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  1.  (10648.1)
    what do you think are the best horror short stories?

    "In the Hills, the Cities" by Clive Barker

    "each thing i show you is a piece of my death" by Gemma Files & Stephen J Barringer

    "The Suicide Artist" by Scott Edelman

    are a few of my favorites, though i am sure there are more that i am not thinking of.
  2.  (10648.2)
    Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M.R.James
    and
    The Monkey's Paw by W.W.Jacobs

    "In the Hills, the Cities" by Clive Barker is fantastic too
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2012
     (10648.3)
    I really liked "Rawhead Rex" by Barker. "Not from Around Here" by David J. Schow got in under my skin also.
  4.  (10648.4)
    @Imaginary I've been listening to a lot of old scary stories lately because they are free haunting the public domain and help keep me thoroughly disturbed while I draw. You might enjoy this while you are filling in all those little details in your work too. My favorite is The Great God Pan and there is an endless supplly of them here also Lots of ghost stories
  5.  (10648.5)
    @hey apathy - i always thought listening to books/stories on tape was cheating, but i think i would like listening while i draw. gonna try that sometime soon.
    •  
      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2012
     (10648.6)
    If you fancy listening to some spooky stories, check out Christopher Lee's Fireside Tales on YouTube. They used to get played on the radio on the nights between Christmas and New.Years, which always felt like perfect timing to me. His reading of The Monkey's Paw is genuinely creepy.
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      CommentAuthorJ.Brennan
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2012 edited
     (10648.7)
    Always thought Stephen King's horror was more effective in his short stories. "I Am the Doorway" and "Children of the Corn" both got to me when I first read them back in high school.

    Seconding "Rawhead Rex".

    of newer stuff, I've enjoyed Laird Barron's stuff, particularly "Mysterium Tremendum" (which may be closer to a novella)

    And can't forget the old gent of Providence. The narrator is a fellow named Wayne June, found a bunch of Lovecraft collections read by him, love the guy's voice.

    Have The Call of Cthulhu in its entirety:
  8.  (10648.8)
    @J.Brennan - Richard Bachman (Stephen King's alias) also has some good short stories
    awesome i was just looking for lovecraft audio
    •  
      CommentAuthorHEY APATHY!
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2012 edited
     (10648.9)
    @ imaginary- I like to think of it as a light alternative more than cheating and it goes well with drawing when you can't really do anything else anyways, I save the best stuff for actual reading but usually don't have as much time for it.

    @J. Brennan - nice choice I've listened to that one several times over and am about to do it again...
  10.  (10648.10)
    heres a story i read before but i just found it reprinted online
    http://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/12/the-neglected-garden/
    i highly recommend giving it a read through if you have the time.
    • CommentAuthorflecky
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2012 edited
     (10648.11)
    @imaginarypeople: Weird, before I'd even opened this thread, I was thinking "In the Hills, the Cities". I've not read it for years, and sometimes I think it was a fevered nightmare, it's just so absurd and fantastic. There where some other gems in "Books of Blood", too.

    Yeah, "The Monkey's Paw" is a classic. They did an adaption of it for children's TV, which I saw when I was about eight-years-old.

    @all: Thanks for all the audio stuff. Gives me something to sweat to when I can't sleep.
  12.  (10648.12)
    Probably coloured by my love of The Thing, but J. W. Campbell jr's Who Goes There is a pretty great ready.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFauxhammer
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2012
     (10648.13)
    For my money it's "Herbert West - Reanimator". It's one of the scariest zombie stories I know. Quick, brutal, and visceral.
  14.  (10648.14)
    @flecky
    sometimes I think it was a fevered nightmare, it's just so absurd and fantastic

    those are my favorite kind of horror stories, they are almost kafkaesque.
    @faux- i need to read reanimator. i love a good zombie story.
  15.  (10648.15)
    M.R.James has already been mentioned, but there are several of his stories that badly creeped me out badly when I first read them. The description of the ghost in The Haunted Dolls House gave me a few bad night's sleep, as did the entire atmosphere of Canon Alberic's Scrapbook.

    R. Chetwynd-Hayes also wrote some damned creepy stuff
    • CommentAuthorflecky
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2012
     (10648.16)
    @imaginarypeople: I know what you mean, "The Trial" and "The Castle" made a big impression on me. "Metamorphosis" is relatively short (if i remember right), and waking up as a giant beetle is pretty horrible.
    • CommentAuthorTim Murr
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2012
     (10648.17)
    I loved Barker's The Cabal and King's The Mist and while I didn't find Herbert West, Reanimator to be scary, it gets a nod from me for being so good and inspiring three of my favorite movies.
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2012
     (10648.18)
    I really enjoyed "1408" by King.
  19.  (10648.19)
    I'll third or fourth "In the Hills, the Cities" - I was just thinking it like last week.

    God, I read so much short horror fiction in the 90's, how come I can't remember the names of the stories. I was a big fan of Barker's short stories, never really got into his novels.

    One of the stories that really managed to get under my skin is available only in Finnish, unfortunately: Kari Nenonen's "Suku on pahin". It's a story of a Christmas trip of two 80's yuppies to the woman's parents' house in rural Finland. It managed to hit so many buttons of stuff I was scared of as a kid in the countryside, that I amusingly had a bit of trouble sleeping after reading it as the last thing in the night - and I was 25 years old then :)
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      CommentAuthorAshflex
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2012
     (10648.20)
    I've been enjoying Barker's shorts, from his Books of Blood. I also highly recommend John Connolly's collection of shorts, 'Nocturnes', I especially enjoyed his 'The Cancer Cowboy Rides'.

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