The Season of Short Stories: Six Tales to Read Before Halloween

Halloween is the season of the short story. I've mentioned in previous blog posts that perhaps, more than any genre, horror is made for the short story medium. After all: who didn't sit up at night during a sleepover telling scary stories as a child, whispering into flashlights after a secret game of "light as a feather, stiff as a board" and before someone pulls out the Ouiji board?

And since Halloween means horror, the fantastical, and stories you can tell to scare your friends, I decided to compile a list of six stories to read for Halloween: but these stories aren't your typical ghost stories. Instead, these are tales that will leave you feeling haunted.

1. "Stone Animals" by Kelly Link

I read this story curled up in a library chair, sick and tired. It's not traditional horror, but it certainly leaves the reader feeling haunted, much like the things in the story. In Stone Animals, a family moves into a house: but it's not the house that's haunted, nor is it their things that are haunted, at least to start. If anything, when coming to the house, it's the people themselves that become haunted (although they certainly don't think that). Stone Animals is one of the few stories I've read where I had no inkling of where it was going and when it would get there. I knew there were rabbits, objects that were wrong, and a family was strained by their past, but how it would all come together was another thing entirely. Even more than that, it was a story that left me feeling haunted after I read it. I spent the rest of my time in the library that day feeling uneasy and strange, and unwilling to read another story because it just seemed wrong to do anything but think of that one.

Stone Animals is available for free at Small Beer Press as part of Kelly Link's "Magic for Beginners" collection. You can also get it (and five to twelve other books) as part of the Humble Bundle ebook bundle for charity (only until October 23). I'm an avid supporter of the Humble Bundle, and I encourage you all to take that route if you can.

2. "The Skins of the Fathers" by Clive Barker

Everyone who knows Clive Barker knows him for Hellraiser, or perhaps his Abarat series of young adult novels. However, go back to the 1980s, when Hellraiser was still new, and he was a prime example of a horror author, a series of short stories were released, aptly titled Books of Blood. One of these early stories was a tale of monsters coming into a town to search for a boy -- and I cannot tell you more than that, except that much like Stone Animals nothing goes quite as it seems in The Skins of the Fathers. It's delightfully strange, a little bit sexual (as is most of Barker's horror), and satisfyingly different. It even might leave you questioning who the real monsters are. This is one you really have to read to appreciate.

Unfortunately, The Skins of the Fathers is not available for free, but can be found in Books of Blood.

3. "The Quest of Iranon" by H. P. Lovecraft

As much as I appreciate Lovecraft for his contributions to the horror genre (and for Cthuhlu), I am not the biggest Lovecraft fan. However, The Quest of Iranon is a story that has stuck with me since I first read it. Lovecraft builds a beautiful character who weaves a beautiful story of a land that has haunted him since he was a child and has granted him eternal youth. Perhaps the saddest of all the stories I could recommend you, The Quest of Iranon shows that perhaps it's not the worst thing in the world to be haunted: because what is a haunting, if not intense faith that something unseen is really there?

The Quest of Iranon is available in various Lovecraft anthologies, and can be read for free here.

4. "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale" by Neil Gaiman

I always remember We Can Get Them For You Wholesale as being a Stephen King story. It has a dark humor that I often think of as so uniquely King. Upon hearing that his wife has cheated on him, Peter Pinter seeks out an assassin to have her done away with, and happens upon one under the "pest control" heading in the phone book. Only, of course, the pest control firm is having a sale, and Mr. Pinter never could turn down a deal...

Unlike previous stories this one doesn't leave you haunted, but it does leave you plenty entertained. It can be found in Neil Gaiman's short story collection Smoke and Mirrors.

5. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

You're probably all having the same reaction: Why are you forcing a story we all read in high school on here, and why are you including a story that isn't horror? The answer to those questions is a.) because it's a good story, b.) because I shall once more remind you horror doesn't need the supernatural, and c.) Joyce Carol Oates is the nicest author I have ever met. In Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? we're reminded that while ghosts and ghouls might terrify, in the end it's people themselves that can be the real threat to our well-being. And what's a Halloween story list without at least one tale that includes a teenage girl?

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? can be read for free on the University of San Francisco's website, and can be found in pretty much any short story anthology used in a high school.

6. The Tailypo

What, exactly, is the Tailypo? Only the scariest children's story ever written. I went home crying when we read this for Halloween at school, and almost twenty years later it is still pretty damn creepy. An old man, coming across a strange furry creature, tries to hunt him, but succeeds in only removing it's tail. He cooks it into a stew, eats it, and then finds out that the little creature isn't too happy with him. It's definitely more of a traditional scary tale, but one that never loses it's intensity. So it might not make me cry anymore, but it's definitely worth a read -- if only to tell it to the next small child you see!

A version of it can be read here, or you can go all out and buy the one with the really freaky illustrations that kept me up at night!