Horror always works best in short form. Which isn’t to say that I don’t love a good scary movie or novel. I do. But there’s something about a short horror story.

A good short story creeps into your brain and lodges there. You might not even know it at the time. It’s only when you’re letting your mind wander. It’s when something is waiting to remind you of its existence in the dark of night when all you want to do is pee and go back to sleep.

Today I want to share with you my nine favorite short horror stories. Some of them are classic horror shorts, some are creepypastas. All are chilling.

The Snowman, from The Wrong Station

This is a recent find for me, this podcast. I wrote a review about this podcast on Haunted MTL, you should check it out. 

But this one story managed to get on my list. It starts as a conversation between good friends who haven’t seen each other in a while. They’re just catching each other up about what’s been going on in their small town. That’s all it seems like until suddenly it’s not.

The Monkey’s Paw, by W. W. Jacobs

There’s a good chance you’ve seen this story redone or parodied somewhere. Even if you have, you should read the original. It’s spooky. The premise is simple. A couple who just lost their child makes a wish to have him home. This, of course, goes awry. 

Scary Stories, by Alvin Schwartz 

I’m not going to list a specific story here, because they’re all awesome. The missing toe and Harold are probably my favorite. Yes, I know these are technically for children. No, I don’t give a damn. 

Rap Rat, Creepypasta

Try as I might I can’t find an author to credit for this story. But it’s one of the first CreepyPasta stories I ever heard, and it’s what got me hooked.

Rap Rat is an old board game that came with an eerie VHS tape. After watching the tape, people report having horrible nightmares. And that’s just the start.

Welcome to Dead House, By R.L Stine

Goosebumps was my introduction to the horror genre. And while this is technically a standalone book, it’s still short enough to warrant being on this list. 

Welcome to Deadhouse has a twist that we can all see coming now. But as a child, it messed with me. I’d never read anything like it, never seen anything like it on tv. And it hooked me as a horror fan for life.

Laughing in The Dark, Are you afraid of the dark

I remember this being the second episode, but Wikipedia says it’s the third one. Oh well, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the episode is scary as hell and well-acted. The clown stalking the boy is horrifying, but not as much as the realization that some things can’t be made right. Some things are done and a price must be paid.

It’s the most fun in the park when you’re laughing in the dark. Damn, that line. 

The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe

This poem has been told and retold a thousand times. But my favorite version is the one from the first Treehouse of Horror. It’s read by the astounding James Earl Jones and Dan Castellaneta. This is one of those times you remember that Dan Castellaneta has professional acting training and a hell of a good voice. It shines in this as he reads the classic horror tale. 

The Mist, Stephen King

Hear me out. If you saw the movie, I’m very sorry. That movie sucked so, so hard. But the short story it’s based on is wonderful. It’s still about a neighborhood stuck in a grocery store while who knows what is waiting outside. But the ending, my goodness the ending is so good. I won’t ruin it for you if you’ve never read it. But it is so worth the read. 

The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

I don’t know that anyone doesn’t know the premise of this story. The chilling casualness of the town, as they stone an innocent woman to death. There’s no reason for it but tradition. A tradition that no one even remembers who started it or why.

Think about that. This town kills someone every year for no other reason but tradition.

I did a whole podcast about this over on Haunted MTL with my fellow Bloody Marys, which you should give a listen to. You should also take some time and read The Lottery. It’s a chilling tale that is more relevant now than ever.

So now I want to hear what you think. What’s your favorite horror short? Let us know in the comments. 

I also want to let you know that there won’t be a post next week. I’m going on vacation and will be as offline as possible. Peace out, see you in November. Happy Halloween. 

You can support Paper Beats World on Ko-fi.

Let’s see, I watched Frozen II and the first three episodes of The Boys season two. Which one should I talk about?

Yeah, let’s talk about The Boys.

At its core, the story is about a man named Huey, doing what he can to make the world a better place. He’s trying to do that by systematically taking down a corrupt group of superheroes who routinely abuse their power to rape and murder as they please.

This season starts with everyone pretty much in hiding. Butcher, the man who recruited Huey to start with, is missing. The rest of the team is in hiding because they’re wanted for several murders. A few of which they actually committed.

Meanwhile, the superhero group known as The 7 is trying to fill its ranks. They’re down two people. One was killed (by Huey). One, The Deep, was removed from the team for being a borderline rapist.

The newest team member is named Stormfront. Let me share with you an actual discussion I had with the darling husband over this character.

Me: She seems cool.

Him: Stormfront is a Nazi group.

Me: Yeah, but it’s also a weather thing. Maybe they don’t know it’s a Nazi group. 

Him: They’re making her too likable. She’s saying all the right things. You’re going to regret liking her. 

Spoiler, he was right. 

The writers, as always, did characters right. None of the characters on either side of this battle are all good or all bad. It’s all shades of gray. Everyone’s relatable. 

Like Homelander. Let’s talk about Homelander. Because he has got some really clear and apparent mental issues.

He’s a narcissist. And you’ve probably heard that a lot. But most people don’t understand what a real narcissist is. It’s not just that they love themselves. They don’t see others as less than human. It’s that they see everyone else as human, but themselves as something better than, bigger than. Narcissists often don’t like themselves because they think they should be more. They should be better. 

Homelander thinks that. He also thinks that everyone else should listen to him, should care about him before everyone and everything else. He expects that Mave, Starlight and everyone else around him will love him the most. Even as he doesn’t love anyone.

What’s scary is when someone like that finds someone they think should be their equal. This happens when Homelander finds that he has a son.

This is his son, his heir. This little boy, named Ryan, should be just as good as Homelander. Just as strong, just as fantastic. Also, just as obsessed with him like everyone else.

This is horrifying, and it leads to exactly the sort of horrifying reactions that one might expect. 

Homelander is terrifying. He’s not to be trusted around anyone, least of all people he loves. I think that’s the scariest thing. Normally a villain will attack and hurt people he doesn’t like or doesn’t care about. The people that they love live in a happy bubble of safety. Think of President Snow’s granddaughter in The Hunger Games. He’s not mean to that kid. He loves her with all his heart, like any good grandfather. She has nothing to fear from him.

But Homelander has murdered people he loved. He’s missed them, mourned them, and not regretted it for one bloody second. 

This show is emotionally crippling in that way. I want Homelander to suffer but also I feel really bad for him. 

Now, let’s talk about the structure of the episodes so far. Rather than release the whole season at once, or putting out one episode a week, Amazon has decided to release the first three episodes, then one a week from now until the end of the season.

This is brilliant, and more shows should do it.

Releasing the first three episodes allows the audience to binge them. To get into the story and have the stage set. This is invaluable with a story like this. Because it’s not the episodic stories from our past, where you could pick up just one random episode of a show, you need to be neck-deep in the story. Giving three episodes allows the audience to get the foundation of the story.

I hope you get a chance to watch The Boys, season two. I’ll probably do a season wrap up when it’s all over. So post your predictions below in the comments. Let’s experience it together. Because so far, it’s been a hell of an experience.

Today’s cover art is from F<a href="http://Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/franky1st-1203890/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4430934">Frank Nürnberger</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4430934">Pixabayrank Nurnburger.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to write this. I actually forgot that this anniversary was coming up if you can believe that. Maybe someone who forgot shouldn’t be the same person writing about one of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. I’m not the voice of my generation. Hell, I’m barely a voice of my generation. This day, this anniversary doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to someone who lost somebody on September 11, 2001. 

But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t mean something. If it’s not a moment that I’ll never forget. 

It was the first time I understood that there was a world outside of my little town. My little high school. My little life. Some people hated enough to kill. Some people believed so strongly in that hate that they were willing to give their lives for it.

Now, at thirty-four, I’m well aware of this. We see it every damned day, don’t we? The domestic terrorist attacks far outweigh those from outside forces. We’re all scared, all worried. 

It’s hard not to feel lost, in moments like this. I thought, foolishly, that maybe our country would rally together because of the attack on the Trade Center. I’d hoped that we’d get over our name-calling and work together to be better people. Now, lacking any real leadership, we’re more divided than ever. We can’t agree on basic facts. Can’t even all get on the same page about wearing a damned mask to keep each other safe? Can’t even agree that maybe police shooting unarmed citizens is, you know, a bad thing.

I’m sad today, and I guess that’s coming out. I’m angry, too. We lost lives on September 11, 2001. Families who weren’t even able to bury the bodies of their loved ones lost more than I can imagine. People, vultures, have made money from this. So we have a right to be sad, and angry. 

But the worst thing about it. The thing that makes me furious, is that we are where we are. We didn’t come together, we didn’t learn to think of each other before we think of ourselves. It’s been nineteen years, and we don’t act like a nation that cares about each other. 

Too few people vote.

Too few people get involved in their local politics.

Too few people are informed about what’s going on around them.

Too few people care about the protestors fighting for all of our rights.

Too few people care that Flint Michigan still doesn’t have clean water. 

Too few people care that we are cooking the planet.

Now look, I know that is all freaking depressing. I get it, I wrote it. I largely wrote it in a fit of deep melancholic depression It had to be said because it’s the reality of where we are right now and we have to face it.

We have to face it because we have to now rise above it. Please, God, let us rise above it. 

Let’s all take care of each other. Let’s wear our masks. Let’s call a friend who isn’t feeling great. Let’s vote, and understand who and what it is we’re voting for. Let’s give to worthy causes when we can. Let’s volunteer at the polls if we’re able. Let’s raise our voices and speak for those who need help. Let’s reach out a hand and help them. Let’s write songs and make art that brightens people’s day. Let’s get pissed off because we should be pissed off. Let’s take today and use it to remember what we can be as a country. And let’s never stop working toward that.

If you have a good story, please share it below. If a neighbor helped you out, or you just got some good news, we’d all love to hear it. Let’s take this day, use what we have, and start building the country we want to live in.

No one is going to build it for us. 

I just finished listening to a wonderful podcast. If you want to read my review about it, click here to go to Haunted MTL. 

I won’t talk a lot about it here. What I will say is that some stories in this podcast weren’t finished. Some questions were left after the last episode. 

These questions will haunt me. I’ll come back to them every so often, and wonder what happened. What’s the story I didn’t get to hear?

I can tell you that I’ll remember because I already have those questions from other works of fiction I’ve loved in the past. I also have these questions from living in a world with other people.

This is something often overlooked in fiction. But it’s something we’ve all experienced.

Think of the coworker you lost touch with. The one who was having that trouble with her mother. How did that turn out?

What about the couple you heard whispering about their relationship at Denny’s? Are they still together? 

Here’s one of mine. I was out for a walk on Main Street, many years ago. A woman I’d never met before stopped me. She asked me if her makeup was okay. I looked her over and was able to truthfully tell her she was fine. She said, “Thanks because I’m fucked up right now and I need to go to work.”

I’ll never know what happened to her after that. Did she keep her job? Did she often go to work hammered? Why was she going to work in that state to begin with? Questions upon questions, that I will never have the answer to. 

I was probably the topic of one such story. Hell, I’m probably the topic of a lot of these kinds of stories. I moved around a lot as a kid and wasn’t very good at keeping in contact with people. But this one is funny.

I had to go downtown in the middle of the night. I don’t mean like 11:30 or so. I’m talking like four in the morning. I was meeting a friend of mine who was going to give me a ride out of town. It was a whole work-related thing. I had to go to a conference. It was a whole thing, but nothing shady. But it did involve me walking downtown at for in the damned morning with my little purple suitcase.

A man was walking toward me. No idea why he was out there. But I’m sure that I was a more confusing sight than he was. 

He stopped, and asked, “Honey, are you okay?” 

I assured him that I was fine, and continued on my way. So to the nice man who saw me in the middle of the night and worried about me, I’m okay. Thank you for worrying. 

These stories prevail in our lives, but they’re not as common in fiction. And I can see why, for the most part. It’s not as satisfying to have these questions. It’s far more satisfying, more rewarding, to know how the story plays out. We all like a mystery, but we like more the mysteries that can be solved. 

Not always, though. I’m among many who watch Unsolved Mysteries and BuzzFeed Unsolved. I sort of love stories that don’t have a satisfying ending. Stories that are real, that we’ll never know.

It’s the very questions that keep the story alive in our minds. Think of things like the story of the Romanov Princess, Anastasia. Did she survive the murder of her family? Did she live in secret until the end of her days? And what about the Keddie cabin murders? Who did that? 

These things haunt people. They are kept up at night wondering about them. Most people aren’t kept up at night, worrying about an answer. Though I could think of some answers that would elicit that response.

Take caution with this advice, though. You should be giving answers to most of your story’s questions. I’ll never forgive certain podcasts for having no end, not as long as I live. Please, unless you want people to find you and express their displeasure, give your story a satisfying ending.

But don’t be afraid to leave some things unanswered. The man your character meets at a bar, wishing he could see his mom. The friend from college who dropped off the face of the planet. The dog that steals someone’s dinner at a restaurant and runs out before anyone can catch him. These things bring up all sorts of questions that don’t necessarily need answers.

This isn’t to say that these things won’t impact your story. These are things that happened to your character. If they happened, and if you took the time to write them down, then they should have an impact on the story. Your character should be touched by this, make a different decision about her mother or dog or college roommates.

In short, some mysteries aren’t there for your audience to solve. They’re there to have an impact on your character. 

So what do you think? Are there any mysteries that still haunt you? Let us know in the comments below. 

I’m sure you all know I just finished Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to The Hunger Games. I posted about it enough. 

I was of two minds about it. On the one hand, I was excited about reading this book. I loved Hunger Games. It was responsible for me crying in public more than once.

On the other hand, I’ve been burned before. I was so afraid that it was going to be some cheap story thrown together to make a profit. And if that was going to be the case, I was going to rage. I was going to light the internet aflame with my nerd fury. Hell hath no heat like the anger of a woman in her thirties who loves a young adult dystopian fantasy.

My first hint that this wasn’t going to be the case was the sheer weight of the book. She thick. 

And the story, my friends, the story worked. Here’s why.

The capitol is messed up. And that’s satisfying.

Let me explain. In the trilogy, the capitol is a fantastic city of opulence and waste. There is no want there. No one’s starving, no one’s homeless. The people of the capitol are bored. They dress up in the weirdest outfits. They genetically modify themselves to look more like animals. They go to parties, overeat, then intentionally puke so they can go on eating.

I grew up in a little town in Western PA. It’s snuggled in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. We are basically District 12. I’m not saying I grew up in a freezing shack without sufficient food or enough clothing. But we’re not big on waste in my family. So I had no love in my heart for the people of the capitol. I didn’t care that they lost their shiny lives. I thought Effie was a really sweet character. I still kind of liked it when she was brought down a few pegs.

It was something to see the capital scarred from the war. It was good, to see that these people suffered. That the people of the capital were the children and grandchildren of war. Their parents made sure that their lives were easy because theirs had been so hard. Because they feared that lack. I mean, people were eating other people they found dead in the street to survive. There’s insinuation in Ballad that Coriolanus’s cousin, Tigress, prostituted herself to feed her family.

The war was awful for them, too. They suffered, and they were left scarred. It makes sense that they would never want to suffer through that again. I’m not saying they are right. The people of the capitol are monstrous. But it’s a more understandable monstrosity. 

We delve into the history of the Games.

This was something I was excited about. The premise of the Games themselves was so dark, so evil, that I had to know everything about them. In Ballad, we see that the first few games were far different than the ones in the trilogy. In a way, they were better, more honest. There wasn’t all this pomp and circumstances. They didn’t make these children believe that anyone gave a damn about them.

On the other hand, it does sort of feel like some of the people did give a damn about them. There was a team of people dedicated to the success of each tribute. They get them good food, clothing and training with weapons. Every kid going in at least has a fighting chance.

I mean, we’re still talking about sending twenty-four kids into an arena to kill each other. But in the games in this book, there is no preparation. There is no food, no help. They just pick these kids up in a filthy train and put them in a cage in the zoo. It’s horrific, but it’s honest.

As we find out in Ballad, Snow is largely responsible for the games being what they are. The monster. 

Which leads me to my last point.

Snow is a fascinating character. There is kindness in him. There’s decency. He loves his cousin, Tigress. He loves his grandma. 

And that is fucking it. 

Everyone else, everyone in the whole world, is just a means to an end. Every friendship is just to build allies to use later. Every moment of kindness is only to ask a favor later. He does nothing for anyone else unless he can see where there is something for him in it.

And then there’s his love for Lucy Gray. He adores her when she can do something for him. When she loves him. When being around her makes him feel like a big man. But in the end, Snow only cares about himself. 

So for all of his good deeds, this book proves beyond all else that Snow is one of the most frightening monsters I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction.

Of course, some in the real world make Snow look like a damned superhero.

In the end, I’m still very happy to say that we could all hear the sound of Snow falling. 

Did you know that my prequel novel came out the same month? Check out Falling From Grace, available now on Amazon.

Meet Grace.

A woman of the rebellion, Grace’s life has been one of hardship. Her people live in poverty, under the uncaring eyes of their mad king. So when her brother in law, Calvin, leads an army to overthrow the king, she inspires the women to become healers, witches and warriors.

But once she gets Calvin on the throne, her world only becomes darker.

Given all of the power of the crown, Calvin gives into his darker instincts. While Grace learns to be a witch and queen, Calvin slowly loses his mind. He becomes a crueler king than any the country of Calistar has ever seen. Grace finds that her greatest challenge is overthrowing the king she put on the throne

Normal is a foreign concept to me now. It’s been that way for a few years. Every so often something happens that is so jarring, so completely life-altering that the world can only be seen as different forever afterward.

Several moments in my personal life have been this way. Some for the better, some for the worse. But always there is this feeling. A knife slicing partially through my life. That was then, this is now. 

America has seen many of these moments. Columbine, September 11th. These days marked my childhood and that of my whole generation. We learned to be afraid on those days. We learned that we are not, and have never been, safe.

The last year has seen more of those moments than we’ve ever experienced at once before. I don’t need to tell you about them, we’ve all living through it together. 

Some people talk fondly of getting ‘back to normal’. Back to how life was before Covid-19. Before the brutal murder of George Floyd. Before the presidency of Donald Cheeto-for-brains Trump.

Maybe it’s because those people have never experienced a life-changing moment before. Or maybe they don’t get that it can happen to a community, country, or world just as easily as it can happen to one family.

There is no going back to normal. The world has changed too much. People have lost their jobs, their homes, their loved ones and their lives. And for way too many people, normal wasn’t working. Normal was killing them in the streets right in front of all of us. 

So I hope we don’t ever get back to normal. Let’s make a new normal instead. Let’s educate ourselves. Let’s make new ways of doing things that might never have been done before. Let’s work as a community to decide what we want the new normal to be. And let’s build that instead. 

Don’t lose this moment. Don’t let it get away without making real change. And don’t forget about all of this when it’s done, because it will be done someday. 

The pandemic will end.

We shouldn’t stop fighting for universal health care that doesn’t depend on your job. We shouldn’t stop fighting for health care as a human right. And we shouldn’t stop washing our damned hands. 

The rallies will end.

We shouldn’t stop insisting on equal rights. We shouldn’t stop holding killer cops accountable. We shouldn’t stop pushing for police reform until everyone is actually protected and served by the police.

Trump’s presidency will end.

We shouldn’t stop paying attention to what our leaders are doing. We shouldn’t stop contacting our representatives, going to rallies, showing up for marches. We shouldn’t stop caring. 

If we go back to normal after all this, it means we’ve failed.

Today’s cover art is by Colin Behrens.

I spent a lot of time staring at my computer screen this past week. It was hard to get words out, hard to put them into the world. 

I try to put out good things. Light, funny, informative, informational. That’s what I bring to the world, I hope. 

Right now it’s really hard to see the light, let alone shine it around. 

That’s not normally me. Normally I can see the brightness in everything. I rely heavily on the Yin Yang for comfort, as it reminds me that there is a little good in every bad and a little bad in every good. That’s the way of the universe. 

So I’m trying to find the good right now. It’s hard when the people who are meant to protect us are turning against us. It’s hard because I never thought I’d see the sort of things I’m seeing right now on American soil. I never thought I’d see peaceful protestors teargassed by an American president so he can blaspheme the bible in front of a church. I am angry, scared, embarrassed. I want so badly to help.

There is light, though. Even as this year gets worse and worse by the day, there is light to be found. We just have to dig a little harder.

Here’s the light I see. Let me reflect it to you so that you can reflect it to others.

All across America, people are standing up for our fellow man. We’re standing up and saying that we will not accept this way of life. We will not allow innocent people to be murdered in the street by police officers. We will protect and defend. We will join hands (metaphorically) and stand together. We will, above all, insist on justice being served.

If you can protest safely, please do. If you can donate to charities helping to pay bail for protestors, please do that. 

No matter who you are, you can let your voice be heard. Share reliable information online. If you see something happening, film it and share it. Share kind words. Defend people being bullied or terrorized, online or in life. Reach out to your local representatives and let them know you demand justice. If someone around you behaves or speaks as though this doesn’t impact them, let them know that they are wrong.

We are not safe if one of us is in danger. We are not at peace if one of us is hunted. We must protect each other as citizens of America. As citizens of the world. We have an obligation to help each other.

And if it’s hard to find the light, please remember these words from John Stewart. 

These are hard times. But they are not end times.

We’ll weather these hard times together. If you need help, or if you’re having trouble finding a way to help, please reach out to me. 

I’ll do what I can.

Cover image by Free-Photos

This might be a little raw, a little less polished than my normal posting. I just can’t bring myself to go though the normal edites and time I put into a post.

I’m angry. Hell, I’m furious. And I’m also so, so tired of this.

Two videos are making the rounds online. Everyone’s seen them. Everyone’s talking about them. I’m sure I’m another voice in the crowd.

But damn it, I’ll make that crowd just a little louder if I can.

The first one was of a woman named Amy Cooper in Central Park, calling the police on a man named Christian Cooper asking her to put her dog on a leash.

I’m not going to go into detail about this. You’ve heard about it. If you haven’t, I’m surprised.

It’s sick, it’s disgusting. This woman has since been fired and had her dog taken away. I’m glad. I’d like to see charges brought against her for a false police charge.

If you think I’m overreacting, let me point something out to you. She called the police and lied to them about the situation. She did so knowing full well that she was endangering this man’s life.

And if you think that’s also an overreaction, you must not have heard about the death of George Floyd.

Just in case you missed this story, police officers knelt on the neck of this man until he was dead. They killed him. And they were fired. That is it. No charges brought, no real consiquences.

If you have heard of this story, understand that there are more stories you haven’t heard of.

The police get away with this because it’s acceptable. We recieve what we accept. Stop accepting this. Stop allowing American citizens to be murdered by police. When you see it, point it out. Shame it. The police officers who murdered George Floyd should be arrested. Amy Cooper should be charged. Stop allowing people to get away with these racist behaviors.

 

And don’t forget to send me a screenshot at nicolecluttrell86@gmail.com to be entered to win a free signed copy of Broken Patterns.

Click here to order now.

Hey guys.

Don’t forget, you’ve just got six more days to preorder Falling From Grace. Send me a screenshot of your preorder recipt to be entered to win and nicolecluttrell86@gmail.com

Click here to order now