Short Story Recommendations

So a couple of these might have been mentioned in previous posts, but I really can't stress enough how great they are. Today I'd like to give you guys a few recommendations for some simple, fun short stories to pass the haunting hours this month. Attached will be pictures of the books I've found them in for easy reference. So, without further ado, let's get into it!

W. S. by L. P. Hartley

Though that may be a mouthful of single letters, this short story was what inspired today's post. I think all of us who read, or who have grown up reading, are victims of our own need to buy more books even when we've got a shelf or two of the ones we still haven't managed to get around to. '11 Great Horror Stories' was one of the many, because I was familiar with more than half of the works in it (The Dunwich Horror, The Judge's House, The Shed, etc.) W.S. however, seems to be the ancestor of a very familiar trope (one especially popular with Stephen King) of a writer having a mental battle with one of his own creations. Sadly, this story was published posthumously, and I can only hope it wasn't autobiographical.

Fish Night by Joe R. Lansdale

Did you honestly think you'd get through an entry of mine about short stories without at least one Lansdale story sneaking in here? Fish Night is one of his more peculiar (though they've all sort of got that title) works about the phantoms of long dead sea creatures float about in the desert that used to be the ocean they lived in. It's such an interesting concept, I couldn't pass it up.

Drink My Blood by Richard Matheson

Throughout middle school, junior high, and high school - - this story was my white whale. I had read about it once in a small encyclopedia entry, and was obsessed with finding it. Now I may not be ancient, but it was a lot harder in the early to mid-2000s to find out of print books unless you dealt with certain vendors or were old enough to have a card and drop some cash online (which I was not). So when I finally stumbled on this book at a garage sale several years ago, and at long last got to read the story by Richard Matheson about a young boy obsessed with becoming a vampire, it was the best feeling in the world. Yes, it didn't live up to the hype, but I still highly recommend this story (if you can find it. It'll be a lot easier now than it was then...)

Sabrina by Don Wulffson

This one is not so much terrifying as a little upsetting (especially if you're an adult). A young boy falls in love with a beautiful performer, and things work out in the most twisted way possible thanks to a few nasty adults. For those of you who have somehow read this, I'm sure you'll understand why I had to keep it vague for that bizarre little twist.

A Grave Misunderstanding by Leon Garfield

There's no deep message behind this one, nothing beyond the whole 'man's best friend' concept wherein a dog keeps his master safe from a pretty ghost--and, well, a pretty living woman too. It's worth a read for the humor and the oddly poetic nature of a dog's point of view.