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Andrew Michael Hurley

A Chilling Tale from a master of suspense

I encountered this narrative long ago and it has haunted me since then. The named seasonal visitors happen to be the Allisons from New York, who occupy an identical off-grid lakeside house each year. This time, in place of going back to urban life, they choose to extend their stay for a month longer – something that seems to alarm each resident in the nearby town. Everyone conveys the same veiled caution that not a soul has lingered by the water past the holiday. Nonetheless, the couple are determined to stay, and that is the moment situations commence to become stranger. The individual who delivers oil declines to provide to the couple. Nobody is willing to supply groceries to their home, and as they attempt to drive into town, their vehicle won’t start. A storm gathers, the batteries of their radio die, and when night comes, “the elderly couple clung to each other inside their cabin and anticipated”. What could be this couple anticipating? What do the townspeople know? Every time I peruse the writer’s disturbing and inspiring narrative, I’m reminded that the finest fright originates in that which remains hidden.

An Acclaimed Writer

An Eerie Story from a noted author

In this concise narrative a pair journey to a typical coastal village where bells ring the whole time, an incessant ringing that is annoying and inexplicable. The initial extremely terrifying scene occurs at night, when they choose to walk around and they can’t find the ocean. Sand is present, there’s the smell of decaying seafood and brine, there are waves, but the ocean appears spectral, or another thing and worse. It is truly profoundly ominous and every time I go to the shore in the evening I think about this story which spoiled the beach in the evening for me – in a good way.

The newlyweds – she’s very young, the man is mature – return to their lodging and learn why the bells ring, during a prolonged scene of claustrophobia, gruesome festivities and death-and-the-maiden meets danse macabre pandemonium. It is a disturbing contemplation about longing and deterioration, two bodies maturing in tandem as spouses, the attachment and aggression and affection within wedlock.

Not merely the most terrifying, but probably among the finest brief tales in existence, and a personal favourite. I read it in the Spanish language, in the initial publication of this author’s works to appear in Argentina in 2011.

A Prominent Novelist

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

I delved into Zombie beside the swimming area in the French countryside recently. Even with the bright weather I experienced an icy feeling within me. I also felt the excitement of anticipation. I was working on my latest book, and I had hit a wall. I was uncertain whether there existed any good way to write various frightening aspects the story includes. Experiencing this novel, I saw that it was possible.

First printed in the nineties, the story is a grim journey into the thoughts of a murderer, the main character, inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer, the murderer who murdered and dismembered 17 young men and boys in a city over a decade. Notoriously, the killer was consumed with creating a zombie sex slave who would stay with him and carried out several horrific efforts to do so.

The acts the novel describes are appalling, but just as scary is its psychological persuasiveness. The character’s dreadful, fragmented world is directly described with concise language, details omitted. You is sunk deep stuck in his mind, obliged to witness thoughts and actions that appal. The strangeness of his mind resembles a tangible impact – or finding oneself isolated on a desolate planet. Going into this book feels different from reading than a full body experience. You are absorbed completely.

An Accomplished Author

A Haunting Novel from a gifted writer

During my youth, I walked in my sleep and eventually began experiencing nightmares. On one occasion, the fear included a dream where I was trapped inside a container and, as I roused, I realized that I had ripped the slat out of the window frame, attempting to escape. That house was crumbling; when storms came the downstairs hall flooded, maggots dropped from above onto the bed, and at one time a big rodent scaled the curtains in my sister’s room.

After an acquaintance gave me the story, I had moved out in my childhood residence, but the narrative of the house perched on the cliffs felt familiar to me, homesick at that time. It’s a novel concerning a ghostly clamorous, atmospheric home and a girl who ingests calcium from the cliffs. I loved the book immensely and went back again and again to the story, consistently uncovering {something