/or sexual content, so fare thee warned.
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- “His Face All Red” by Emily Carroll – “This man is not my brother.”
- “The Vampyre” by John Polidori – “His peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house…”
- “Lost Souls” by Clive Barker – “Hell possessed a genius for deceit.”
- “The Striding Place” by Gertrude Atherton – “Weigall did not believe for a moment that Wyatt Gifford was dead…”
- “Dracula’s Guest” by Bram Stoker – “Ah! I see, a suicide. How interesting!”
- “I am Anjuhimeko” by Hiromi Itō – “That’s right, how could anyone possibly have karma as bad as mine?”
- “Patient Zero” by Tananrive Due – “So I guess I’ll never have a chance to talk to the President again.”
- “If you meet a strange, confident woman, she may well be a witch” by pelsmith – “By the end of the third victim, I slept like a lamb.”
- “The Things” by Peter Watts – “I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front.”
- “In the Court of the Dragon” by Robert W. Chambers – “Poor devil! whoever he was, there seemed small hope of escape!”
- “The Specialist’s Hat” by Kelly Link – “Claire is better at being Dead than Samantha.”
- “I want you in my mouth” by lovejoyman – “The first thing Frank noticed, of course, were her breasts…”
- “A Study in Emerald” by Neil Gaiman – “I am selfish, private and easily bored. Will this be a problem?”
- “The Ghost in the Mill” by Harriet Beecher Stowe – Wal, I know lots o’ strange things…
- “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” by H.P. Lovecraft – “And why is everybody so down on Innsmouth?”
- “From a Farther Room” by David Gilbert – “Alert the media: unhappy, middle-aged white man on the loose.”
- “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol – “The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted.”
- “Harold” by Alvin Schwartz – “Now and then the doll grunted, but that was all.”
- “The Complete Gentleman” by Amos Tutuola – “When he reached where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out…”
- “Der Erlkönig” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, composed by Franz Schubert – “Father, don’t you see the Erl-King?”
- “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates – “He wagged a finger and laughed and said, ‘Gonna get you, baby.’”
- “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor – “Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?”
- “Peter Rugg, The Missing Man” by William Austin – “I have heard it asserted that Heaven sometimes sets a mark on a man, either for judgment or a trial.”
- “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner – “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care…”
- “Ted the Caver” by Ted – “He said it sounded like rock sliding on rock. Sort of a grinding sound.”
- “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe – “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me.”
- “Death and Transfiguration of a Teacher” by Maria Teresa Solari – “I took off her sock and bit into the heel.”
- “Who Will Greet You At Home” by Lesley Nneka Arimah – “Her mother had formed her from mud and twigs…”
- “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong – “…the rankness of his thoughts leaves a stain in the air.”
- “Whole” by firmuhment – “When I first noticed the hole, it was small, really small.”
- “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles – “The sound of the flute came up from the depths below at intervals…”
- “The Apparition of Mrs. Veal” by Daniel Defoe (1706) – “If the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard.”
- “The Adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving (1824) – “He was, in a manner, a literary goul, feeding in the charnel house of decayed literature.”
- “The Phantom Coach” by Amelia B. Edwards (1864) – “Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief in apparitions?”
- “The Soul of the Great Bell” by Lafcadio Hearn (1887) – “All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering of the fires.”
- “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce (1898) – “All seemed to be waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was without expectation.”
- “Afterward” by Edith Wharton (1910) – “The sunny English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into Cimmerian night.”
- “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen (1945) – “You have no time to run from a face you do not expect.”
- “The Lonesome Place” by August Derleth (1948) – “What do they know about a place and time when a boy is very small and very alone, and the night is as big as the town, and the darkness is the whole world?”
- “A Visit” (prev. “The Lovely House”) by Shirley Jackson (1952) – “A tile is missing from the face of Margaret, who died for love.”
- “The Tower” by Marghanita Laski (1955) – “There was nothing left in her brain but the steadily mounting tally of the steps.”
- “Night Surf” by Stephen King (1969) – “He said his name was Alvin Sackheim. He kept calling for his grandmother.”
- “Don’t Look Now” by Daphne du Maurier (1971) – “How to replace the life of a loved lost child with a dream?”
- “Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament” by Clive Barker (1984) – “If one has given oneself utterly, watching the beloved sleep can be a vile experience.”
- “███████” by Joyce Carol Oates (1998) – “Each of us had one, in our bowls. Warm and pulsing with life and fear radiating from it like raw nerves.”
- “In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (2000) – “Fresh wound, these walls, this abscess hollowed into the world’s thin skin.”
- “Vampire Princess” by Ryuki Mao (2004) – “The human will want to take you into the light, saying it’s for your own good.”
- “Cruel Sistah” by Nisi Shawl (2005) – “One singing note, which he raised and lowered slowly. High and yearning. Soft and questioning. With its voice.”
- “The You Train” by N.K. Jemisin (2007) – “All the defunct lines, the dead lines. I think they never really go away.”
- “Wet Pain” by Terence Taylor (2007) – “It doesn’t matter whether you believe in ghosts if they believe in you.”
- “Hello, Moto” by Nnedi Okorafor (2011) – “It always felt so good to take from people, not just their money but their very essence.”
- “Monstro” by Junot Díaz (2012) – “Motherfuckers used to say culo would be the end of us. Well, for me it really was.”
- “Pearls” by Priya Sharma (2012) – “All because you couldn’t have me.”
- “Bugs” by Ageha (2013) – “Hey, pinky promise you’ll play with me.”
- “Out of Skin” by Emily Carroll (2013) – “A heap of wet skin and decaying cloth, crowded inside a dark pit I’d never seen before.”
- “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” by Karen Russell (2013) – “Yolk came oozing out of the mystery, covering all our hands, so that we became involved.”
- “How to Get Back to the Forest” by Sofia Samatar (2014) – “The smell in the bathroom was terrible now–an animal smell, hot; it thrashed around and it had fur.”
- “None of This Ever Happened” by Gabriela Santiago (2016) – “Someone has to write Uhura looking out the window and dreaming of home.”
- “Wish You Were Here” by Nadia Bulkin (2016) – “Hopefully, by the time the world ends, you’ll be gone.”
- “Sixteen Minutes” by Premee Mohamed (2016) – “I felt its breath in the night sometimes, like the warm, moist breath of my son when he’d crawl into bed with us.”
- “The Taming of the Tongue” by Russell Nichols (2016) – “You don’t know what this boy wants you to see way out here, but ain’t nothing worth getting eaten alive for.”
- “A Diet of Worms” by Valerie Valdes (2016) – “Hell, maybe you’ll even stay and watch the movie.”