I absolutely love books and films where people come across an abandoned place—be it a building, a spaceship, or an entire city—where shit clearly went wrong in the past. Take, for instance, the scenes in Alien (1979) where the crew of the Nostromo explore a derelict spaceship and find a long-dead alien creature (that seems to have exploded from the inside out, no less!) and thousands of suspicious-looking eggs. It’s dark, it’s eerie, and it forces the characters and audience alike to ask the terrifying question—just what the hell happened?!
Explorations of mysterious abandoned places are often a small part of a larger story—as is the case in Alien—but sometimes I want stories built around that particular type of suspense, as the search for answers becomes the driving force of the narrative. Here are five novels and short stories that offer just that.
From Below (2022) by Darcy Coates
Back in 1928, the SS Arcadia broadcast a strange emergency message and then completely vanished, along with everybody on board. Sixty years later, the wreck of the ship is found at the bottom of the ocean… 300 miles off course. In one timeline, we follow the team of divers who are hired to film a documentary exploring the ship to figure out what went wrong all those years ago. In the other timeline, we follow the crew and passengers of the Arcadia in the days leading up to the ship’s bizarre disappearance.
Coates’s novels are rich with atmosphere, and From Below is no exception. Rather than offering lots of in-your-face frights, the story is deeply unnerving and creepy (although there are a few moments of high-tension terror!). The dark depths of the ocean are an unsettling place at the best of times, but the fact that something unknown went horribly wrong aboard the now-sunken ship adds an extra layer of fear. Things start to get even spookier when the dive team begin to witness seemingly paranormal phenomena—maybe it’s all in their heads; but then again, maybe it isn’t.
Dead Silence (2022) by S.A. Barnes
Dead Silence is essentially the sci-fi version of From Below. Set in 2149, Claire Kovalik and her salvage crew are out in the far reaches of space when they pick up a distress beacon. They go to investigate and come across the Aurora, a Titanic-esque luxury spaceship that went missing during its maiden voyage twenty years earlier. Even in the future, the law of “finders, keepers” still applies, so the ragtag crew agree to board the derelict vessel and take what they can. The disappearance of the Aurora is legendary and the loot could set them up for life.
Once aboard, Claire and her crew find the remnants of utter, and unexplainable, carnage. Blood splatters the walls and the preserved bodies of passengers and crew who died in violent and bizarre ways are floating in the atrium and corridors. As they move through the once-opulent surroundings, Claire swears that she sees movement, but she attributes it to her own unstable mind and so foolishly doesn’t tell the others.
Dead Silence is a genre-blending novel, being as much an intriguing mystery story as it is a spooky horror tale, and there’s even a hearty dash of romance.
“Jerusalem’s Lot” (1978) by Stephen King
Although “Jerusalem’s Lot,” which can be found in Night Shift (1978), is linked to King’s earlier vampire novel ‘Salem’s Lot (1975), the two stories don’t actually share much of the same DNA. The short story is partly set in the same town, yes, but the events take place many years earlier—in 1850 to be exact—and so things are rather different. The story is told via letters and journal entries written by Charles Boone, an aristocrat who has just moved into the grand Chapelwaite house, and Calvin McCann, his faithful servant and friend.
The townspeople in nearby Preacher’s Corners are distrustful of Chapelwaite, which is understandable given the wailing and scratching noises that emanate from its walls. Charles and Cal also hear rumblings about a deserted village, Jerusalem’s Lot, located somewhere close by. The pair then come across a dusty old map of the shunned village in the house’s library and decide to venture out to see what all of the fuss is about. (As it turns out, the fuss is most definitely warranted!)
King’s descriptions of the vacant buildings are delightfully creepy and what Charles and Cal eventually find lurking in the village’s church is weird, deeply disturbing, and more than a little Lovecraftian.
Last Days (2012) by Adam Nevill
Documentary filmmaker Kyle Freeman is down on his luck when he’s gifted the job of a lifetime: a strange old man offers him big money to shoot an exposé of a notorious cult called The Temple of the Last Days. Back in 1975, the vast majority of the insidious cult died in a mystery-shrouded massacre. Kyle has been tasked with investigating the rumors that surround the cult and their potentially paranormal activities.
The documentary takes Kyle and his cameraman, Dan, to a number of spooky buildings that were once inhabited by the cult. There’s their first temple in London, the buildings of a decrepit French farm that served as their base for a while, and the abandoned mine in Arizona where the strange massacre occurred. While visiting each of these places, Nevill lulls the reader into a false sense of security—be that due the bustle of the city or the rays of the sun—but something malevolent is always lurking and waiting to pounce.
Kyle and Dan realize too late (of course) that the rumors about paranormal shenanigans might not be rumors after all. Not only that, but what happened in the past doesn’t seem to want to stay in the past. Although Last Days is a chunky book, the writing style ensures that the story flows easily and it’s turn-all-the-lights-on (or maybe only-read-in-the-daytime) scary.
“The Last Words of an Explorer” (2016) by Max Lobdell
For a piece of flash fiction that fits the exploring-an-abandoned-place bill, check out “The Last Words of an Explorer,” which takes the form of short journal entries. Our unnamed protagonist and their partner Charles are on an expedition to explore an entire city that isn’t on any maps (which is…suspicious) and appears to be entirely devoid of life (which is even more suspicious). Clearly these two are far braver than I am, as they actually want to step foot inside this forsaken and likely dangerous place.
While camping at night, the pair begin to hear strange noises in the darkness, but by day they can’t figure out what could be causing it, seeing nothing but endless stone buildings. But as they venture further and further into the empty city, things get stranger and stranger. The story is so short that saying anything more would count as a spoiler—just know that it’s very unsettling, a shade grotesque, and certainly packs a punch.
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Have you got any book (or movie) recommendations that fit this theme of people exploring vacant places where things have gone horribly wrong? Please let me know in the comments below!
Lorna Wallace has a PhD in English Literature and is a lover of all things science fiction and horror. She lives in Scotland with her rescue greyhound, Misty.
