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Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and different publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has labored in internet manufacturing and content material administration. When she’s not nesting amongst her books and tough drafts, she’s chasing the newborn whereas the canine watches in confused amusement. She lives along with her household in a suburb of Indianapolis.
View All posts by Lyndsie Manusos
It’s the most effective time of the 12 months, the season for leaping headfirst into our spooky period. Horror brief fiction is nice for any season, but it surely hits good throughout the fall, particularly with Halloween across the nook. As a lifelong Midwesterner, there’s an electrical feeling to studying scary tales because the foliage turns, when the hairs on the again of my neck stand on finish because the autumnal chill units in.
2023 has been a hell of an incredible 12 months for horror tales. Some of my favourite brief story collections releasing this 12 months embrace horror and darkish fiction, together with Premee Mohamed’s No One Will Come Back For Us and Suzan Palumbo’s forthcoming Skin Thief. Some of my favourite 2023 brief tales make me wish to throw my laptop towards the wall and conceal below the covers (however in a great way, I swear). As we settle into the start of the Halloween season, I wish to share a few of my favourite spooky shorts with you. I included a wide-ranging, eclectic bunch spanning all genres as a result of horror may be current in any and all genres. I additionally needed to give attention to tales that have been revealed and obtainable on-line this 12 months.
This roundup of Halloween brief fiction consists of tales which are deliciously unsettling, genre-bending, deeply emotional, and even humorous. Grab a mug of your comfiest beverage, and switch the lights low sufficient you can nonetheless learn the phrases on the web page or display screen. Tuck a blanket below your chin, and put together your self: right here, there be monsters, even when the monsters are ourselves.
Halloween Short Fiction Roundup
“River Bargain Baby” by Ok.S. Walker from Apex Magazine, Issue 135
“There’s that other saying: What the river takes, the river keeps. What the Dequindre gives back is a curse indeed.”
Oh my goodness, this story is so good. It has sensible, magnetic prose and that good creepy feeling. The Dequindre grants a mom the kid she’s at all times needed and certainly begged for, however at a price. Now that the kid is grown, the Dequindre has a plan. This is why you don’t discount with entities past our attain. This story boils right down to that timeless saying: be very cautious what you want for.
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“Shark Facts My Grandma Told Me” by Lindz McLeod and Sage Tyrtle from Icebreakers Lit
“Grandma shoots words from her bullet-mouth. ‘Get. In. The. Pool.’”
For everybody who feared, as a baby, that sharks would possibly discover their means into neighborhood or yard swimming swimming pools, ready within the depths, prepare. Just summarizing it in my head makes me go “WTF” (however once more, in a great way!). A toddler’s grandmother continues a harmful ritual of kill-or-be-killed in her yard pool. This story is a masterclass in thriller writing — mounting rigidity, unabashed horror, and a killer twist on the finish.
“Window Boy” by Thomas Ha from Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 203
“The window boy showed up, just like all the other times.”
This story is an ideal instance of sci-fi horror and the terrors of a post-apocalyptic world that’s turn out to be hell for everybody who doesn’t have the posh of being safely buried. There are such haunting photographs on this story. A younger boy, Jakey, checks the parlor window every evening after his mother and father go to mattress and speaks to the window boy who lives outdoors. He feeds the boy and talks to him, however as time passes, the conversations turn out to be extra sinister and determined.
“The Rafters” by Gina Thayer from HAD
“Up in the rafters we kept things. You’ll note, of course, that I speak in past tense.”
For these searching for a really fast learn, I provide you with this haunting whisper of a narrative. Thayer crafts an excellent flash, unearthing chilling particulars, creating rigidity by what’s (or isn’t) within the rafters of this unnamed narrator’s home…and what’s left to the creativeness. HAD is a superb publication for discovering flash fiction, flash artistic nonfiction, and poetry to learn between the chaotic moments of life.
“The Dizzy Room” by Kristina Ten from Nightmare Magazine, Issue 126
(*9*)
Give me extra online game horror! This has that *chef’s kiss* mixture of nostalgia and mounting dread, all exquisitely instructed in a coming-of-age story about language and discovering/shedding one’s self in a online game. This is a narrative that explores all of the senses, from the warmth emanating from an previous laptop to the sensory and grotesque photographs and sounds the sport presents (there are photographs of the Dizzy Game that can hang-out me eternally). Kristina Ten is a sorceress of the unsettling; undoubtedly put all of her work in your TBR.
“Interstate Mohinis” by M.L. Krishnan from Diabolical Plots #100B
“I was irritated. I had just eaten a middle-aged auditor in a safari suit; a tuft of a man with an unnaturally distended face.”
Readers looking out for a vengeful ghost story want look no additional. I devoured this story of feeding and longing, wading into Krishnan’s signature sensual and visceral prose. A spirit who died in flame and steel now haunts the freeway hall and feeds upon males. At the Sri Annai Fancy Store, the spirit discovers a girl she calls The Beautiful One. This is a narrative of gender-based violence, of assembly violence with violence, and a haunting and wonderful ending of appetites.
“From the Journal of Sawyer L. Gibbs, Hero, Aged 13 ½” by Premee Mohamed from Small Wonders, Issue 0
“You’re supposed to come get me. That’s how the world works. Always. But especially when everything is falling apart.”
This story of an apocalyptic occasion instructed by means of the lens of a youngster is the proper mixture of motion, horror, humor, and heartbreak. Sawyer writes in his journal about when he and his classmates witnessed the Babbler, an enormous monster that assaults skyscrapers and shakes individuals into its mouths, for the primary time. All the whereas, Sawyer hopes — and waits — for his Dad to return and get him. While total humorous in tone, there’s a layer of deep emotion and worry that threads all through; as kids, and certainly all all through our lives, how many people hope that when the time comes, our mother and father will come to save lots of us?
“Undog” by EUGENIA TRIANTAFYLLOU from Strange Horizons, the May 15, 2023, subject
“There’s a dog in this house. A not-quite-a-dog. An undog.”
For these trying for a tad extra cozy with their creepy, I provide you with a narrative about an excellent undead boi, 10/10 cute and creepy. Anna strikes into a brand new home and shortly realizes an undog is there along with her. Anna and the undog orbit one another, coming nearer and nearer because the story progresses. Triantafyllou weaves a delightfully creepy story whereas additionally exploring the toxicity of relations paired with the craving for true connection and care.
“Braid Me a Howling Tongue” by Maria Dong from Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 152
“I’m thrown by means of a doorway right into a room full of ladies.“
While not outright horror, there are lots of horrors on this darkish fantasy. A younger girl is captured, her individuals slain, and is now a prisoner in an enclosed camp made to weave. She can not perceive the language most prisoners converse, and she or he is named Not Do by the opposite ladies. Each fifth day, Not Do and the opposite prisoners are compelled to take part in two unspeakable horrors: a fertility ceremony and a hunt. This story is gut-wrenching and bleak, but the glimmer of hope persists. This novelette then blossoms into an epic, heart-pounding story of affection and survival.
Doors to More Halloween Short Fiction
Hopefully, this record will get you into the Halloween spirit. I obtained some wonderful suggestions through social media on tales to incorporate, and I’m so grateful for everybody’s enter. Alas, I might have cherished to incorporate pages and pages of tales, however what’s time, and what are deadlines?
If you’re trying for extra Halloween brief fiction, I extremely advocate exploring and buying the magazines wherein these tales seem. In addition to the above record, The Deadlands, Weird Horror, FIYAH, khōréō, Baffling Magazine, amongst many others, provide tales throughout genres, and so they want your readership. This is a tough time for literary magazines, so any help and/or views you can provide is a present.
Along that notice, I extremely advocate anthologies and brief story collections as portals to extra creepy, unsettling tales, from the current Book of Witches edited by Jonathan Strahan, with a stacked desk of contents of expertise, to the upcoming anthology Christmas and Other Horrors edited by Ellen Datlow (sure, it’s Christmas-themed however nonetheless stuffed with scares, imagine me).
For extra Book Riot articles to get you into the creepy vibes, try these winners:
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