The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories: Terrifying Tales Set on the Scariest Night of the Year! Read online

  FROM THE SAME EDITOR

  The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women

  Collection and editorial material copyright © Stephen Jones 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Cover illustration credit: iStockphoto

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3643-6

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3645-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  WHEN CHURCHYARDS YAWN

  OCTOBER IN THE CHAIR

  Neil Gaiman

  REFLECTIONS IN BLACK

  Steve Rasnic Tem

  THE HALLOWEEN MONSTER

  Alison Littlewood

  THE PHÉNAKISTICOPE OF DECAY

  James Ebersole

  MEMORIES OF DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

  Nancy Kilpatrick

  FRAGILE MASKS

  Richard Gavin

  BONE FIRE

  Storm Constantine

  QUEEN OF THE HUNT

  Adrian Cole

  THE OCTOBER WIDOW

  Angela Slatter

  BEFORE THE PARADE PASSES BY

  Marie O’Regan

  HER FACE

  Ramsey Campbell

  A MAN TOTALLY ALONE

  Robert Hood

  BLEED

  Richard Christian Matheson

  THE ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN PARTY APP

  Lisa Morton

  THE FOLDING MAN

  Joe R. Lansdale

  I WAIT FOR YOU

  Eygló Karlsdóttir

  DUST UPON A PAPER EYE

  Cate Gardner

  NOT OUR BROTHER

  Robert Silverberg

  THE SCARIEST THING IN THE WORLD

  Michael Marshall Smith

  THE NATURE OF THE BEAST

  Sharon Gosling

  THE BEAUTIFUL FEAST OF THE VALLEY

  Stephen Gallagher

  IN THE YEAR OF OMENS

  Helen Marshall

  THE MILLENNIAL’S GUIDE TO DEATH

  Scott Bradfield

  WHITE MARE

  Thana Niveau

  PUMPKIN KIDS

  Robert Shearman

  LANTERN JACK

  Christopher Fowler

  HALLOWEEN TREATS

  Jane Yolen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Editor

  For Herman Graf,

  with respect and gratitude.

  INTRODUCTION

  WHEN CHURCHYARDS YAWN

  By goblins of the cornfield stark

  By witches dancing on the green

  By pumpkins grinning in the dark

  I wish you luck this Hallowe’en.

  —EARLY 1900S HALLOWEEN POSTCARD

  ALL HALLOWS’ EVE … Samhain … Día de los Muertos … all names for when the barriers between the worlds are at their weakest, and ghosts and grisly things can cross over into our existence. For a short period each year, the natural becomes the supernatural, and nobody is safe from their most intimate and terrifying fears.

  The history of Hallowe’en, or Halloween (a more contemporary spelling), dates back to the ancient Celts, whose Druid priests celebrated the changing of the seasons on Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”). It was believed to be a time when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest, and the fairy-folk, or sidhe, could cross over and cause havoc in our world, while the souls of the dead returned to their homes seeking hospitality.

  The Catholic missionaries embraced the festival as a method of converting the Celts, changing its name to All Hallows’ Eve and moving it from its original date of May 13th to October 31st, the night before All Saints’ Day.

  After the Church of England broke away from Catholicism, Hallowe’en was banned for a time in Britain, but it continued to be celebrated in countries such as Scotland and Ireland, who still adhered to their Celtic heritage.

  In 1785, the renowned Scottish poet and author Sir Robert Burns (1759–96) penned the verse “Hallowe’en,” which described how young people playing fortune-telling games were likely to encounter the Devil.

  With the great migration of the Scots-Irish to America in the mid-1800s, Hallowe’en traveled with them and was soon claimed by the Victorians as a celebration of their own. The first book devoted to the holiday, Martha Russell Orne’s Hallowe’en: How to Celebrate It, was published in 1898, and it was not long before it became an established tradition in the United States.

  The festival had always been linked with mischievous children (and perhaps less wholesome beings) playing pranks, and by the 1930s the practice of “trick-or-treating” had become an annual event every October 31st.

  In the early part of the twentieth century, companies such as John O. Winsch of Stapleton, New York, were producing whole ranges of colorful and imaginative postcards—mostly printed in Germany—wishing people “A Happy Halloween.” These beautifully printed cards also helped establish the associated image of witches, black cats, and grinning carved pumpkins (or jack-o’-lanterns) into the conscience of the general public.

  Following World War II, manufacturers and retailers began to seriously capitalize upon the holiday, producing cheap, mass-produced toys, masks and costumes for children—and later adults—to celebrate all things grim and gruesome on one night of the year. Little did they realize that they were simply recreating a festival that those Druid priests of so long ago celebrated to mark the beginning of winter.

  In 1978, John’s Carpenter’s low-budget “slasher” movie Halloween—about a group of teenagers menaced by a white-masked serial killer—forever reinvented the day for moviegoers and horror fans, and helped spawn a worldwide industry that is now worth billions of dollars a year.

  The Latin American Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated from October 31st through to November 2nd and shares some of the same traits as Halloween while using colorful makeup and pageantry to honor friends and family members who have died.

  There is no doubt that Halloween is now Big Business, but the literary tradition of the holiday dates back to the early nineteenth century and such short stories as Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Browne” (1835).

  There have, of course, been numerous anthologies devoted to Halloween before, and so I wanted to make sure that I presented as wide a range of stories and themes as possible in this latest addition to the canon.

  Over the following pages you will discover some remarkable writers—both well-established and relative newcomers—and a breadth of crea
tive ideas that hopefully tap into all the many aspects—supernatural and psychological—that make Halloween such a memorable festival. Not all of them are horror stories, but then the holiday itself is many things to different people and continues to evolve and reinvent itself as we move further into the twenty-first century.

  So relax and enjoy these stories and one poem inspired by the spookiest night of the year. And if you’re disturbed by a knock at the door, and open it to find a gaggle of guisers on the doorstep demanding “trick-or-treat,” then make sure you have enough candy to hand … and that there really is something recognizable lurking behind that mask or beneath that sheet… .

  STEPHEN JONES

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  OCTOBER IN THE CHAIR

  NEIL GAIMAN

  Neil Gaiman is the author of the bestselling 2013 Book of the Year, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the Carnegie Award–winning The Graveyard Book, as well as Coraline, Neverwhere, the essay collection The View from the Cheap Seats, and The Sandman series of graphic novels, among many other works.

  His fiction has received many awards, including the Carnegie and Newbery medals, and the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Eisner awards.

  Originally from England, he now divides his time between the UK, where he recently turned Good Omens—originally a novel he wrote with Terry Pratchett—into a television series, and the US, where he is professor in the arts at Bard College.

  “I began this story several years ago,” explains Gaiman, “when Harlan Ellison and I were at a convention, and we were meant to be writing a story together in a roped-off area. But Harlan was late on a deadline for an introduction, so he was typing that.

  “I wrote the first few hundred words of this story then and showed it to Harlan. He read it through, suggested I clean up April’s language, and said no—he thought that this really was the beginning of one of my stories. So I began a different story, which Harlan called ‘Shoot Day for Night’ when he continued it. One day, at some other convention, behind some other ropes, I have no doubt that it will be finished.

  “So the months sat around the fire on my hard disk for several years, haunting me but unwritten. Then Peter Straub asked me for a story, and I got to find out what happened next.”

  OCTOBER WAS IN the chair, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circled the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.

  April took a dainty bite from her sausage, which burst open as she bit into it, spilling hot juice down her chin. “Beshrew and suck-ordure on it,” she said.

  Squat March, sitting next to her, laughed, low and dirty, and then pulled out a huge, filthy handkerchief. “Here you go,” he said.

  April wiped her chin. “Thanks,” she said. “The cursed bag-of-innards burned me. I’ll have a blister there tomorrow.”

  September yawned. “You are such a hypochondriac,” he said, across the fire. “And such language.” He had a pencil-thin mustache, and was balding in the front, which made his forehead seem high and wise.

  “Lay off her,” said May. Her dark hair was cropped short against her skull, and she wore sensible boots. She smoked a small, brown cigarillo which smelled heavily of cloves. “She’s sensitive.”

  “Oh puh-lease,” said September. “Spare me.”

  October, conscious of his position in the chair, sipped his apple cider, cleared his throat, and said, “Okay. Who wants to begin?” The chair he sat in was carved from one large block of oakwood, inlaid with ash, with cedar, and with cherrywood. The other eleven sat on tree stumps equally spaced about the small bonfire. The tree stumps had been worn smooth and comfortable by years of use.

  “What about the minutes?” asked January. “We always do minutes when I’m in the chair.”

  “But you aren’t in the chair now, are you, dear?” said September, an elegant creature of mock solicitude.

  “What about the minutes?” repeated January. “You can’t ignore them.”

  “Let the little buggers take care of themselves,” said April, one hand running through her long blonde hair. “And I think September should go first.”

  September preened and nodded. “Delighted,” he said.

  “Hey,” said February. “Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey. I didn’t hear the chairman ratify that. Nobody starts till October says who starts, and then nobody else talks. Can we have maybe the tiniest semblance of order here?” He peered at them, small, pale, dressed entirely in blues and grays.

  “It’s fine,” said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life. “September can go first. Let’s just get it rolling.”

  September placed the end of his sausage into his mouth, chewed daintily, and drained his cider mug. Then he stood up and bowed to the company and began to speak.

  “Laurent DeLisle was the finest chef in all of Seattle, at least, Laurent DeLisle thought so, and the Michelin stars on his door confirmed him in his opinion. He was a remarkable chef, it is true—his minced lamb brioche had won several awards; his smoked quail and white truffle ravioli had been described in The Gastronome as ‘the tenth wonder of the world.’ But it was his wine cellar … ah, his wine cellar … that was his source of pride and his passion.

  “I understand that. The last of the white grapes are harvested in me, and the bulk of the reds: I appreciate fine wines, the aroma, the taste, the aftertaste as well.

  “Laurent DeLisle bought his wines at auctions, from private wine-lovers, from reputable dealers: he would insist on a pedigree for each wine, for wine frauds are, alas, too common when the bottle is selling for perhaps five, ten, a hundred thousand dollars, or pounds, or euros.

  “The treasure—the jewel—the rarest of the rare and the ne plus ultra of his temperature-controlled wine cellar was a bottle of 1902 Château Lafite. It was on the wine list at $120,000, although it was, in true terms, priceless, for it was the last bottle of its kind.”

  “Excuse me,” said August, politely. He was the fattest of them all, his thin hair combed in golden wisps across his pink pate.

  September glared down at his neighbor. “Yes?”

  “Is this the one where some rich dude buys the wine to go with the dinner, and the chef decides that the dinner the rich dude ordered isn’t good enough for the wine, so he sends out a different dinner, and the guy takes one mouthful, and he’s got, like, some rare allergy and he just dies like that, and the wine never gets drunk after all?”

  September said nothing. He looked a great deal.

  “Because if it is, you told it before. Years ago. Dumb story then. Dumb story now.” August smiled. His pink cheeks shone in the firelight.

  September said, “Obviously pathos and culture are not to everyone’s taste. Some people prefer their barbecues and beer, and some of us like—”

  February said, “Well, I hate to say this, but he kind of does have a point. It has to be a new story.”

  September raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “I’m done,” he said, abruptly. He sat down on his stump.

  They looked at each other across the fire, the months of the year.

  June, hesitant and clean, raised her hand and said, “I have one about a guard on the X-ray machines at LaGuardia Airport, who could read all about people from the outlines of their luggage on the screen, and one day she saw a luggage X-ray so beautiful that she fell in love with the person, and she had to figure out which person in the line it was, and she couldn’t, and she pined for months and months. And when the person came through again she knew it this time, and it was the man, and he was a wizened old Indian man and she was pretty and black and, like, twenty-five, and she knew it would neve
r work out and she let him go, because she could also see from the shapes of his bags on the screen that he was going to die soon.”

  October said, “Fair enough, young June. Tell that one.”

  June stared at him, like a spooked animal. “I just did,” she said.

  October nodded. “So you did,” he said, before any of the others could say anything. And then he said, “Shall we proceed to my story, then?”

  February sniffed. “Out of order there, big fella. The man in the chair only tells his story when the rest of us are through. Can’t go straight to the main event.”

  May was placing a dozen chestnuts on the grate above the fire, deploying them into patterns with her tongs. “Let him tell his story if he wants to,” she said. “God knows it can’t be worse than the one about the wine. And I have things to be getting back to. Flowers don’t bloom by themselves. All in favor?”

  “You’re taking this to a formal vote?” February said. “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this is happening.” He mopped his brow with a handful of tissues, which he pulled from his sleeve.

  Seven hands were raised. Four people kept their hands down—February, September, January, and July. (“I don’t have anything personal on this,” said July, apologetically. “It’s purely procedural. We shouldn’t be setting precedents.”)

  “It’s settled then,” said October. “Is there anything anyone would like to say before I begin?”

  “Um. Yes. Sometimes,” said June, “Sometimes I think somebody’s watching us from the woods and then I look and there isn’t anybody there. But I still think it.”

  April said, “That’s because you’re crazy.”

  “Mm,” said September, to everybody. “That’s our April. She’s sensitive but she’s still the cruelest.”

  “Enough,” said October. He stretched in his chair. He cracked a cobnut with his teeth, pulled out the kernel, and threw the fragments of shell into the fire, where they hissed and spat and popped, and he began.