The Brothers Grimm were REALLY fucking grim, but it took awhile for people to realize it. I'm sure you all know how their original collected folk tales, when first published, were a lot racier, violent, and adult-oriented than the water-down versions...
Taro Hirai, under his pen name Edogawa Rampo (say it a few times, fast) wrote this seriously fucked-up story in 1925 (you didn't get to read it in English until 1956). Find a comfy chair, snuggle up, and read it....
"Thank you." "You're welcome." "I'm sorry." Dennis Etchison comes home late a lot -- or he used to. Like me, he must've stopped at a lot of all-night food marts. A bag of pretzels and a Yoo Hoo after you fill...
Dino Buzzati was an Italian journalist who wrote reasonable, matter-of-fact horror stories. I almost chose "Catastrophe" -- about commuters heading north on a high-tech train who, looking out their windows, see every living thing on the planet heading south as...
All you Stephen King haters can suck Randall Flagg's dick. I know he's had some lean years, quality-wise. You can watch the decline through the short story collections -- NIGHT SHIFT is rocket fuel, SKELETON CREW is Jack Daniels and Coke,...
Yeah, yeah, I know. This one usually makes it onto every list. There's a reason why. W.W. Jacobs, who was mainly a travel writer, had a few ghost stories in him, including this doozy. It's been performed on stage, radio, and...
Gerald Kersh is another one of those writers who have so many good stories -- and such great titles! -- but the problem with Kersh would be choosing his SECOND best story. "The Dancing Doll", "The Man Who Sold His...
Patricia Highsmith wrote STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and the Ripley novels. She also wrote SPY SMASHER and CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT comics for Fawcett. And she loved animals and bugs. I don't think she thought bugs liked us too much. At least, the...
This is a super-short, stealth-mindfucker from someone named Adam Corbin Fusco. I found it in a FROM THE BORDERLANDS anthology, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's written in the style of a dry, clinical precis/overview of a series...
M.R. James, besides being even more fascinatied with the Apocalypse than I am, was one of the greatest ghost story writers who ever lived. He's also got one of the best "creepiest titles" ever for a story -- "O Whistle...
