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Short stories are the perfect way to get into the Halloween mood — even if the holiday is already over. They pack an entire narrative into a small package and demonstrate world-building under a small word count constraint. Authors play with specific tropes, and the specificity of short stories allows for more variety. If you think of a scary idea or character, the chances are that there’s at least one short story about it. With a limited word count, authors have to pick and choose which details to tell and which to leave out, giving readers the ability to speculate — and a healthy fear of the unknown.
Scary stories are reliable entertainment if you’re looking for something different from the usual horror movie marathons. These short, self-contained tales are perfect for private reading or to be shared with a group. Instead of just watching a story, you can perform it yourself, making the experience much more personalized. Plus, for those who may not like the jump scares of scary movies, short stories are the perfect way to get some chills in a safer environment. Is Halloween over too soon for your liking; looking for some underrated gems to share with friends? From story collections to picture books and even a song, here are some options that are sure to scratch that October itch!
The Weenies Short Story Collections By David Lubar
Don’t let the title fool you: while some of these stories are silly, some can be downright terrifying. This series, which now consists of nine books, is a great place to get your scares for kids and adults alike. These stories are memorable, from the lighthearted — a pepper-eating contest gets out of hand — to the gory — an amusement park ride quite literally shows how the sausage was made. There’s even the crisis-inducing: a girl makes a bad deal with a dangerous genie that results in her protective necklace slowly getting smaller, chain by chain. These stories are just short enough to set the scene and give you the chills. They’re also great tales to share with friends who may think that they’ve heard every scary story out there!
Author David Lubar puts a lot of care into these works, and his website includes resources and discussion-starters for teachers to use his works in the classroom. These books are severely underrated, not only in their variety of story topics but also in their appeal to all ages. One of the creepiest stories, “Just Like Me” in The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies And Other Warped and Creepy Tales, combines the terror of dolls with the more existential fear of being ignored by those you love. A mother gets her daughter a doll that was created based on a photo of the girl. The doll becomes inextricably linked to the girl it is based on, with the mother treating the doll more and more like a real person until the girl decides to twist the doll’s head — straining her neck in return. The mother rushes into the room and goes straight to pick up the doll, bringing it to get fixed. Feeling replaced by something — even a doll — is sure to make even the most mature reader a little uneasy.
Want to read about man-eating umbrellas? Check out “The Ratty Old Bumbershoot” in The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies And Other Warped and Creepy Tales. Interested in the secrets of a playground slide? The appropriately titled “The Slide” is in In the Land of the Lawn Weenies and Other Misadventures. Always up for an excellent creepy clown story? “Mr. HooHaa!” in The Curse of the Campfire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales is for you. Each book contains thirty-ish stories, so there’s sure to be something that will stick with everyone… possibly longer than you may like.
Assorted Works By Edward Gorey
If you want your scares to come from a more visual realm, try checking out the short stories written and illustrated by Edward Gorey. His characteristic art style is perfect for the dark later months of the year, full of sharp angles, black-and-white scenes, and enough shadows to get you through October with a healthy fear of the dark. However, his written works are no less creepy, combining the two results in a visual and literary experience that will please anyone looking for an eerie ambiance.
Amphigorey, a short story collection, is a perfect place to start exploring Gorey’s storytelling. The anthology includes one of Gorey’s most famous works, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which depicts the deadly fates of twenty-six children whose names start with each letter of the alphabet (( Bradford, Edward and Patrice Miller. “Musings on ‘The Gashlycrumb Tinies.'” EdwardGoreyHouse.org. )). Readers explore these situations in alphabetical order, from “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs” to “Z is for Zillian who drank too much gin.” The accompanying illustrations don’t hold back as they portray each child’s predicament in black and white. The Gashlycrumb Tinies is a fun book to read with friends — especially if their name is included in the story.
If you’re looking for an excursion, you can even visit Gorey’s house in Massachusetts, which is now a museum. Even hanging up some Gorey illustrations are sure to transform your room into a Halloween haven! Gorey’s works mix innocence and darkness, fitting right into the Halloween mold and putting a little twist on your average lighthearted picture book.
“The Raft” By Stephen King
If the cold water can’t stop someone from wanting to swim in a lake at twilight in October, thinking about Stephen King‘s creature in “The Raft” definitely would. Complete with the trope of lustful college students sneaking around at night, King’s short story deals with the fear of the unknown: specifically, the unknown of what might be lurking beneath the water. Four students visit a swimming raft and discover a mysterious “oil slick” in the water one fall. The protagonist, Randy, is suspicious as he sees the “oil slick” begin to move — and his suspicion is confirmed when the dark stain, as if some creature, eats one of the students.
This story, found in King’s 1986 anthology Skeleton Crew, isn’t for the faint of heart and includes graphic and gory depictions of the group picked off one by one. But as the students learn, even the raft isn’t safe, and the constant vigilance becomes more and more exhausting as time passes. A relatively contained story that immerses the reader in graphic descriptions, “The Raft” is sure to make anyone squeamish.
“Danse Macabre” By Camille Saint-Saëns
While technically not a story in the written sense, this creepy song exemplifies how sound can tell a tale just as delightfully cryptic as words can. The song tells the story of a French folk tale, in which skeletons dance around as Death fiddles a tune (( Warner, Andrea. “Danse macabre: a brief history of Halloween’s haunting anthem.” cbc.ca, 30 October 2017, last updated 28 October 2019. )). At seven minutes long, “Dance macabre” is the perfect length for a fulfilling short story. The sheet music of the song denotes what is happening at each point in the piece. If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that the song begins with twelve strokes of the piano — the twelve strokes of midnight.
Through contrasting short, staccato notes and flowing melodies, “Danse macabre” has an intense beauty about it that is perfect for the cryptic delight of Halloween night. From the second the dead begin to rise to the moment of daybreak, the skeletons dance around in a high-paced fever with the repeating melodies of a string-centric score. If you want a visual to help out, there are a variety of YouTube videos that show animated skeletons dancing around. Play this for friends, and it’ll be sure to set an eerie mood! You might even want to jump in and dance just like the skeletons enjoying their night of freedom.
Why Halloween Themed Short Stories Are The Perfect Medium For Scares
Less information is more unsettling than more information when it comes to horror. While scary movies supplement their scripts with sound design, visual effects, and acting performances, short stories only have the text on the page (or, in the case of “Danse Macabre,” the notes on the sheet music). Everything else is for the reader to imagine or implement if they are reading aloud.
And yet, short stories have the power to stick with readers. With everything else stripped away, they have to be extremely well-written to stand out in one’s mind, and their lingering popularity for all ages shows that they are here to stay. Short stories allow the reader to use their imagination… and one’s imagination can be the scariest thing of all.
