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Andrew Michael Hurley

The Summer People from a master of suspense

I read this tale long ago and it has haunted me from that moment. The titular “summer people” happen to be a family from New York, who rent the same remote rural cabin each year. On this occasion, in place of returning to urban life, they decide to prolong their holiday a few more weeks – a decision that to disturb all the locals in the surrounding community. Each repeats the same veiled caution that no one has lingered by the water beyond the holiday. Even so, the couple insist to remain, and that’s when things start to grow more bizarre. The man who delivers oil declines to provide to the couple. Nobody is willing to supply supplies to the cabin, and at the time they attempt to drive into town, their vehicle won’t start. A storm gathers, the energy within the device fade, and with the arrival of dusk, “the two old people crowded closely inside their cabin and waited”. What are they anticipating? What could the townspeople be aware of? Every time I read this author’s chilling and thought-provoking story, I recall that the best horror stems from that which remains hidden.

Mariana Enríquez

An Eerie Story by Robert Aickman

In this concise narrative a couple go to a typical seaside town where bells ring continuously, an incessant ringing that is irritating and unexplainable. The initial extremely terrifying episode occurs after dark, when they choose to walk around and they fail to see the ocean. Sand is present, there is the odor of decaying seafood and salt, surf is audible, but the ocean is a ghost, or a different entity and worse. It’s just profoundly ominous and whenever I go to the shore after dark I think about this story which spoiled the ocean after dark in my view – positively.

The young couple – the wife is youthful, the husband is older – go back to the inn and find out the cause of the ringing, through an extended episode of confinement, necro-orgy and mortality and youth meets grim ballet chaos. It’s an unnerving contemplation on desire and decline, a pair of individuals maturing in tandem as a couple, the attachment and aggression and gentleness of marriage.

Not just the most terrifying, but probably among the finest concise narratives out there, and a personal favourite. I experienced it in Spanish, in the initial publication of Aickman stories to be published in Argentina a decade ago.

Catriona Ward

A Dark Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

I perused Zombie near the water in the French countryside a few years ago. Despite the sunshine I experienced a chill over me. I also felt the thrill of excitement. I was writing my latest book, and I had hit an obstacle. I wasn’t sure whether there existed a proper method to craft some of the fearful things the narrative involves. Experiencing this novel, I saw that it could be done.

Published in 1995, the novel is a dark flight within the psyche of a murderer, Quentin P, inspired by a notorious figure, the murderer who killed and dismembered numerous individuals in Milwaukee over a decade. As is well-known, this person was obsessed with producing a submissive individual that would remain with him and made many grisly attempts to accomplish it.

The actions the novel describes are horrific, but just as scary is the psychological persuasiveness. The character’s terrible, broken reality is directly described using minimal words, details omitted. The audience is sunk deep stuck in his mind, obliged to observe mental processes and behaviors that shock. The foreignness of his thinking feels like a tangible impact – or finding oneself isolated in an empty realm. Going into this story feels different from reading than a full body experience. You are consumed entirely.

An Accomplished Author

A Haunting Novel from a gifted writer

In my early years, I was a somnambulist and eventually began having night terrors. At one point, the fear featured a nightmare during which I was stuck in a box and, as I roused, I found that I had ripped a part off the window, attempting to escape. That home was decaying; during heavy rain the downstairs hall filled with water, maggots dropped from above into the bedroom, and on one occasion a sizeable vermin climbed the drapes in that space.

After an acquaintance presented me with this author’s book, I had moved out with my parents, but the tale about the home located on the coastline felt familiar in my view, longing at that time. It’s a book concerning a ghostly clamorous, atmospheric home and a girl who ingests calcium off the rocks. I adored the novel immensely and returned frequently to its pages, each time discovering {something