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...
There were so many Richard Matheson stories I wanted to choose. "The Distributor", for instance. And choosing this, his first published story, is in no way an insult to his later work. But it's so rare when a writer knocks one...
