Home, Sweet Haunted Home: Hair-Raising Reads

There is nothing more frightening than the turning of what should be a haven into a nightmare. Which is why haunted house stories are perennial favorites with readers who like to be scared witless. Evil spirits and horrifying previous occupants are just some of the unwanted guests in the homes conjured by these masters of the disquieting. This Halloween season, spend some time with authors who will make you run from your house—or at least sleep with the lights on.

As far as haunted house tales go, Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (Classics: Penguin Group [USA]. 2006. ISBN 978-0-14-303998-3. pap. $15) has long been considered one of the best ever written. It is the tale of the site of violent murder and death and the four characters with whom it interacts. As Eleanor, Theodora, Luke, and Dr. Montague gather at Hill House, terrifying events occur: blood appears on walls, doorknobs rattle, and unexplained sounds and visions bombard the occupants. Eleanor seems most affected, and, as the story spins out, readers begin to understand that the house has taken hold of her, and she in turn has taken hold of the events in the house. This is old-fashioned terror and flat-out spooky.

Jackson influenced a number of haunted house stories including Richard Matheson's HELL HOUSE (Tom Doherty. 1999. ISBN 978-0-312-86885-7. pap. $13.95), which moves beyond spooky for a seething creepiness that mutates very quickly into fear and revulsion. Once the site of unspeakable horror, Belasco House has wreaked havoc on all who have tried to uncover its secrets, but four investigators still venture in, prompted by the promise of rich rewards if they can rid the house of its horrible presence. Narrated in a series of quick-timed chapters, the novel stirs up a velocity of terror and wraps readers in a cinematic nightmare of gore.

Out of print but widely available, Ramsey Campbell's NAZARETH HILL is a deeply disturbing haunted house story that unfolds in waves of unease. Amy Priestly has always hated the old monastery known as Nazareth Hill, and she is not happy to be moving into an apartment in the newly converted building. In fact, she should be worried, for very bad things are happening on the same ground that had once been used for a series of horrific undertakings, including a torture chamber where mental patients were "treated" and an "interrogation" site during the witch hunts of old. Amy sees the horror of the building, but her domineering and increasingly unstable father has been taken over by its evil.

Thrills, chills, and deeply rooted menace infuse F.G. Cottam's richly atmospheric U.S. debut, THE HOUSE OF LOST SOULS (Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin's. 2009. ISBN 978-0-312-54432-4. $24.99). An abomination begun in the 1930s casts its malevolent fingers into the 1990s and takes hold of journalist Paul Seaton. Ten years ago while helping his girlfriend with her dissertation, Seaton visited Fischer House, once the site of human sacrifice and occultist experiments, and the experience undid him. Now he is enlisted to help a group of students captured by the evil lurking there, and he must face the nightmare of Hell's worst apparitions.

Paranoia and the slippery slope between reason and chaos infuse Dan Simmons's A WINTER HAUNTING (HarperTorch. 2003. ISBN 978-0-380-81716-0. pap. $7.99). Seeking refuge, Dale Stewart moves into the house of his dead childhood friend Dwane McBride (featured in Summer of Night). Glowing with unexplained lights, the house is the nexus of strange goings-on, most notably a dog that grows in size and stalks Dale. In his mind, Dale is stalked by other figures as well. He has pretty much hit rock bottom, his wife has left him, his lover has left him, and he has attempted suicide. His internal world is so unbalanced that readers are left to wonder if what he sees is really occurring beyond his own vision. The triumph Simmons achieves here is to transplant the destabilizing terror that occupies the house into the mind of his protagonist.

It doesn't have to be a ghost or evil incarnate that haunts a house; it can be goblins and fairies and other wee-horrible folk as Raymond Feist illustrates in his unsettling FAERIE TALE (Spectra: Bantam. 1989. ISBN 978-0-553-27783-8. pap. $7.99). The Hastings family moves into the Kessler Farm, an old farmhouse nestled next to a deep wood. Soon a tiny creature that enjoys the pain of others is stalking the twin sons, the teenage daughter is almost raped by Puck, and the worst of Celtic lore has descended upon the house and land. It turns out the farm's previous owner had a link to the occult, there is a cache of gold buried there, and the mythic world is enraged.

[For more scary titles, see the October 1 issue of LJ's e-newsletter BookSmack! Neal Wyatt riffs on Ripper books, while Karl G. Siewart rounds up horror short takes.]