Short and Spooky

This was Liz’s idea, prompted from last week’s mention of two-sentence short stories. These ones are written by yours truly.

My Two-Sentence Short Stories

Last night, I was alone in the house and so I double checked to make sure everything was locked up tight. Then when I was in bed trying to sleep, I heard the window next to me sliding open.

The doctors wouldn’t believe me when I told them there were spiders in my skull. They changed their minds when I drilled a hole in my head and they came pouring out.

After hours of scratching, I clawed my way out of my grave. But everyone ran away when they saw the decomposing flesh falling off my body.

That’s what I came up with! Can you think of a good two-sentence short story? And to finish off Halloween month, here’s a puzzle game where you dip a pumpkin in inks in an attempt to create a certain pattern. It’s super cute and fairly easy, although the higher levels will take some thinking to figure out. The only real drawback is that there’s only sixteen levels.

Happy Halloween!

Scary Stories

Subtitle, that you can, but probably shouldn’t, tell in the dark.

I’ve discovered several new short stories of the pants-crapping variety. And what else can I do but share them with you?

Tomb Of The Builders

By one of my favorite writers. Ninety nine percent of his work is the kind of stuff that grosses you out. This story is not, and it’s also way more horrifying.

Daycare

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Honestly, I thought the first part was the best and a creepier story on its own. But feel free to check out the rest and see for yourself.

The Little Girl That Cheated At Everything

It’s actually a poem, and a surprisingly good one at that. Really well done.

My Rich American Family

It reminds me a lot of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Finally, be sure to check out these two sentence horror stories. I can’t really talk more about them since that would give everything away. I mean, they are only two sentences after all.

Short Scares

Several months ago on Tumblr (wait! Don’t leave! It’s good, I swear) I stumbled across a blog called Sixpenceee (the extra E’s are silent) that is absolutely filled with scary goodness. Her posts range from scary stories to weird events to random science facts. Being that this is October, we’re going to stick with the scary stories, but there’s a link to all the different subjects she covers over in her sidebar.

The scary stories she posts are (mostly) written by other people and range from mediocre to downright frightening—she’s actually also holding a short story contest this month and you can take a look at the entries on her forum. Anyway, I’ve tracked down the ones that I think are the best, as well as several others that have been highly recommended:

Three girls came into my ER last night, I have no idea whatthey are

The title is pretty self-explanatory for this one.

The Undying Love

A quick one, definitely amusing in a horrifying way.

Betsy The Doll

Considered one of the best stories on the site.

Dr. Ramsey

Made even more horrifying by the fact that the writer claims these are real events that took place in the late seventies.

Her Lips Taste Like Cigarettes

Really short but really good.

Autopilot

Another that’s considered one of the best, and it’s definitely a punch to the gut.

NoEnd House

A psychological mindscrew.

Minimalist

Another psychological story, this one about the degeneration of the mind.

My Daughter Learned to Count

Another short, creepy and amusing story.

This New, Old House

Short and scary.

The Guardians

This one’s probably going to squick out a few people…

Rocking Horse Creek

More sad than scary, but definitely good.

Both My Parents Were Surgeons and I Used to Talk to Furniture

In my opinion, the best one.

Okay, I guess that’s enough. I actually had to trim this back a bit because I just wanted to link to all of them if you like scary things, I suggest you try them. And definitely check out the Short Stories link because there’s a lot more where that came from. Just clear a few days off your schedule first as you won’t be sleeping.

Scare Time

I stumbled across this on Tumblr (ha, that’s almost a rhyme), and I’ve got to say, it’s pretty dang creepy. And since October is the month for creepiness, I figured I should share it with you guys. Fair warning, it’s about an hour long. It’s just an audio file of a teacher telling “The Kimberly Story” to a bunch of high school students (which is good, because it would scare the pants off anyone younger), so you can listen to it in the background while you do something else. But for maximum effect, I suggest waiting until dark and turning off the lights.

For those who don’t want to wait, the gist is this: back when he lived in Texas, a girl in his class disappeared. Then she came back. And then things go from weird to terrifying. Is it real? I don’t know. The things that happened certainly don’t seem like they could be. While it’s based on some actual events, most of it seems embellished. The keyword being “seems”. Either way, real or fake, it’s a damn scary story, perfect for this time of year.

Take a listen.

Then, since I assume you’ll be up for three days straight, you’ll have plenty of time to come back to the blog and share your thoughts.

Eternally Yours

Since I’ve been hinting at it for a while, I might as well fill in the details. Remember when I was talking about the Slender Man a few weeks ago (visit TV Tropes if you want to know more about it, but fair warning, that site is a timesuck)? Yeah, it’s based on that. Enduring Eternity is a horror story that I’ve been “blogging” for the past few months about a guy who calls himself Axel trying to make sense of the events that turned his life into a waking nightmare.

The last post went up on Halloween (which ended up being a happy coincidence), bringing the total to thirty nine (a multiple of thirteen, another happy coincidence). It follows Axel through his ups and lows in his personal life as he tries to piece together what happened after his car broke down, leaving him and his friend stranded in the forest. There is no violence, but some gruesome imagery (although only in a couple of posts). Also, he swears kind of a lot. And comments are off so if you have anything to say, you have to tell me here (I hang out on a forum for these kinds of blogs, but I’m guessing you guys aren’t there, so…).

In total, it’s about 37,000 words, so basically it’s a novella. If you like horror and creepy things, I hope you check it out. The blog is here, in the Dynamic Views format, but it actually works for a blog like this and it’s really easy to scroll down to the beginning. Or if you prefer, the first post is here.

Thanks for listening! Um, reading.

Halloween 2013

Only five days until Halloween! Yay! Can you tell I’ve been excited about it? So in keeping with this month’s tradition of sharing scary things on Saturday, here’s the most frightening things I’ve come across this year:

Scariest Video Game

The Last Door, chapters 1 and 2, a gothic horror game about a man trying to determine what happened to his boarding school friends. Has the bonus of also being a great story in its own right.

Scariest Horror Short

Proxy. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you about the Slender Man shows on YouTube? This is another one, but it’s just a short and only about ten minutes long. Totally creep-tastic.

Scariest Horror Short Story

Candle Cove, by Kris Straub. It’s about a bunch of people reminiscing about a bizarre show they used to watch. Trust me, it’s a good one.

Well, share: what are the scariest movies and stories you’ve come across?

Scared Yet?

And in continuing with this month’s theme of things to be scared of, I tracked down a bunch of short stories that are both scary and written by the person you least suspect. Don’t worry. They’re not too scary : P.

                                                                   

The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann. If that name isn’t familiar, he wrote The Nutcracker. He’s not an English writer so it’s a translation, but I think it’s a good one. It’s the longest story I have here, but it’s worth it.

The Birds by Daphne du Maurier. Absolutely nothing like the movie. It takes place in England, the main character is a middle aged man with a family—if you’ve read REBECCA, you know what you’re getting into here.

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. The horror of this story isn’t fully realized until the end, but it’s skillfully foreshadowed. Like most of Faulkner’s work, it’s full of bitterness and heartbreak, but in this it’s taken to an extreme conclusion, hence the classification as horror.

The Landlady by Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl. Like most of the stories here, it’s not straight up horror, but more subtle, and definitely not like any of his children’s books. The best part is, the scare doesn’t sink in until you’re done with the story and have time to think about it.

Miriam by Truman Capote. I’ve always considered Capote to be a literary writer, but here he flirts with the supernatural. I absolutely love this story, because even if you don’t believe in the supernatural, you can still be afraid of what’s going on here.

So those are the greatest, most unexpected scary stories I’ve found. What about you? What kin dof rare gems have you come across?

The Meaning of Fear

I enjoy scary movies and such, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not often scared by them. I mean, it’s not like they’re spiders or public speaking. I’m not in real danger, so there isn’t much fear. So when I find something that actually gives me chills, I take note.

Recently, I’ve become quite the fan of the Slender Man Mythos. The Slender Man is basically an eldritch abomination that appears as a tall, faceless man in a business suit. It’s…less ridiculous than it sounds. Those who cross paths with it usually end up in pieces. Or worse.

The two most popular methods of telling Slender stories are via blogs or vlogs (although there has also been a few video games and even movies). There are some good blogs out there, but the vlogs are really where the terror of the Slender Man shines, so I’m going to share with you lucky people the ones that I’m currently following.

Tribe Twelve

In A Nutshell: While reviewing footage of his deceased cousin’s last visit, Noah discovers something stalking Milo. And now it’s set its sights on Noah.

In terms of scariness, this one varies from mild to moderate. It’s more mystery oriented, and unlike some mysteries, there are actually answers. It’s just that they end up being worse than not knowing anything.

Everyman Hybrid

In A Nutshell: Four friends decide to post exercise and health videos with a funny background gag of being stalked by a certain tall being. Then their houses get broken into, they find garbage bags filled with body parts, and everyone around them starts dying.

Moderate to very scary. It’s honestly a lot milder at first, but things keep getting worse for the main characters. There’s a lot of mystery, but also a lot of gore, especially later on. If you watch about six videos in, when they’re still trying to do their exercise videos, you’ll see some surprisingly gruesome things. And that’s nothing compared to what’s in store. Seriously, you just have to be amazed at what these guys can do with a shoestring budget.

Dark Harvest

In A Nutshell: Alex wants to record the strange noises in his house. That somehow snowballs into him and his friend Nick trying to hide from a cult that worships a very nasty being.

For the most part, it’s only mildly scary, but it’s also got a lot going on to keep viewers interested. It’s not as action-y (or gruesome) as Everyman Hybrid, nor is it as what-the-hell-is-going-on?! as Tribe Twelve. Dark Harvest manages to meet somewhere in the middle and give the best of both worlds.

Marble Hornets

In A Nutshell: Jay is reviewing some footage he got from his old friend Alex. And he’s finding some pretty disturbing things. It only gets worse when he insists upon investigating.

I would call it the scariest one, with episodes ranging from “frightening” to “heart attack”. I think the first video is a good example of what’s to come: it’s disorienting, terrifying, and inescapable. All in something like thirty seconds.