Been some time since I last posted, but I wanted to extend my annual tradition of serving up free scary stories in time for Halloween.
This year I chose a classic from Mr. October himself, Ray Bradbury. Bradbury wrote many a story set around All Hallow’s Eve, none more recognizable than this conte cruel called “The October Game.”
The next tale is a recent one by Nathan Ballingrud that impressed me enough to include it here. “Skullpocket” has the trappings of a new classic in the making.
And the following piece by Shel Silverstein isn’t a prose tale, rather several interconnected poems collectively known as “The Devil & Billy Markham.”
I’ll link to previous years, for those who want to dive into the blog vault.
- “The Masque of the Red Death” — Edgar Allan Poe
- “The Damned Thing” — Ambrose Bierce
- “The Judge’s House” — Bram Stoker
- “Shalken the Painter” — J. Sheridan Le Fanu
- “Was it a Dream?” — Guy de Maupassant
- “Caterpillars” — E.F. Benson
- “Young Goodman Brown” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
- “The Sumach” — Ulric Daubeny
- “The Testament of Magdalene Blair” — Aleister Crowley
- “The Dead Valley” — Ralph Adams Cram
- “Strange Candy” — Robert McCammon
- “The Voice in the Night” — William Hope Hodgson
