Frightening Writers Reveal the Scariest Stories They've Ever Read

A Renowned Horror Author

The Summer People by Shirley Jackson

I discovered this tale some time back and it has haunted me ever since. The titular vacationers are a couple from the city, who lease the same off-grid country cottage every summer. On this occasion, in place of heading back to the city, they opt to lengthen their vacation an extra month – a decision that to alarm all the locals in the nearby town. All pass on the same veiled caution that no one has lingered in the area after the end of summer. Even so, they are resolved to remain, and that is the moment events begin to grow more bizarre. The man who supplies oil refuses to sell for them. Not a single person agrees to bring groceries to their home, and at the time they try to go to the village, the car fails to start. A storm gathers, the energy in the radio fade, and when night comes, “the two old people crowded closely within their rental and anticipated”. What could be the Allisons anticipating? What could the locals be aware of? Each occasion I peruse Jackson’s unnerving and influential narrative, I remember that the best horror comes from that which remains hidden.

An Acclaimed Writer

Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman

In this brief tale a pair go to an ordinary seaside town where bells ring the whole time, a constant chiming that is irritating and unexplainable. The initial truly frightening moment happens after dark, at the time they opt to take a walk and they can’t find the water. The beach is there, there is the odor of putrid marine life and brine, surf is audible, but the water seems phantom, or a different entity and even more alarming. It’s just deeply malevolent and each occasion I go to the coast at night I remember this narrative which spoiled the sea at night for me – in a good way.

The newlyweds – she’s very young, he’s not – return to the inn and discover the cause of the ringing, during a prolonged scene of confinement, gruesome festivities and demise and innocence encounters dance of death chaos. It’s an unnerving contemplation about longing and decline, a pair of individuals growing old jointly as spouses, the connection and brutality and tenderness in matrimony.

Not merely the most frightening, but perhaps among the finest concise narratives available, and an individual preference. I read it in the Spanish language, in the debut release of this author’s works to be released locally several years back.

A Prominent Novelist

A Dark Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

I delved into Zombie by a pool in France in 2020. Even with the bright weather I sensed an icy feeling through me. I also felt the excitement of anticipation. I was writing my latest book, and I faced a block. I didn’t know if there was a proper method to craft some of the fearful things the narrative involves. Going through this book, I understood that it could be done.

Published in 1995, the story is a dark flight into the thoughts of a young serial killer, Quentin P, modeled after a notorious figure, the murderer who killed and mutilated multiple victims in a city over a decade. As is well-known, this person was obsessed with producing a submissive individual who would never leave by his side and attempted numerous macabre trials to do so.

The deeds the story tells are appalling, but just as scary is its mental realism. Quentin P’s dreadful, shattered existence is directly described with concise language, identities hidden. The audience is plunged trapped in his consciousness, forced to witness mental processes and behaviors that horrify. The alien nature of his mind resembles a tangible impact – or getting lost on a barren alien world. Starting this story is less like reading than a full body experience. You are swallowed whole.

An Accomplished Author

White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

When I was a child, I sleepwalked and eventually began experiencing nightmares. Once, the horror included a dream during which I was stuck within an enclosure and, as I roused, I found that I had ripped a piece off the window, attempting to escape. That home was crumbling; when storms came the ground floor corridor filled with water, maggots fell from the ceiling on to my parents’ bed, and once a large rat ascended the window coverings in the bedroom.

After an acquaintance handed me Helen Oyeyemi’s novel, I was residing elsewhere at my family home, but the story regarding the building located on the coastline appeared known to me, nostalgic at that time. It is a novel about a haunted loud, atmospheric home and a female character who consumes calcium from the cliffs. I cherished the story immensely and went back repeatedly to it, always finding {something