With Halloween just around the corner, many are beginning to search for their fill of spooky content to celebrate the holiday. Here are some of the best classic and contemporary horror short stories to enjoy this Halloween.
- “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“The Lottery” is set in a dystopian country where members of every city gather in July to hold their annual lottery. The heads of each family pull slips of paper to determine which of the families have to sacrifice a member. The villagers are disturbingly apathetic about the lottery, showing up late or simply choosing not to attend. When one person is selected, the villagers use stones the children have gathered to kill them.
- “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
This classic short story has haunted middle school classrooms for decades, and remains as spine-chilling as it was when it was written 180 years ago. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a thrilling story that makes you feel just as guilty as the protagonist himself. Edgar Allan Poe cultivates a taste for the dramatic, as the story is told as a long-winded monologue. The protagonist is driven to insanity twice in this story; first by his neighbor’s pale blue eyes, and second by his own guilt.
- “The Boogeyman” by Stephen King
In one of Stephen King’s earlier works, “The Boogeyman,” Lester Billings tries desperately to convince a psychiatrist that all of his children were murdered by The Boogeyman. The most disturbing thing about this story is King’s ability to convince you that the man is telling the truth, even though The Boogeyman is definitely not real… right?
- “Patient Zero” by Tananarive Due
In this heart-breaking story, a 10-year-old boy named Jay shares his experience with being patient zero of a virus that has ravaged the planet. The story is told through his diary entries, which slowly reveal that his entire family has died and hint that most of the people on the planet are probably dead, too. Most unsettling of all is Jay’s unrelenting optimism in the face of the apocalypse. In a twist of dramatic irony, his naivety prevents him from understanding that the world as he knows it is gone.
- “The Veldt Ray” by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury predicts the advent of virtual reality in this chilling story about two children who become obsessed with their “nursery,” which projects hyper-realistic images of whatever scenery they desire onto the walls. The stunning images are also accompanied by sounds and smells that are all a little bit too realistic. When their parents become concerned about the noises they hear coming from the nursery, they threaten to have it uninstalled. The children retaliate soon after.
- “The Sloan Men” by David Nickle
In this story, a young girl named Judith takes a trip to meet her boyfriend Herman’s parents. She flips through a photo album filled with strange pictures of Herman’s father being horribly disfigured as well as him having affairs with many women. When she asks her boyfriend’s stepmother why she would stay with her husband after all of this, she reveals a terrible secret about Herman and his father and the two of them work together to solve their predicament.
