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Andrew Michael Hurley

The Summer People by Shirley Jackson

I read this story years ago and it has stayed with me since then. The named vacationers turn out to be a family from New York, who occupy the same off-grid country cottage every summer. This time, instead of returning home, they opt to extend their holiday an extra month – a decision that to unsettle everyone in the nearby town. All pass on an identical cryptic advice that not a soul has lingered at the lake beyond Labor Day. Regardless, they are resolved to stay, and that’s when situations commence to get increasingly weird. The individual who supplies oil declines to provide to the couple. No one agrees to bring supplies to the cabin, and at the time the family try to travel to the community, their vehicle fails to start. A storm gathers, the batteries in the radio diminish, and with the arrival of dusk, “the two old people crowded closely in their summer cottage and anticipated”. What might be this couple waiting for? What could the residents understand? Every time I read the writer’s chilling and thought-provoking narrative, I recall that the top terror originates in what’s left undisclosed.

An Acclaimed Writer

An Eerie Story from a noted author

In this brief tale two people journey to a common beach community in which chimes sound the whole time, a constant chiming that is annoying and unexplainable. The opening very scary moment occurs after dark, at the time they decide to walk around and they fail to see the water. The beach is there, the scent exists of rotting fish and seawater, surf is audible, but the water appears spectral, or something else and worse. It is truly insanely sinister and each occasion I go to a beach at night I recall this story that ruined the sea at night to my mind – in a good way.

The recent spouses – she’s very young, he’s not – go back to the inn and discover the cause of the ringing, in a long sequence of confinement, necro-orgy and death-and-the-maiden encounters grim ballet bedlam. It is a disturbing meditation regarding craving and decay, two bodies growing old jointly as spouses, the connection and aggression and affection within wedlock.

Not only the scariest, but likely a top example of brief tales available, and an individual preference. I encountered it en español, in the debut release of this author’s works to appear in Argentina several years back.

Catriona Ward

A Dark Novel from an esteemed writer

I delved into this book by a pool in the French countryside a few years ago. Although it was sunny I sensed a chill over me. I also experienced the thrill of anticipation. I was writing my latest book, and I encountered an obstacle. I was uncertain if there was a proper method to write some of the fearful things the book contains. Reading Zombie, I understood that it could be done.

First printed in the nineties, the book is a bleak exploration into the thoughts of a murderer, the main character, inspired by a notorious figure, the murderer who killed and dismembered 17 young men and boys in a city during a specific period. Notoriously, Dahmer was fixated with making a submissive individual that would remain by his side and attempted numerous horrific efforts to accomplish it.

The acts the story tells are horrific, but equally frightening is the mental realism. The protagonist’s awful, broken reality is directly described with concise language, identities hidden. You is plunged trapped in his consciousness, forced to observe thoughts and actions that appal. The alien nature of his mind resembles a tangible impact – or being stranded on a barren alien world. Entering this book is less like reading and more like a physical journey. You are absorbed completely.

An Accomplished Author

White Is for Witching from Helen Oyeyemi

When I was a child, I was a somnambulist and later started experiencing nightmares. At one point, the terror included a vision where I was trapped in a box and, when I woke up, I discovered that I had ripped the slat from the window, trying to get out. That house was falling apart; when storms came the entranceway filled with water, fly larvae dropped from above onto the bed, and once a big rodent scaled the curtains in the bedroom.

When a friend handed me Helen Oyeyemi’s novel, I was residing elsewhere with my parents, but the narrative regarding the building perched on the cliffs felt familiar to myself, homesick at that time. This is a story featuring a possessed noisy, emotional house and a female character who ingests chalk off the rocks. I cherished the book deeply and returned repeatedly to the story, each time discovering {something