This is an exclusive Shortlist compiled by award-winning horror writer Paul Tremblay of his top five short horror stories of all time.
Tremblay is well aware of his terror. He is not only the author of several best-selling novels, including The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts, but he is also a fan of Stephen King and a jury member for the Shirley Jackson Awards.
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Here’s Paul's choice of scary stories, in his own words.
Many of us first encounter the horror story in its shortened form. A teacher may have assigned you to read Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart or Shirley Jackson's The Lottery as a child, or a ghost story with a title you can't remember, but you'll never forget how it made you feel.
Perhaps your first horror story was told to you by an older sibling or a childhood friend about the creepy abandoned house one block away, or a story about why you shouldn't go to the basement alone, or how you should avoid that wooded area at night, or don't walk too close to the mist-covered brackish pond.
The horror short story can be a quick shock, a toothy twist, or a slow build to a moment of ineffable unease. My favorite short stories, the ones I return to again and again, linger far beyond their page count. Their truths are no less magnificent, awe-inspiring, or terrifying.
Because those stories are lenses through which we see dangerous glimpses of our predatory universe, they become embedded in your subconscious. They reveal who we are, who we are not, and, for better or worse, who we can become.
The five stories below will show you a lot. I guarantee it.
Best short horror stories
1. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, Joyce Carol Oates?
This story was read in one of the last classes I ever took in college, and it helped transform me from a math major to a reader and writer. On the surface, it's a story about a creepy older guy (though we don't know how much older he is because he's described as a 'forty year old baby') attempting to persuade a teenage girl to go for a car ride with him. The sweet talk alternates between being playful and threatening. The brilliantly coded bits of ambiguity and the menace of possibility are what make the story one of the best of the twentieth century. A story that will set your heart and mind racing.
2. Raphael, Stephen Graham Jones
A group of "outsider" kids ("we're the only ones who can see us") gather at a lake to share frightening stories. Raphael is a coming-of-age story as well as an anti-one. Growing up and discovering lies, secrets, and the horrible truth can be terrifying. There's a scene in this story that is so breathtaking in its execution and imagery that it stays in my head indefinitely. I can't unsee it, which is strange because I never saw it in the first place. That, too, is false, because Stephen showed it to me and wouldn't let me look away.
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