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A Renowned Horror Author

The Summer People from Shirley Jackson

I discovered this narrative some time back and it has lingered with me since then. The titular “summer people” are the Allisons from New York, who rent the same remote rural cabin annually. This time, rather than going back to urban life, they choose to extend their stay an extra month – something that seems to disturb everyone in the nearby town. All pass on an identical cryptic advice that nobody has lingered at the lake after the holiday. Nonetheless, the couple are determined to remain, and that’s when events begin to become stranger. The person who brings fuel declines to provide to them. No one will deliver groceries to the cottage, and when the family endeavor to travel to the community, the car won’t start. A tempest builds, the power in the radio die, and when night comes, “the aged individuals crowded closely in their summer cottage and anticipated”. What could be the Allisons anticipating? What do the locals know? Each occasion I peruse Jackson’s disturbing and inspiring story, I recall that the best horror stems from what’s left undisclosed.

Mariana Enríquez

An Eerie Story from Robert Aickman

In this short story two people journey to a typical beach community where bells ring constantly, a perpetual pealing that is irritating and unexplainable. The opening extremely terrifying moment takes place during the evening, as they choose to take a walk and they fail to see the ocean. There’s sand, there is the odor of decaying seafood and seawater, surf is audible, but the ocean appears spectral, or a different entity and even more alarming. It is simply insanely sinister and whenever I go to a beach after dark I recall this tale that destroyed the sea at night for me – in a good way.

The newlyweds – the wife is youthful, he’s not – go back to their lodging and learn why the bells ring, in a long sequence of enclosed spaces, necro-orgy and demise and innocence meets danse macabre chaos. It’s a chilling reflection regarding craving and deterioration, two people aging together as partners, the bond and violence and tenderness of marriage.

Not just the scariest, but perhaps among the finest concise narratives in existence, and a beloved choice. I read it in the Spanish language, in the first edition of this author’s works to be released in this country several years back.

Catriona Ward

Zombie by an esteemed writer

I read this narrative by a pool in France in 2020. Although it was sunny I sensed cold creep through me. Additionally, I sensed the thrill of fascination. I was composing a new project, and I had hit a block. I wasn’t sure whether there existed a proper method to write certain terrifying elements the book contains. Experiencing this novel, I understood that it could be done.

Published in 1995, the book is a grim journey into the thoughts of a murderer, the protagonist, inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer, the murderer who slaughtered and dismembered 17 young men and boys in a city over a decade. Infamously, this person was obsessed with creating a submissive individual who would stay him and attempted numerous horrific efforts to achieve this.

The actions the book depicts are appalling, but just as scary is the mental realism. The protagonist’s awful, shattered existence is directly described with concise language, names redacted. You is plunged caught in his thoughts, forced to see ideas and deeds that appal. The strangeness of his thinking resembles a physical shock – or finding oneself isolated on a barren alien world. Entering this book is not just reading but a complete immersion. You are consumed entirely.

An Accomplished Author

White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

During my youth, I sleepwalked and eventually began having night terrors. At one point, the horror involved a nightmare in which I was confined inside a container and, as I roused, I discovered that I had removed a part off the window, seeking to leave. That home was decaying; when it rained heavily the downstairs hall filled with water, insect eggs fell from the ceiling onto the bed, and once a big rodent ascended the window coverings in my sister’s room.

When a friend presented me with the story, I was residing elsewhere in my childhood residence, but the story about the home perched on the cliffs seemed recognizable in my view, longing as I felt. This is a story about a haunted clamorous, emotional house and a young woman who ingests limestone off the rocks. I cherished the story immensely and went back frequently to its pages, each time discovering {something