Delightfully Dreadful Horror Stories For Fall
Telling horror stories goes back as far as the beginning of man. We would pass down stories that warned younger generations of the terrors of the night. The Boogeyman always haunted the psyches of those who are afraid of the dark. As we’ve developed as a society, the ideas have become more complex. Horror has borrowed from science and fascination with the universe, otherworldly powers that come from the unknown parts of our minds. It turned humans into insignificant ants.
The Clown Puppet
This is one of the most surreal horror stories that I’ve ever read. The setting is a mom-and-pop pharmacy that has convenience store supplies. Nothing is explained. A clown puppet appears.
It sounds like a silly scenario and it is. That’s the whole point. It’s weird fiction. The terror of the unknown. The protagonist is a mild-mannered guy working for the owner (who lives upstairs).
The clown puppet is an unwanted, midnight regular at the shop. The strangest part of the entire story is that the puppet’s strings go through the ceiling, into the ether.
This reminds me of a quote by Dr. Manhattan: “we’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.” This story is asking the question, is someone controlling the strings? If so, why are they being so weird?
The Mist
Stephen King conjured up this novella. The story begins with a foggy mist. This is straight-up Lovecraftian horror. Eldritch monsters with unknown and horrifying ways to gobble up humans. The main horror though is human nature.
The story centers around a group of people who are trapped in a supermarket due to the mist. During their time in the supermarket, they are at each other’s throats. A woman interprets these events to be the apocalypse and gains followers.
Wikipedia states that The Mist was an influence for the creators of the Silent Hill series.
Uzumaki
Junji Ito is the mastermind behind the manga Uzumaki. This author truly makes the mundane horrifying. The story centers on the terror of swirly spirals. He starts with such a tiny concept, but lots of things have spirals in them—even body parts. The setting is an entire town. Beyond that, nothing is affected by the horrors.
The horror is that the spirals start small. Like the grass. It then infects a man’s mind, making him create pottery and crafts that are spiral-shaped. Then the water begins to spiral. The spirals eventually infect everything.
Junji Ito is a master of manga horror. He is said to be the Stephen King of Japan.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley wrote one of the best horror stories ever created. It started an entire genre of fiction. This was the dawn of sci-fi horror. She is one of the best authors of the past two centuries. If you’ve never read this story, you are doing a disservice to your brain.
This story is a lobster dinner in the world of horror fiction. Everyone is familiar with some parts of the story, just because it is so infamous. A bunch of corpse parts are put in amniotic fluid and resurrected into one very misunderstood humanoid.
The story then centers on the monster’s quest to find purpose. He teaches himself English. He goes and makes friends with a blind man. When the family walks in and sees the monster, they all understandably freak out. He loses his only friend.
At The Mountains Of Madness
H.P. Lovecraft is the father of weird fiction (Edgar Allan Poe being the grandfather). Lovecraft was absolutely fascinated with Antarctica and the deep ocean.
Explorers find unexplainable creatures that don’t resemble any that walk the earth. These are sentient beings that don’t fit earth’s fossil record.
Many people on the expedition are murdered by otherworldly creatures. A man goes insane from seeing something that humans can’t comprehend. The insanity of survivors who’ve seen too much is a common trope in Lovecraft’s stories.
Horror movies borrow from this type of strange horror (that has no explanation), like It Follows.
Slenderman
Wikipedia states that Slender Man “is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme created by ‘Something Awful’ forums user Eric Knudsen.”
This myth has many influences. Too many to list. Among them…H.P. Lovecraft.
Wikipedia states that Slender Man is “described as very tall and thin with unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms…In most stories, his face is white and featureless…wearing a dark suit and tie.”
Like many Lovecraftian-inspired creations, he makes those near him go insane.
Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story
Thomas Ligotti is my favorite weird fiction author. This story is located in his short-story collection called Songs of a Dead Dreamer. This is Ligotti stretching his horror-writing muscles.
The story is about a character named Nathan who puts on cursed pants. Ligotti goes over three different styles of horror writing: realistic, Gothic, and experimental.
He states that “the proper voice of horror is really that of the personal confession.”
The Enigma of Amigara Fault
Another Junji Ito story. An earthquake unearths a cliff wall with person-shaped holes. People become obsessed with the thought that there’s a hole specifically for themselves. Many go into their hole where it form fits them, inhibiting others from getting them out.
The ending reveals what happens after they pass through to the other side of the mountain.
Tomie
Junji Ito produced another cult classic. This story centers on a girl who was killed and cut up into tiny pieces, only to reappear, freaking out her classmates (who murdered her).
A series of different short stories reveal her interacting with different people. Tomie can grow other Tomie’s from severed parts of her body. Even blood that’s been soaked up into a carpet will turn into a Tomie.
Tomie replicates herself in a number of ways. She’s able to control men by seducing them and putting them under a trance.
Final Thoughts
The best horror stories are the ones that scare you. Some slowly get to you while others instantly frighten you. My personal favorites are the stories that leave a lasting impact through only revealing enough information to understand the story but not its universe or rules.
