31 Oct Double, Double, Toil – And Seven Scary Stories to Make Your Day
Boo! Or Boo-hoo if you tend to be scaredy cat. Seven super scary short stories curated by Huff Post Books & Culture Writer Claire Fallon to put you in the mood for Halloween. Caveat emptor. (And keep the lights on.)
The air is growing crisp, jack-o’-lanterns appearing on doorsteps, huge bags of candy stockpiled in cupboards: Yes, it’s nearly Halloween. Maybe all you want to do is watch scary movies and work on your show-stopping costume, yet you’re stuck at work or school, just like every other week.
Of course, you can get your rush of fright while sitting right at your desk. These stories are short enough to read over your lunch break; many of them are available for free online. (And trust us, they’re all worth paying for.) Most importantly, they’re all guaranteed to send you back to work with a delicious shiver down your spine:
“The Grownup” by Gillian Flynn
The author behind the ultimate unreliable narrator, Amy from Gone Girl, keeps playing with the shifting sands of truth in this stand-alone short story. In “The Grownup,” the narrator appears to be dealing with two unreliable narrators, and her life may depend on figuring out who is lying. A haunted house and a demon child have never been so creepy, and so baffling, as the ones encountered by the protagonist, a former sex worker and current fraudulent psychic who finds herself caught up in some unsettling family drama.
“Royal Jelly” by Roald Dahl
Even Dahl’s children’s fiction lays on the horror with unusual thickness — think of The Witches. But his short stories, many of which are more appropriate for adults, can be bone-chilling. In “Royal Jelly,” a truly creative tale, a beekeeper begins to feed his infant daughter royal jelly — the food bees feed their future queens — in a desperate attempt to get her to gain weight. Eventually, impressed by the results, he tries royal jelly himself. By the time things get weird, it’s a little too late.
“The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs
Be careful what you wish for: That’s the message of this macabre tale. Though this story has been told and retold, Jacobs’ original version from 1902 has a special frisson to it. A poor couple, the Whites, live with their grown son, Herbert, who works at a factory. When they come into possession of a magical monkey’s paw, capable of granting three wishes, they don’t hesitate to start wishing — though maybe they should have.
“Philomel Cottage” by Agatha Christie
Terror isn’t Christie’s forte, but some of her stories are genuinely spine-tingling. This Bluebeard update starts with a newlywed idyll, which gives way to diffuse dread. A quick-witted heroine makes for a modern feel in a story full of old-fashioned telephones, shorthand typists, and 1930s courtship habits. Meanwhile, Christie cleverly works in literary allusion and subtle foreshadowing to inject the story with an eerie sense of foreboding, even at its cheeriest moments.
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
No surprise here — “The Veldt” is a classic horror story from a master of sci-fi spookiness. It’s the “call is coming from inside the house” of literature. the Hadleys live in a high-tech home operated by devices that fulfill their every needs, from shoe-tiers to tooth-brushers, plus a huge nursery that projects hyperrealistic environments drawn from their two children’s fantasies. Smells, sounds, 3D images — the nursery creates an experience more convincing than reality. But when the two youngsters become obsessed with the African veldt, the dangerous world within the nursery seems to grow more powerful than any machine should be.
“A Collapse of Horses” by Brian Evenson
The world of “A Collapse of Horses” resists clear summarizing. The narrator, who’s confined to bed recuperating from an accident, begins to apparently suffer from delusions about his house and family. Sometimes, he informs us, he has three children; at other times, there are four. His house is changing shape and dimension. One day he goes for a walk and sees a number of horses in a paddock, lying as if dead, but he leaves before finding out if they’re alive. Driven to distraction, he feels he has to take a definitive step to end this — and things only get darker from there.
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